Those people who start each day with a tingle of excitement about forthcoming challenges are rare and exceptionally fortunate. Like many others, I have only been able to experience such objectivity as a tourist. Now that I’m back on home turf, I want to rekindle that same sense of naïve excitement at the quotidian, but despite several weeks away, London existence is already returning to its resolutely pedestrian self.
But with the persistence of an aroused teenage boy after one and a half Bacardi Breezers, I am determined to cling on to my foreigner’s perspective and seek out the nuggets that merit chronicling. Taking my lead from the baby bottle-nosed whale whose hunger took him miles from his natural habitat and eventually led to his death, I will throw caution to the wind and unearth the truffles of my life, mixing metaphors with gay abandon and making hay while gathering no broth.
Of course, occasionally, like the whale, I will meander into dangerous waters in search of sustenance – food either for thought or, more likely, for my inexorable appetite. But I will not reprimand myself with Opus Dei-esque self-abasement for I know I am not alone in allowing myself to be diverted off course by my desires – we all have much in common with our bottle-nosed friend. It is a shocking truth that there are some strange humans who never yearn for, say, a mini Babybel before dinner, who resist surrendering to unhealthy cravings of any sort. But let’s face it, I have little in common with such parts of our species, our segments in the Venn diagram of life do not overlap, and if such people find these lines irrelevant, the loss will be theirs alone.
