Day three

Another fine view of the sea on my morning walk.  Today (and yesterday) it was 2.7 miles which is further than I walk at home but it doesn’t feel any longer. I know it’s taking more time so I will be intrigued to find out if, over the course of the month, it starts to feel more of a chore. I think it’s the novelty of walking by the sea in a new location that’s taking my attention away from the the effort of walking. At home it’s all too familiar. I wonder how I’ll feel at the end of the month?

Tomorrow is the first big in-person all-hands meeting at work since the recent COVID regulations were relaxed and we were given the green light to come into the office again. In some ways, this could not have come in a worse week given our move to the coast for a month. On the other hand it helps me test out what it would be like heading into an office on a semi-regular basis from here.  I decided that I did not have the nerve to try and leave early tomorrow and test a real commute so I headed back to London on the 6:15pm train from Shanklin.

This is the first week of the new Island Line trains and there is some bedding-in happening which has meant that they are only running the length of the line once an hour. As I had to meet the 6:45pm catamaran there was no time in the schedule if there were problems on the train.  Obviously, the train is timed to meet the ferry so all should be well but we were already a couple of minutes late by the time we’d left Sandown.  Of course, we made the ferry but they were holding the boat for a few minutes until the train came in. I heard somebody ask how long they hold the boat for - I imagine it’s a regular occurrence - and the response was that, often, it can wait a few minutes. But I was glad to be on-board.

My train reservation from Portsmouth was for the recommended service to meet the ferry (at 7:45pm) but, in reality, I was easily on board a deserted 7:15pm train which got me home just after 9pm.  All-in-all it went well but the required changes at Ryde Pier Head, Portsmouth, Woking and Surbiton felt like there was a lot of pressure on interchanges and I was constantly checking the timings of the trains I was on. I hope, if I every did this more regularly, that I would get used to it and relax a little more. Still, I got to watch an episode of Vera on the journey which passed the time easily.