42/52 - Full up on Brighton
Oct. 18th, 2020 05:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
askygoneonfireFeeling exhausted didn't get any better for a week of trying to keep pace with the chaos of UK academia, somewhat unsurprisingly. Facing down a weekend with no activities and, as I realised on Friday afternoon, rounding on 2 weeks without face to face social contact, was not filling me with joy. So I called a friend and said "can I be there? Tomorrow?" It took me a long time to realise this was an option, which is ridiculous because it is exactly the reason I bought the car, to enable me to just be where I need to be when I need it.
Hopped in my car and headed for Brighton, and felt incredibly virtuous for having checked tyre pressures and adding air as necessary....only to neglect to think about the petrol guage (it has a trip computer that tells you "range" and I had just been looking at that, somewhat over optimistically it turns out because it promised me 140 miles and I hit the low petrol warning after about 70 miles) but it all turned out fine. It's been a decade since I had to be responsible for car maintenance, I'll get back up to speed soon. I have the looming threat of new back tyres which will be the first real test of how successfully I can get there.
It was an unremarkable weekend, in many ways, an afternoon with my friend strolling around town. I remarked that we were passing another friend's house which prompted me to phone him and discover he was another 10 minutes down the road in the park so we joined him there, agreed to breach social distancing and I had my first hug since September and felt something come back to life deep inside me. These are the things Brighton is full of for me; every other road in the city is a home of someone I know and love, or a pub we had a racuous or warm or restorative or bizarre night in, every turn has a different route - a cut through to and from the places only the locals know about. It's a question of time, of course, I lived there for 10 years over a 12 year period - inevitably it is full of people and memories. But it's also the alchemy of Brighton, a city that's not a city and a way of living which is near unique.
A good night's sleep on an uncomfortable bed. An early start and a drive to B's house to see the kids and her husband for the first time since March. Social distancing with under 5s is of course impossible so I got jumped on and entertained and generally made a fuss of and it was good. Feels like home.
The drive home was easy and my car is more and more familiar, as is the road to Brighton.
Closer, again.
Hopped in my car and headed for Brighton, and felt incredibly virtuous for having checked tyre pressures and adding air as necessary....only to neglect to think about the petrol guage (it has a trip computer that tells you "range" and I had just been looking at that, somewhat over optimistically it turns out because it promised me 140 miles and I hit the low petrol warning after about 70 miles) but it all turned out fine. It's been a decade since I had to be responsible for car maintenance, I'll get back up to speed soon. I have the looming threat of new back tyres which will be the first real test of how successfully I can get there.
It was an unremarkable weekend, in many ways, an afternoon with my friend strolling around town. I remarked that we were passing another friend's house which prompted me to phone him and discover he was another 10 minutes down the road in the park so we joined him there, agreed to breach social distancing and I had my first hug since September and felt something come back to life deep inside me. These are the things Brighton is full of for me; every other road in the city is a home of someone I know and love, or a pub we had a racuous or warm or restorative or bizarre night in, every turn has a different route - a cut through to and from the places only the locals know about. It's a question of time, of course, I lived there for 10 years over a 12 year period - inevitably it is full of people and memories. But it's also the alchemy of Brighton, a city that's not a city and a way of living which is near unique.
A good night's sleep on an uncomfortable bed. An early start and a drive to B's house to see the kids and her husband for the first time since March. Social distancing with under 5s is of course impossible so I got jumped on and entertained and generally made a fuss of and it was good. Feels like home.
The drive home was easy and my car is more and more familiar, as is the road to Brighton.
Closer, again.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-10-18 05:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-10-18 07:20 pm (UTC)