HRH asked for my moral support in dropping the boy off at preschool this morning. “This is my school, Dada,” the boy said as we pulled up in front of it. This is where I work.” HRH and I exchanged amused glances at this. Because if HRH ‘works’ at a school, the boy’s school must be where he will ‘work’. We had to call him back to take off his shoes, and back again for hugs and kisses goodbye, just like on Friday. “It’s harder for the parents,” the teacher said. “Are you kidding?” we said. “We love this!” The boy flew back through the entryway and out the door to dance in front of two new arrivals, shouting, “Hi! I’m here!” and then leaping back into the entryway, throwing his hand out to indicate the newcomers and say to us, “These are my friends!” He then darted away through the corridor to the classroom. “Oh, yeah,” the teacher said, “he’s so ready for this.”
HRH took me to school with him after dropping the boy off, and I saw his office for the first time and did the first half of his morning walkabout with him. The work rooms are huge and airy, with lots of windows. The weather was just lovely today, too; it really felt like the first day of school. Not too hot, sunny with a scattering of fluffy clouds, a good breeze. I walked the ten minutes to the metro station, which is set in a terminal that looks remarkably like a modern airport, and figured out the new ticket system. I thought I was buying a permanent card that gets loaded with money and debited as you pass checkpoints but I ended up with six paper cards that get fed through the turnstiles and stamped with dates and such. I smiled all the way home through two metro rides and a bus ride. It’s such an incredible day in all respects. I love feeling like this.
When I finally got home after the hour and a half commute, there was no mail, alas. I was hoping for my new glasses. Tried to return a couple of phone calls without success.
On the way home I read some of A Thousand Days in Venice and made a connection that had been lacking about the Poppy book, which has been in mothballs for a couple of years. I realised that I have to work my protagonist through her fear of travel. It’s the obvious and logical conclusion to the conflict and the story, and I evidently needed those two years away from the book to see that. I’d been trying to work another story thread through, thinking it was the main issue and therefore the focal conclusion, and it wasn’t working properly in my head. Paired with the other Revelation, this may mean a finished novel by the end of the year. If I focused only on it, that is. Which I will very likely not do, as I don’t think it’s as marketable as some of my YA stuff. Whatever. I have lots of time to work on writing now; I don’t have to pick and choose what to cram into a day or so. A good thing, really, because I’m feeling somewhat blissfully bemused at what to do first today.
I had the same experience of buying 6 tickets from the new maching, so I stopped and asked about the new ticket system a couple of days ago (they helpfully have posted people to explain how the new system works in many metro stations over the past month). You buy the permanent card (once) at the manned ticket booth for $3.50 (to stop people using them once and throwing them away, I expect), and you have to load it with something (a single fare, or a ‘strip’ of 6 tickets) when you buy it. Thereafter you can recharge it at the new machines. You can put a maximum of 3 ‘strips’, or 18 tickets on the permanent card.
Ah. There were lineups at all the ticket booths I passed, so I didn’t use them as I might have had there been no one to make sure I was doing everything correctly; I went straight to the machines instead. Good to know one must buy the card in person. I’ll remember that for next time, once all my single ticket-cards are gone.