London - back in the Hot Zone

The assignment in Huddersfield had finally come to an end and so the consulting manager told me about another engagement based in the heart of London.  I must admit to feeling a little dispirited about this, since I had made it clear that working in London was something I did seek to avoid.  But now they were paying me for my services, whether I was assigned to a client or not - so I was obliged to accept the engagement.  To be under the orders again was something I had not clearly thought through before accepting this new role of the Associate Contractor - the role of the self employed contractor, on the one hand, and the as-if full time employee, on the other.  With me this could not sit with comfort but thankfully my contract is only till Christmas - and when something is disagreeable and only temporary, we can almost enjoy the situation: almost as if it was agreeable and permanent.  Also, it meant I could return home to my caravan each night and indeed this is a luxury for the consultant - even if your home is a cabin on wheels.   And next week my Swiss girlfriend will be in England – yes this nomad now has a girlfriend – and I shall be in a position to meet up with the Swiss lady every night for a fortnight.  So all this really is very good indeed.

And so I arose on the Monday morning from my slumber at the dark hour of half five.  The rain patted the caravan's roof as I made myself a strong coffee and prepared for the journey into the heart of one of the most important commercial capitals in the world.  I walked to the station and stepped into the train. Thankfully there were many spare seats and I sat down. 

As we approached closer to London these seats were taken, and then the commuters were standing.  As I sat there throwing my eye at this person and that person - observing the stress and the fatigue of a life whose grimace is the currency of the city commuter, I thought back on the changes in my life over the last year and a bit. 

No longer chained into this life of bills and conferences and queues and delays, I could at least appreciate that there was some worth in it all.  The caravan and the camper and a life with little in the way of the material - all this was both a reduced and an enhanced life.  It allowed me to see things from a different angle - and I was, to be sure, a much happier man.

And these were my thoughts as I commuted into the heart of London. Like a character in a Dostoyevsky novel I seemed to be both in the world and out of it.  As I shook the hands of those to whom I was introduced, as I looked into their eyes and held my smile, it was as if I was welcoming them into my world as much as I was being inducted into their world.

And I would like to leave the readers with some images of a life given to working in the centre of the city at the centre of the financial world.