Motorway Baby

I've been neglecting this site lately. Those who know me know the reason why. (Think: red pen.) More worryingly, I've been neglecting my writing too. (Aforementioned red pen's fault again.) I expect a light to appear at the end of the tunnel round about the second week of July...

I'm tempted to have a rant about The Da Vinci Code here, but a) I haven't read the book, so I shouldn't give in to prejudice and b) I haven't seen the film, so I shouldn't give in to prejudice and c) the people who visit this site are doubtless highly enlightened individuals, so there's no point in preaching to the converted. ... However, I WILL say that if NHS staff spent more time providing an H S and less time trying to work out if a dubiously-coiffed symbologist's discovery that Jesus Chris fathered a child is based in reality, then MRSA would be a very scared little superbug indeed.

I was in North London not so long ago, so I took the opportunity to revisit the first house in which I lived... or, to be more precise, the first road, because I didn't actually go inside the house. As I have no memory of having lived there (we moved out when I was around two) I was curious as to why I was drawn to go back. At the risk of sounding pretentiously Kieslowski-esque, maybe when we return to where we were born, we find it a little easier to discern the mixture of chance and decision that brought us to where we are now. We can indulge in a few moments of 'What if-isms'. In my case: 'What if we'd lived on the other side of the road and the local council hadn't been obliged to double glaze all our windows to drown out the sound of the M1 which was taking shape right at the foot of our back garden?'; 'What if the fire brigade hadn't arrived as quickly as they did when I (accidentally!) started a small blaze in the house?'; 'What if we'd never left the UK?'

I expect there's a poem in there somewhere. If there is, it would probably have a line that goes something like: it's not the revisitation that matters most; it's who you to choose to share it with.

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