The Girl At The Desk in The Window

 

My darkest time of lockdown was last winter

I was on months of nights and like many of us, was physically and mentally isolated from the real world

All I saw was work, death, colleagues and bed.

As I drove into work, in the dark, I always drove through the slightly less salubrious suburbs of Llandudno.

It was the ordinary people’s Llandudno. Not the small hotels, and genteel Victorian flats of the Promenade and Mostyn Street, but the flats of the working people and the smaller terraced houses of the older locals.

Ordinary land.

It was then I generally spied the girl.

She always sat very upright at a table or desk in the window of her first floor apartment ( I use the word apartment because I’ve already overused the word flat)

The lights were dim in the room but she was always illuminated by a pink desk lamp, either with her head down , presumably writing or reading or looking forward , seemingly ,in thought.

She looked around 35, so was hardly a girl and with her hair pulled back into a ponytail , she always looked plain, and studious and thoughtful.

I never saw anyone else in the flat

Every night I came into work, she was there , and every night I came into work I looked for her.

She was a constant in a dark and depressing lockdown winter.

Reading or working or thinking in her window, next to the pink light.

I contemplated waving as I passed, but that would have been strange as I’m sure she never noticed the blue Aquila with the empty bike rack on the back, passing her window at 7.20 pm every night.

But she intrigued me, as things do to people who have a small ordered life with very  little interest or drama in it.

Last night I came into work and I saw her again. 

It was dark and she was at her desk again. Upright and still serious and

I was reminded of those dark lockdown nights of last year and breaking the spell I waved my hand and smiled as I passed

But she didn’t look out of the window 

……………………………………………………………….

It’s soup time. 

Overnight on Friday I left butternut squash and sweet potatoes in the slow cooker with garlic and chilli

And Saturday morning , as I opened the door, the cottage was filled with the spiced scent of the most delicious soup.

Saturday night I’ve left mushrooms cook down with ginger, garlic and potato and that will be ready for my Sunday morning breakfast.

The weather is atrocious and I’m glad I have only two weeks night shifts before returning to days.

And the land of the living