Cemetery wall

Early taxi gets me to the TGV way too early. I start work, laptop placed cunningly on top of my lap.

I swap stations in Paris, eat a hasty croque monsieur, and cross the imaginary border into the UK. Chuntering across the flat featureless fields of France, we arrive at the coast. High, barbed wire topped fences, surveilled, patrolled. No desperate immigrants in sight, but small groups of armed police.

Good news from the Agile Alliance today. Both our initiatives (diversity and mentoring) have been approved. We’ve been awarded quite a healthy budget too.

The 88 rushes slowly through rush hour Kentish Town, depositing me at Parliament Hill Fields. I walk between the walls of Highgate cemetery and the fence of Waterlow park, up a step, dark, narrow road to Dan’s mother’s house.

Judy died on Sunday and the funeral was yesterday. The family is doing a liberal, British version of “sitting shiva”, but when I arrive no one is sitting and spirits are high. I drink a cup of tea with Dan, refusing wine, beer, and (bizarrely) Swedish whisky. All his siblings are present, many of whom I haven’t seen for decades.

I escape before prayers to meet Tim in my faithless place of worship - the pub. In this case the Jackalope. A pad thai for tea. A restrained libation or two at the flat and a reasonably early night.