A walk in the park?

Mishaps // silver linings

We (well, actually, Firstborn, not me) got up late so we didn't have time to catch the train we'd planned. // There was another one not long afterwards.

We were walking to the station when my mum phoned. I'd left my packed lunch on her dining table. // We turned back and she met us midway, so although we missed the next train, we were still on time for the one after that.

I tripped over a tree root and did a bellyflop onto the ground, camera first. // The camera is OK and despite having a graze near the top of my nose and some interesting bruises, I did not break my glasses.

Once we got into the underground we discovered that a broken-down train meant long waits in sardine-packed carriages. We decided to get a bus instead, were persuaded by an information person to return to the platform and try the underground again and decided a second time to go by bus. // We agreed that if the revolution was over by the time we got there, then we weren't really needed anyway and we could just join in the dancing.

Our two buses went a very long way round. We got to the station our original train would have arrived at - if we'd stayed on it for an extra three minutes - an hour after it would have arrived. // We had something to laugh about.

While on the bus I got out my phone and found it covered in egg yolk. Yes, when I fell I'd landed on the impeccably almost-hard-boiled egg in the bag my mum had delivered to me. // The egg could have been softer.

The next one is too indelicate for Blip but involved an urgent loo visit and a see-through toilet lid which didn't look like it was down. Ooops. // Kind of retrieved.

One of the many members of public I talked to in the sun in the streets used his very worst swear word on me. // I am proud to reclaim it and to be what he called me. 

I fell asleep on Vauxhall Bridge. // I fell asleep on Vauxhall Bridge.

Firstborn's train home was cancelled and my bus home was stuck in stationary traffic for 40 minutes. //  Since we'd been disrupting other people's journeys all day we deserved nothing less.


Interesting thing

With the police watching and listening, about 700 of us on Vauxhall Bridge went through a process of talking about and deciding by consensus what we would do next. In groups of 10-15 it worked brilliantly. Combining the opinions of the groups was less successful but with more time we could have reached a large consensus. But it was taken out of our hands by the consensus-reachers on Lambeth Bridge deciding to do what were were in the process of deciding not to do. It was fascinating watching and feeling the disempowerment of having our decision-making effectively removed. Energy slumped and people started leaving. There's a very important lesson in there.


Firstborn and I realised that arriving 90 minutes late to the revolution has not affected the future of the world in any significant way.