I don't have much of a commute: on a good day, with the wind in the right direction and not too many commuters on Moorgate, it's 7 minutes door-to-door.
But over the last few days I've noticed that the walk seems longer; that London seems colder and more overcast; and that the people I pass look greyer and more pre-occupied than I've ever noticed before.
The depressing, doom-laden headlines of the freebie papers I pass don't help (all of them, in different ways, making it clear that the cheap credit party is over, and that the economic hang-over is really kicking-in).
Well, they don't perhaps help those people I'm passing very much. But they help me to conclude that getting away from London and the City now is the right thing to do. That fast-forwarding to late spring is the right thing to do. That seeing some more of the world is the right thing to do. Any doubts I had about taking this time out are gone. I feel overwhelmed at the thought of the places I'm traveling to and the friends I'll catch up with on the way.
And I feel fortunate. Very fortunate indeed.
