Blog: Bring Me My Helmet, My Theodolite and Clipboard

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One of the (many) odd things about living on a high tech building site is that most of the time you're the ONLY person not wearing a high vis jacket. This morning I took the 3 minute stroll down the road to Stratford International, and EVERYBODY I passed was wearing either a yellow high vis jacket or a full-body orange jumpsuit. From our window I cane see even MORE of them scuttling around, the orange and the yellows, wielding clipboards and studiously LOOKING at things. This morning there were about twenty of them stood behind a high wall LOOKING at three bulldozers, each picking up piles of mud and placing it a few metres away. It's like having a human ANT farm - this must be how ALIEN SCIENTISTS feel!

I was struck by all this last night too. The Rules Of My Regulations said that we didn't really NEED to put pictures up on the walls, as the flat is COSY as it is, and I thought that part of the reason is that we have BIG windows, each of which is constantly full of Interesting Activities. In the daytime it's like a Richard Scarry book, as we watch different professions buzzing around, doing their Important Tasks, and it's all we can do to prevent ourselves WAVING at bus drivers.

Another weird thing is that we're only about 180 seconds from a GINORMOUS shopping centre, so any and all of our WHIMS can be met within minutes. Well, providing we HAVE these whims between 8-10pm (or 12-6pm on Sundays) and they don't cost too much. For instant, last night I popped into Click And Collect on the way home to pick up my new LAPTOP (NB not a whim, i worried for WEEKS about it) and found it RAMMED with everybody ELSE who'd been shopping over Christmas, so just LEFT and went home instead. Finding myself alone with a few hours to spare I decided to go and see "GRAVITY", as everyone in the WORLD had been going on about how good it was. There's a cinema in the shopping centre, so less than quarter of an hour later I was THERE, sat in my seat with some popcorn, and about two hours later (there were a lot of adverts) i came out thinking "Yes, in this instance everyone was RIGHT, that WAS very good."

Then I went back to John Lewis, found it Customer Collection area empty at that time of day, and GOT my new computer. HA!

What I'm trying to say is that after eleven years living miles from The Big Shops and over 20 years of living in various Victorian terraced houses, suddenly being thrust into the FUTURISTIC WONDERLAND that is The Olympic Village, with all its access to STUFF and THINGS, is still turning my head a little, even without taking into account the MIND BLOWING FACT that my on-train commuting time has come down from a 23 minute journey to one lasting SEVEN MINUTES (the HS1/Javelin! It's amazing!). It's all rather exciting - I do hope it stays this way!

posted 3/1/2014 by MJ Hibbett

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