23 Minutes

Every weekday I make the same journey to work.

I leave at the same time, drive the same roads and see the same people. They're strangers, but after enough mornings they start to feel like extras in your own little sitcom.

There's the people waiting for the bus. Same old worn faces. The bus is never on time either. Stood in the same spot as the day before. Every morning I wonder where they all disappear to for eight hours. What do they do? Who are they when they're not standing under that shelter pretending it's not raining?

The retired cyclists are already out in force, somehow managing to travel just slowly enough to create a queue of fifteen impatient commuters behind them. They've got all day, yet they choose quarter to eight. Surely there should be a gentleman's agreement. Like a hosepipe ban. Nine o'clock onwards only and give the rest of us a fighting chance.

Then come the school-run Olympics. Kids disappear a hundred yards ahead on scooters and bikes while exhausted parents shout instructions that nobody's listening to. Every single day it happens. They never learn. Every now and then you spot Mum or Dad sheepishly riding the tiny scooter back home after dropping the kids off. They look slightly embarrassed, but they've committed now.

There are the familiar faces you wish you didn't recognise. The people wandering with a carrier bag and a can of ale before most of us have had breakfast. Some scan the pavement for half-smoked cigarettes. It's a sobering reminder that not everyone's day starts the same way.

The lollipop lady steps into the road like she's the Chief Constable. One hand goes up and forty cars obediently stop. No arguments. No hesitation. For those few minutes, she owns the street.

Then there's the famous roundabout before work. Britain's greatest display of uncertainty. Indicators flashing for no reason, people giving way when they don't need to, horns beep, someone inevitably stopping dead to let a car out that's half a mile away. We hate to queue, yet a roundabout still defeats us.

I notice the same dog walkers carrying bags of warm poo like it's the most normal thing in the world. I’ve seen the same bloke scraping frost off his windscreen with a Costa loyalty card because he forgot where he put the scraper.

The same white van that appears in my mirror every morning as though he’s personally offended by the speed limit. Someone's wheelie bins still haven't been brought in and it's Thursday. The curtains twitching as the neighbourhood unofficially clocks everyone leaving for work. I notice it all.

The same lady power walks down the road, if she set off 5 minutes earlier surely she wouldn’t need to do that every morning.

Then, almost without thinking, I'm pulling into the same parking space.

Engine off. Radio off. Silence.

I sit there for a moment longer than I need to.

A little sigh.

"Come on then."

Another day in paradise, eh.

Eight hours later, I'll do it all again in reverse, only this time everyone's heading home. Back to the sofa. Back to whatever's on the telly. Set routine escapism.

Then back to tomorrow morning, when the cast will all be waiting in exactly the same places, ready for another 23 minute episode.