The evening is closing down, past the equinox, here at the time of year I’ve always earmarked as the official end of summer. There was a glorious big Dartmoor Warrior spider webbed over the doorway at work this morning. Araneus diadematus with a cross on its back. Orb weaver. Garden spider. Excellent efficient hoover of late season mosquitos. It was still there when I left as testament to the grounded nature of the current acting company. Too many groups of actors have someone who starts running around looking for attention when there’s just a wasp. Spiders make the daddy thing even bigger for the “look at me, there’s a wasp” crowd until someone has to take it away or murder it just for sanity, and then there’ll still be twenty minutes of “look at me there was a spider”. Either that lot didn’t notice it or that lot aren’t in the rehearsal room. Phew.
Still, that spider, hovering in the centre of the window web, is one of the two heralds of autumn to me. The other is the crane fly. Usually I see one of them first but this year the spider won the race, and the day before my birthday – too early dammit. But the days are getting shorter than the nights now. Once more Persephone is in Hades, and the world will mourn her absence. Light will fade. Rain will come. The cold. The cold.
My Forest bike month has been a most excellent investment. 40 minutes to rehearsal by public transport. 25 by car before you’ve parked and that’ll be forever pounds because this is London. 15 minutes on a Forest, so long as you’re prepared to be ruthless and pull it out from under anyone you think might be planning on renting the one you’re after. 30 quid for all the days I’ve needed and I’ll still have a couple of minutes in the bank. Sometimes you get a fucked one, as again this morning when the back wheel was flat, but I still used it to get to the next one. And it is still warm enough that it works beautifully.
People hate them, and indeed hate cyclists in general. Drivers because the rules are different, pedestrians because other people are annoying when you are in a crowded city. “You should watch out for my children!” “I did watch out for your child!” “No you didn’t.” That’s some guy who crossed in front of me and I waited for Izzy his timid daughter to cross in front of me too before I carried on. I probably should have left it there really, as a dismissive smiling “Oh just … go and fuck yourself” kind of loses any argument there might have been. As I continued the journey, any number of wittier less sweary comebacks occurred to me. He probably felt like an idiot for putting his child in danger and his shout was a confused expression of gratitude for my care, but I swore so now he can think I’m a yob while I know he’s a douche. insha’Allah. “Daddy doesn’t like cyclists. He goes all red and shouty.”
I’ve got an hour or so left before I’ve officially been on the earth half a decade. Christ. I’ll likely be asleep as it comes in. And now the winter comes.
AlBarclay 