A day in the life...
Well I haven't been on many trips lately and thought perhaps I would give a snapshot of day to day life in London. The day starts at 7:30am in theory but I am usually woken by the massive amount of light streaming through the windows. We have Venetian blinds that are not very good. Owner-occupiers will know that there is a difference in quality; thickness, amount of overlap, durability, colour fastness, etc. I don't know about the other qualities but thickness and amount of overlap is lacking so I'm fooled into thinking its later than it is with sunrise at 4:45am. I'll often pull on my eye mask and go back to sleep.
Breakfast is all done and I'm out the door by 8:20am.
The quick walk to the tube along the canals with the new ducklings is quite pleasant. The lull before the struggle that is the London Tube... In all fairness its not extremely bad, and most times its not, but it can be. Trains come every 2-3 minutes and whilst there is slim chance I'll get a seat, I've been on worse in Melb. But as mentioned its not that bad on the Jubilee line from Canada Water station going out towards London Bridge. If you're going the other way towards Canary Wharf its a different story at peak hour.
Regular Tube commuters also know how to behave, where to stand and when to move that makes travelling much more bearable such that I would prefer travelling on weekday peak than a train half as crowded during the weekends. One word: Tourists. They don't where where to stand to make it efficient for other people to get in and out. And when they need to get out they panic and start pushing towards the door before the train stops. Well there's nowhere to move to! Once the train stops and the doors open then people stop holding on, they can move and there is flow in and out. I've never been left on the train in all my years. All this the regular commuter knows by instinct or experience.
In the changeover to different Tube lines there is an ordered chaos in the passageways because regular commuters know the unwritten designation for whether to walk on the left or right at a station (its different at every station and not always signed).
Yes, London is a busy place and no better to experience this firsthand than on the Northern Line Tube during peak hour. It must be consistently the most crowded Tube line of all. I've had to let trains pass on this line more than any other because I can't get on. Fortunately London Bridge is a station where a lot of people get off so the chances of getting on are better than what you'd expect when the train pulls in and people's faces are against the door glass. It eases at the next station (Bank) and by Moorgate its quite spacious. My stop is the next one, Old St.
When I tore a ligament in my foot and was hobbling at a fifth of my normal pace I tended to avoid peak hour by coming into work late and leaving early. I have a good manager who had no problems with it. Its not that bad because people can see you're injured but any sudden jarring or loss of balance could really cause a lot of pain so that's why.
So I usually get into work by 9am and do what I do at work. At lunch we go down to the company cafeteria which is slightly subsidised. The food's pretty good so I think I'm putting on weight with my
injury-causing inability to go running after work. On nice days when we go for a walk after lunch and you see the lines of people queuing for food at Pret you realise how lucky you are to get good food quickly. We do go to eat outside once every week or two but that's about the rate and nothing more frequent.
Unless it is extremely busy or a Friday (when I go down to the bar downstairs at 5pm) work finishes at 5:30pm and I'm home by 6pm. This gives me plenty of time to go jogging around the waterways, parks and canals. Haven't done that for a while but have started playing table tennis in the first floor games room after work every Tuesday. Its a bit of fun and exercise in one!
I tend to go out less, what with this 'Credit Crunch' we're having in London ;P So its my own cooking for dinner most nights. Nothing exquisite, just good old wholesome food thats not a ready meal. I've come off that as much as I've shunned McDs after reading Fast Food Nation. Some nights we'll invite our friends over for dinner. A lot of them live nearby. On those occasions we'll try something more special and we've been getting our recipes from Delia online.
There could be some movies, TV, email or (online) chat after dinner. Used to do a lot of movies when I was a member of Lovefilm (like Quikflix) but now not as much. I'll have to do shirt ironing as well which I put off for as long as I can. Oh, and the washing too but you can't really call that effort with a machine. Every second weekend is set aside for vacuuming and mopping the house common areas. We each do our bedroom and bathroom when required although I try to aim for two weeks as well. The hardwater in London inflicts a greater amount of elbow grease for cleaning bathrooms as it leaves limescale marks everywhere and this builds up into a calcium-type layer if left long enough.
Its usually lights out by 11:30pm or more likely 12pm. If I go beyond 12pm I pay for it the next day.
So as you can see its the same as it would be in Melbourne but with more cleaning involved on my part... :(
Breakfast is all done and I'm out the door by 8:20am.
The quick walk to the tube along the canals with the new ducklings is quite pleasant. The lull before the struggle that is the London Tube... In all fairness its not extremely bad, and most times its not, but it can be. Trains come every 2-3 minutes and whilst there is slim chance I'll get a seat, I've been on worse in Melb. But as mentioned its not that bad on the Jubilee line from Canada Water station going out towards London Bridge. If you're going the other way towards Canary Wharf its a different story at peak hour.
Regular Tube commuters also know how to behave, where to stand and when to move that makes travelling much more bearable such that I would prefer travelling on weekday peak than a train half as crowded during the weekends. One word: Tourists. They don't where where to stand to make it efficient for other people to get in and out. And when they need to get out they panic and start pushing towards the door before the train stops. Well there's nowhere to move to! Once the train stops and the doors open then people stop holding on, they can move and there is flow in and out. I've never been left on the train in all my years. All this the regular commuter knows by instinct or experience.
In the changeover to different Tube lines there is an ordered chaos in the passageways because regular commuters know the unwritten designation for whether to walk on the left or right at a station (its different at every station and not always signed).
Yes, London is a busy place and no better to experience this firsthand than on the Northern Line Tube during peak hour. It must be consistently the most crowded Tube line of all. I've had to let trains pass on this line more than any other because I can't get on. Fortunately London Bridge is a station where a lot of people get off so the chances of getting on are better than what you'd expect when the train pulls in and people's faces are against the door glass. It eases at the next station (Bank) and by Moorgate its quite spacious. My stop is the next one, Old St.
When I tore a ligament in my foot and was hobbling at a fifth of my normal pace I tended to avoid peak hour by coming into work late and leaving early. I have a good manager who had no problems with it. Its not that bad because people can see you're injured but any sudden jarring or loss of balance could really cause a lot of pain so that's why.
So I usually get into work by 9am and do what I do at work. At lunch we go down to the company cafeteria which is slightly subsidised. The food's pretty good so I think I'm putting on weight with my
injury-causing inability to go running after work. On nice days when we go for a walk after lunch and you see the lines of people queuing for food at Pret you realise how lucky you are to get good food quickly. We do go to eat outside once every week or two but that's about the rate and nothing more frequent.
Unless it is extremely busy or a Friday (when I go down to the bar downstairs at 5pm) work finishes at 5:30pm and I'm home by 6pm. This gives me plenty of time to go jogging around the waterways, parks and canals. Haven't done that for a while but have started playing table tennis in the first floor games room after work every Tuesday. Its a bit of fun and exercise in one!
I tend to go out less, what with this 'Credit Crunch' we're having in London ;P So its my own cooking for dinner most nights. Nothing exquisite, just good old wholesome food thats not a ready meal. I've come off that as much as I've shunned McDs after reading Fast Food Nation. Some nights we'll invite our friends over for dinner. A lot of them live nearby. On those occasions we'll try something more special and we've been getting our recipes from Delia online.
There could be some movies, TV, email or (online) chat after dinner. Used to do a lot of movies when I was a member of Lovefilm (like Quikflix) but now not as much. I'll have to do shirt ironing as well which I put off for as long as I can. Oh, and the washing too but you can't really call that effort with a machine. Every second weekend is set aside for vacuuming and mopping the house common areas. We each do our bedroom and bathroom when required although I try to aim for two weeks as well. The hardwater in London inflicts a greater amount of elbow grease for cleaning bathrooms as it leaves limescale marks everywhere and this builds up into a calcium-type layer if left long enough.
Its usually lights out by 11:30pm or more likely 12pm. If I go beyond 12pm I pay for it the next day.
So as you can see its the same as it would be in Melbourne but with more cleaning involved on my part... :(
posted by boarderbob at
4:38 PM
|
0 comments
