Marionville morning

On the map, all the roads led to Estiel. Eddy didn’t like that. He hated how inevitable it felt.

I overtake the X15 at Penicuik, park at Gowkley Moss, and ride the bus to Marionville. The names here are pure Edinburgh: Restalrig, Jock’s Lodge, Meadowbank.

The working day flies past. There’s the feeling that things are building towards a step change. Opportunities to be grasped. A rare sliver of optimism.

My early evening flight to Stansted is delayed. There are no announcements. No apologies. No change to the departure board. Just no gate information, as the clock creeps towards the allotted hour.

An hour late, with the delay still unrecognised, we arrive. On the station platform I meet Dan Ashby, a Glaswegian living in Cambridge returning from a conference in Edinburgh. He works for eBay in Richmond - a hellish 2-hour daily commute each way. The train journey evaporated in conversation.

A taxi skims silently through the deserted reaches of a darkened Cambridge, depositing me in the iridescent glow of Churchill College. The porter issues me with my entry keys and I collapse in the modern luxury of college life. Tomorrow is just around the corner.