Some mornings I break my routine but this is seldom a choice. Usually, like today, it is the result of lots of little things. My husband has to be at work, and so do I, and the children are on holiday and I have the whole day at the office tomorrow but for today I need to be here for a few hours. I arrived at the office at 7:30.
The world is different.
The front doors of the building are not open.
The best bit is the weather today. Outside my 8th floor window the mist swirls and I cannot see the Tyne River as I usually can and I am taken in my mind to moments. My childhood in the Cape winter in the beautiful nothing of morning when nobody exists but me and wet oak leaves and my skin. There is the morning in Lausanne when I was lost trying to find my way home from a bakery and the warm loaf was softening under my arm. Early morning in Cape Town with sea scented fog. Mornings of a lifetime crowd around me.
It is not a choice, but I should not resist it. The side doors are open. There is parking up the side road until 9:30.