Chess

The flat hunt continues.

Meanwhile, I walked back from a late, greasy dinner to my studio in Kensington. I stopped at a café where people where smoking and laughing on the outdoor tables and went in to see if they had cannoli.

I've been here before. It's a charming little places with an atmosphere that promises much better coffee than you'll actually get. They do pizza, and the waitresses sound Italian, but they don't have any cannoli. I got a hot chocolate instead.

At the table by the window, two men are concentrating over a chess board. They both look in their fifties and divorced. They've brought their own digital chess clock, so they probably know what they're doing. Also, there's the look in their eyes. The board is everything to them. Thousands of possible futures are ticking through their inner vision: areas of play, possible weaknesses, exchanges that must be made. I've never been good at chess, but I miss that deep, all-encompassing concentration.

I didn't talk to them. I thought of hovering silently until I could at least see who was winning, but it was getting late and I don't think they would have liked it. I just took my hot chocolate and left, my thoughts scattering in hundred different directions.

Changes

Right now, I'm sitting on my bed in a very small studio in Kensington. I've been living in this small studio with its single bed for two weeks now. This is my first home in London.

Some weeks ago, I'd been offered a promotion within Canonical. Circumstances made this a difficult decision, with me being forced to choose between two paths, each of which promising great good and little ill. I chose the promotion since it seemed the more interesting mistake to make, and so far I haven't regretted it. However, to follow the metaphor along its natural, bubbling course, the path has at times been a rocky one.

A day or two after that, my former flatmate and landlord asked me to leave his flat, since he wanted someone he could hang out with, and that he and I were from different worlds. Both he and I were aware that when I moved he said "I'm not looking for a friend", so this came as a shock to me.

This meant that I'd have to move to London sooner than I'd wanted to. I had wanted to stay in Sydney, go to Chris & Sam's wedding, have a last go at actually living there. There was also the Meeting: a week-long talk between all of the team leads on my product. Organizing the Meeting is very much at the core of my new position, I needed time to prepare, to research, to gather data and to talk to people. Moving so soon meant that my preparation time would be split between preparing the Meeting and relocating to another country.

As it stands, and thanks largely to the gracious hospitality of my friends Andrew & Mary, I've arrived safely in London, navigated the Meeting and am almost ready to begin really looking for a permanent place to live. This weekend though, I'm resting, since I've been sprinting along the path for weeks.