9th Dec 2011

Today is the last day of one of my colleague, who was my ex-project manager and before that my client – that’s freelancers club for you. But different projects also mean working with new people all the time, like this American guy who joined us this week. First real contact with a person across the pond – my first impression – I prefer Brit colleagues. Yes even with their peculiar sense of humour and sarcasms, which is as mystifying to me today as it was five years ago - even after watching repeat episodes of Little Britain!

Anyways, so we went for drinks yesterday evening to ensure that his last day in office would be as productive as possible with a little help from the hangover. I usually get bored during such outings, but yesterday I actually enjoyed myself and felt alright. Honestly, I do not really understand what’s being said most of the time due to the music and accent. But such outings become totally worthwhile when you actually hear things like, ‘my children, her children and our children are going to the museum this weekend – to have some family time you know.’ Or when the new joiner tells the manager ‘I am keeping my options open as I took a cutback when I joined’ and the manager smiles ever so politely and offers an encouraging nod.

So after an evening of office gossip, I headed back home in the gusty wind. Apparently, the winds were so strong yesterday night that a wind turbine, further north, caught fire and ended with blackened blades (source: morning Metro). So, I came out of the tube station, fumbled through by bag for the oyster card, touched out, pulled out the umbrella, fumbled again for my mobile, only to realise that I had left it in the office. Now me and my husband always catch up on our respective day while walking home from the tube station – 99 out of 100 times it’s me who is at home and 28 out of 99 times I cannot talk as I am in the kitchen cooking and 18 out of (99-28) times I cannot talk as I am in middle of my daily dose of Indian soap opera. But the remaining 99-28-18 times we do catch up! So today was going to be that 1 out of 1 day where I would have called and couldn’t.

And then I see the long forgotten phone booth just outside the tube station – in fact two of them. I have seen lots of people using the phone booths before but never for making calls; it just features in their holiday pictures –a proof of having done one of the most important things in the to-do list. I fumbled my bag again, this time for coins, and made the call. Coincidently I used the phone booth on the very same day that I mentioned not using payphones any longer. Was it a coincidence or did I actually see the phone booth only because I remembered it in the morning? By the way I now know why people don’t use phone booths any longer and am thankful for that :)