Unconfined lunch

This might not look like much, but it represents Momentous Change.

Yesterday, for the first time since 17 March 2020, I went to actual London to work in the actual office. That means a walk to the station, an hour on a train, and a walk at the other end. Today I am very full of the thought 'how did I previously do this every day?!'

London is full of people and buses and pedestrian crossings (look, we have a zebra crossing in the village, and that's enough for us. No push-buttons, here.) and smoke and shops and Prets A Manger.

Pret might be a cliché, and it's certainly not gourmet faire, but to me it's every kind of cosmopolitan easy-come-easy-go indulgence that the last 18 months have been missing. So I had brownie and popcorn and weird Mexican falafel wrap for my lunch (plus an apple and a bottle of water from home because I've not completely lost my head). And I ate them in Regents Park observing the marvellous annual sculpture fair, aptly though possibly reductively described by a colleague as 'phallic squiggles'.

It in no way felt normal. The train was weird and scary. The office was weird and scary. (My bit of office was mostly an enormous historic library space occupied by only me, which was pretty chill. But even so.)

Now that's what I call an office.

From October I start working 50/50 from home/on site, so I guess I'm going to have to get used to it. And work out better work lunches than a daily Pret. We used to have an on-site café, but that remains closed until at least the new year. Anyone have any good veggie sandwich filling suggestions beyond cheese or hummous?