Dispatches: Home sweet home - Tuesday, 18th May 2004
Well, it wasn't just unusually warm in the high arctic. Ottawa was glorious. The welcome, the weather, the people, the tulips. I had a manic day of interviews with the Canadian press on Sunday (that's me on the front page of Monday's Ottawa Citizen!) and flew back to Heathrow overnight. A few more manic interviews today, a bit of time spent in a traffic jam and suddenly I'm sitting here at my computer back in London. In some ways it feels like I've never been away; in others I feel like I've just dropped in from the planet Zarg.
London seems really grimy - I never remembered it this way. The constant drone of the city is almost unbearable - the crawling traffic, the antique buses belching black smoke, the trains, the sirens, the car alarms, a million noisy conversations in a few square miles. There's dust everywhere. It's unbearably warm. My senses are amplified - it's like watching a tv that needs the brightness, contrast, colour and volume turning down.
In many ways I've come back to a life that has been put on hold. The same piles of paper on my desk, emails waiting to be answered, meetings to arrange, a fast filling diary. I'd forgotten how much stuff I own and I'd definitely forgotten just how much paperwork this expedition has generated. My filing cabinet is bursting, folders are bulging, trays are overflowing and barely a few square inches of desk are showing under the mess. Bags of clothing and equipment are piled on the floor, many full of stinking expedition kit that I can hardly bring myself to open. Especially in this heat.
I feel like I've come back to an overgrown garden that needs weeding, yet the last thing I want to do is put on my gardening gloves.
Of course, like a day on the ice, it's not all bad. Valeria's sister Tete and her boyfriend Pablo are here and Tete's cooking a celebratory spanish omelete (tortilla espanola) as I type. Que bien!
It might surprise you to know that I'm missing the ice already. Terribly. If I could be instantly transported back to my tent on the pack ice, would I do it? It's a tough one, and I'll let you know after the tortilla, a beer, a bubble bath and the first night back in my bed for a quarter of a year...
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