Last train out of Sydney, oops, I mean Fenchurch Street

It is the day of the General Election here in the UK. If we were in Korea the government would have kindly given us the day off so that we could all go to the beach to ignore it until it was all over. (Plus, we would have spent half the day making jokes exchanging 'l's for 'r's or trying to explain to the older students why pronunciation is so important for meaning) As it is, I don't have to work anyway so no biggie. I am also unable to vote, alas, since I could never make head or tail of how to get a postal vote, plus I couldn't have predicted that I would be back in the UK by the time of the Election. Thus I am destined to spend the whole day in a darkened room, rocking slowly backwards and forwards, muttering 'Not Michael Howard, please not Michael Howard...' until my sister comes home and snaps me out of by taking me to the polling station to watch her vote.

Yes, I am back at my sister's house this week. We came back from Felixstowe on Monday

bringing the poor cat with us. He cried all the way to Purfleet so I was forced to go to sleep to ignore him. Fortunately, my sister, the driver, is made of sterner stuff. It is quite nice have the cat around, right now, he is attempting to get onto my knee while I am pretending not to notice him. He likes to spend the night running between my sister's room and the living room where I am sleeping on a pile of cushions on the floor, so to minimise the amount of sleep that either of us get. I think that this is to try and get us to nap later in the day so he can curl up beside us for a bit. It seems to be working, with me, anyway.

Tuesday was the day I got to do two of my favourite things. I went book shopping then rounded it off with a touch of shoe shopping. Now I am not obsessive about either really, no honest, but having spent two years in a countries where either of these is a trial it is, quite honestly, a joy. I went into the book shop, where it appeared that the whole place was one big English Language section and contained more than the usual 'Chicken Soup for the Unusually Needy and Perpetually Sad' and an old John Grisham, the way that the Korean bookshops tend to. I ran straight to the Travel section in order to get some more inspiration. I couldn’t find that book that I wanted (Vroom with a View by Peter Moore, about driving round Italy on a 40 year old Vespa) but my eyes were caught by a couple of others. Then I got sucked in by the '3 for the price of 2' labels on some of the books. I rounded up three of these worthy souls and was merrily skipping to the cash register when I spotted the Peter Moore book that I had come in for. It was too late to say no and I left the shop with four books.

But promised myself that was that. I didn't need to go to the shoe shop. Well, not need exactly. I have bought one pair of shoes already since I came back and have a couple more that survived the rigors of Korea. But when Penny suggested that I could always just go in and look… well, you can imagine what happened next.

That evening, wearing my new sandals, which only nearly severed two of my toes later so not bad for a first wear, I went into London to meet my mate, Matt. You might have heard of him as the guy that I used to live with in Streatham or the guy that drove for three days so I could see some elephants when we were in South Africa. We met in a pub, where else, and he convinced me to drink some bitter for a change rather than my usual lager. Working on the basis that after 3 years of Hite, Cass and OB, anything with any taste at all was not normal to me, I went for it (plus the bar staff hand out samples in the cutest leprechaun-sized tankers) and a BLT baguette too.

Something that controls fate out there in the stratosphere has ruled that me and Matt can only meet every two years. I went off to Oz and by the time I came back he was in Africa. After a year in Ireland I went out to meet him. Two years later, he came back just as I was on a plane going to Korea. I met him when I came back and then flew back to spend another two years away so as not to upset the status quo. So it is always a pleasure to meet him and try to cram two years worth of memories into a couple of hours and a couple of pints. He shared his attention between me and the bicycle that he had chained to a lamppost outside and was keeping a close eye on. Getting sucked into the conversation meant that all too soon it was time to go back across Tower Bridge (the famous one, the one with the towers) to Fenchurch St station.

Matt was fiddling with the complex security system on his bike, I think that it is called a lock, and time was ticking away to the last train so I took a head start off over the bridge. I was pegging it as fast as I could, trying to ignore my sandals grim determination to pierce the skin to the bone before we hit the other side. Puffing and panting, I was making good time and Matt just casually sauntered up on the bike, not even breaking a sweat.

In the end, I needn't have got myself in such a tizz as we made it with ten minutes to spare. Leaving each other with promises to try and meet again before the two year deadline, I went through the gate and into the strange world that is The Last Train Home aka the Booze Train.

TLTH leaves Central London at 23.40, the pubs close at 23.30 so people don't have a good chance to calm down before getting on the train. I haven't caught TLTH for a few years and had forgotten what it was like. I climbed on board and settled into a seat to mull over the evening in seclusion. Nearby there was a group of four women discussing the merits of the barman they had met that night. Then a couple walked onto the train in fits of hysterical drunk laughter, 'hehe, everyone is looking at us',' shhHHHH!!!', and tumbled into the seats just next to mine.

Aware that they might have drawn a bit of attention to themselves the woman had a logical way to deal with it and settle people's minds. She stood up, held her arms up and fessed up

'I'M DRUNK EVERYBODAY, S'ALRIGHT'

and fell back into the seat behind her.

Being a gregarious couple, it wasn't long before they had started to talk to everyone around then while I sank into my seat feeling the unusual feeling of being more sober than anyone else around. The drunk couple had, by that stage, rounded up a couple of lone travellers to sit with them. TLTH is the total opposite of the Train To Work, where it is pretty much forbidden to talk. If you should happen to do so, say you have just bumped into your long lost sister who you haven't seen since you both left the orphanage twenty years before and you are trying to swap phone numbers before she gets off at the next station, everyone around you will tut, sigh and stare at you in an effort to bring silence back to the carriage. Usually that silence is peppered with loud snores from the back.

So if the TTW is a cold and lonely place, TLTH is a warm and friendly place where the noise is punctuated with slurring and declarations of love for people you have just met, along with the creeping feeling that you might be pissing everyone else off but not caring anyway. I remember many years ago, when I was going home after gatecrashing a painfully fashionable Andy Warhol party on Oxford Street, I made many friends by handing out the Chuppa Chups that I had filled my pockets with at the party. ('You look like you need a Chuppa Chup… and you look like you need a Chuppa Chup….etc')

But not being fuelled by alcohol and being in a more introverted mood I was happy to let other people be the centre of attention for once. But it wasn't to be and soon I was in a conversation, having my shoes admired by the man (my new shoes!) and being invited to put my feet in his lap. Fortunately the next stop was mine and I got off at Barking to change trains. Here I met a much less drunk man who was also going to Purfleet and we chatted all the way home.

Yesterday, I met my friend, Heather, again and went to our old workplace, Selfridges

where someone asked us if we needed any help as we stood in the middle of the Food Hall noting all the changes. After a morning of walking around, in different shoes to give the scars a chance to heal, I went to my sister's office to bug her for a bit and then we went to the Natural History Museum to look at the dinosaurs.

I had forgotten what a great building the museum is in and the displays are good too, we fought off small children so that we too could have a chance to play with all the interactive bits and pieces.

And the best bit about the museum is that it is FREE, which is a damn sight cheaper than the arm and a leg that the Tower of London is charging.

Then it was home to clear up the cat sick (thanks, Charlie) and admire my new shoes from afar. Today I am waiting on phonecalls from various places before I go anywhere. The cat is no longer talking to me since I scared the bejesus out of him by using the vacuum cleaner earlier. I coaxed him out from under the bed but since he seems to believe that this was the start of the apocolypse he has run off to sulk in the living room. What makes it worse is that I wouldn't have had to vacuum at all today, therefore convincing the cat that the end was night, was it not for the fact that he threw up all over the carpet last night.