Eddie

One Street: Market Square, Shipley: #187

I am supposed to be developing software but I seem to have spent pretty much the whole day on the phone. I can do all this project management stuff but I hate it. I found out just how much today. One of the reasons why I've always worked for myself has been to avoid being promoted away from what I enjoy doing into some supposedly more important (and usually better paid) management position. At the moment we are so stretched by all this unexpected new work, at a time when we were stretched anyway, that there is no choice. And it's not exactly work we can turn away!

Forgot to mention last night the most surreal moment of yesterday. It was late when I left the office and as usual I reached the platform just as the train was pulling in. I got on and was straight down, as is the custom of late, to looking at my photographs and selecting the one to blip. I vaguely registered that the train was going a bit faster than usual but immediately got absorbed with my pictures again. And then I glanced out the window ... to realise that I was in Leeds! I had got on completely the wrong train. A quick look at the watch revealed that I had just missed one going back to Ilkley. Indeed, I thought I could see it pulling out as my train was pulling in. I resigned myself to a long wait for the next one. I walked off to get myself something to eat but happened to glance back just before going through the barrier. The train I had just left was now marked for Ilkley. I ran and jumped back on just in time. I was so happy not to be stuck at Leeds for an hour that my mood was suddenly lifted higher than it had been all day.

My mood was also lifted at lunchtime today upon meeting Eddie here. He has one of those faces which is totally compelling and the best thing about this portrait project of mine is that it gives me an excuse to sit down and talk to such folk. He spoke with the most wonderful Irish lilt and in a laconic and lugubrious manner which brought me right back down to earth from the space my head had been in all morning. I can't say that I understood half of what he said but it really didn't matter!