Planet Mad

This weekend I was meant to be marking tests and writing a revision guide for the GCSE group. Instead, I ran away from school cackling manically, jumped in the Boringmobile, and headed north. The weather at home was overcast and miserable, but as I headed up the M1 towards the Arctic Circle, the sun burned through the clouds and it felt like summer. The journey was good, and the excitement of not being in school was too great to measure. A Scout campsite in Durham was the final destination – a planning meeting for this summer’s SAGGA camp – but I took a slight detour to drive through the centre of Durham. Although the small details are different, things haven’t changed significantly: the streets are still full of students wearing university clothing; the pubs' outside tables are still full of young people soaking up the sun; the cathedral and castle still dominate the city. 'Twas good to be back.

The Scout campsite was good, although seeing George and Paul out of a DOGs setting was most bizarre. At least George wasn't making cocktails for everyone this time! My tent got its first airing of the year, although it certainly won't be its last: the diary is filling up with camps, and SAGGA summer camp runs straight on from Peak 2005, so I'll be well and truely intense by the middle of August.*

Driving home again on Sunday saw another detour; this time through Darlington. I lived in Darlo for two years, and it was great: enjoying the passing company of the lesbian ex-convicts who lived opposite, appreciating the short walk into town, and bemoaning the presence of the crack-dealers who used to have arguments in the street at 3 in the morning. My mother's eyebrows levitated every time she drove past the tatoo parlour on the corner of my street. I went back on Sunday, for the first time in four years. I drove past the chuch hall where I used to do Guides - that hasn't changed one iota. I then mooched down towards the town centre and my old flat. Morrisons is still there, as is the exotic pet shop, the fabric shop and the taxidermist. Other things are disorientatingly different though: Central Perk cafe is a Chinese restaurant; the ABD cinema is an Odeon; they've built some traffic lights at the corner where learner drivers used to wait for months for a gap in the traffic. Ch-ch-ch-changes...

I then came home and found some passport photos of me, taken just before I moved down here four years aog. Just like Durham and Darlington, I'm still recognisably me, but there are changes. My hair, for a start. I hadn't realised how short it was then, and how long it is now. The wrinkles and bags under the eyes are luckily not visible in the most recent passport photo, but I know they're there. I don't feel as dilapidated as Darlington looks, but I'm not sure I have embraced change in quite the way that Durham has. Perhaps that's just the end of term talking. This wasn't intended to be a bit of self-absorbed navel-gazing. It's amazing how stream of consciousness posts flip from tangent to tanget. I'm sorry. Give me a couple of days to sleep and I'll be back to (ab)normal. Better go and catch some zeds....

* This joke is an official entry in the "Search for Derbyshire's Worst Pun of the Year Award" competition. It may be in with a good chance.