The long way round

There are two ways home from the station. The short one is eleven minutes along the main road. The long one is twenty, through the churchyard, along the back of the allotments, and out by the bridge. For eight years I took the short one, because I was going home, and going home is a thing you want to have finished.

In September I started taking the long one every day, and I have not gone back.

The nine minutes are not the point

What I thought I was buying was nine minutes of pleasantness. What I actually bought was a boundary. The main road route deposits you at your front door still holding the day. The churchyard route has a middle to it - a stretch by the allotments where there is nothing to look at and no phone signal - and by the time I reach the bridge, something has been put down.

People used to have this by accident. A walk to a bus, a change of trains, twenty minutes on a platform. The efficient commute removed it and gave the time back, and the time back is not worth what was removed.

Autumn made it obvious

The route changed under me. In September it was still light at six and full of the smell of somebody burning something they should not have been burning. By late October it was dark by the time I got to the allotments and I bought a small torch. In November the path by the bridge floods at the corner and everyone who uses it has independently worked out the same three stepping places.

You cannot notice a season on a main road. The main road is the same in April and November apart from the temperature.

The obvious objection

Not everyone has nine minutes. That is true and I am not going to talk my way around it - a route with children to collect or a shift to reach does not have a long way round in it, and essays like this one are often written by people who have quietly forgotten that.

What I would say is that the boundary is the thing, not the nine minutes, and boundaries can be smaller. One stop early. The other set of doors. Standing outside for the length of one song before going in. What matters is that there is a piece of the journey where nothing is being accomplished.

The bit I have not solved

It does not work in the morning. I have tried the long way to the station and it is simply lateness with a nicer view. Whatever the walk home is doing, it depends on the day being over, and I have not worked out the morning equivalent. The kettle is my best attempt.