Apprehension

A day in the office, which I really appreciated as the walk to and fro (I have temporarily mislaid my bike key...) bookended the day quite nicely and provided the sort of structure that the last six months have lacked. The exit from the office would have been bookended better if I hadn’t stumbled upon an incident*.

The day was good, with lots of calls from within familiar rooms that now have ‘do not sit’ signs over most of the chairs. My old boss Jo was one of the few people in and at lunchtime we had a great catch-up outside with ice cream. Being in the office again will bizarrely make it easier to safeguard a lunch break, as opposed to the blurring of the day that occurs when I work remotely. Reflecting on the last six months with Jo, who until today hadn’t seen a colleague face to face since March, I didn’t appreciate the automated phone interruption from a Thanet number asking whether I’d been in a car accident that wasn’t my fault.

*When I left the office I was descending the stairwell on one side of the building whilst a man was cutting locks off in the rows of bike parking that are kind of obscured from street view. He was making away with two bikes and my expletive-laden mask-wearing tirade was demonic enough for him to jettison one of them. I wasn’t sure of the best plan of action as leaving an unlocked bike in the centre of Cambridge is not sensible. I decided to trudge it to the police station and pass on the bike to their lost property and I was mildly surprised they could be bothered to take the bike and log the incident, given how commonplace bike theft is here. I’ve had three stolen over the years and I don’t feel that’s bad going compared to others.

The saga meant I missed a stroll around Cambridge in the balmy early evening. I’ll have to save it up for the scorcher threatened for tomorrow. At least Coronation Street is back up to its full weekly complement of episodes, so the evening wasn’t a total write-off.