Day 32: Zorro and Bolo

Today has seen me rolling sixes with the transport dice.  This morning I step onto the platform just as the train glides to a halt in front of me - the split of the doors directly in line with my nose.  I feel like a rail Zorro, all precise and agile.  This afternoon I leave Angel in cavalier fashion, with scant time to get to St Pancras before my ticket becomes invalid.  The green man is with me at all the pedestrian crossings, but time is running out as I pick up the pace through King's Cross.  As I near St Pancras my watch tells me it's going to be too late, but strangely hopeful I run through the station, and dart through the barrier with TEN SECONDS to spare.   A ticket fumble away from an excess fare.  Down the escalator, straight onto the fast train as the doors close behind me.  Slick.  Rail Zorro.  For a day.
 
Lucky in transport; unlucky in cake.  Today at Tinderbox in Islington I roll a one on the cake front.  A 'Bolo de Arroz' - which sounds great, but is in fact an old lady cake (relentlessly plain Madeira) gussied up in a fancy name and an artisanal wrapper.  Might be really good straight out of the oven, but this one had been a Bolo for longer than advisable.  Won't be doing that again.  Just as well, as my cake repertoire is broad enough already.  Zorro don't need no Bolo.

Jude is with me in Tinderbox.  We sit up in the eaves with strong coffee, next to a woman with a strangely resonant voice.  It may be the acoustics, or perhaps her friend is hard of hearing - but I suspect she habitually throws her voice beyond its intended destination.  Like a child.  It's distracting so we move downstairs - just as a booth becomes conveniently free.  Booth Zorro.  This is better.  A low burrow-like ceiling and shaded light makes it feel like we are plotting (we are).  Two hours slip by effortlessly, like beads off a string.     

Home in the rain.  I walk the pretty route, along French Row, past the Eleanor Cross and down George Street.  The damp air holds the smoky ghosts of well-heeled open fires.  One of the best smells in the world.  Apple wood, and cherry.  Unmistakable.  Then some pine.  Spitty, knotty, resinous.  No umbrella, but happy to drift at an amble, careless of the wet and cold, inhaling my all-time favourite sort of incense.