I sit in my Edward Hopper moment, my half started keepacup of green tea cooling,  staring at the chess board floor while my mind slows, moving down the gears after A1-driven shenanigans and I mindfully let the beat of Magic Radio fade back into the 70s while some seldom used lobe recalls a blue wide-wheeled mini van (replete with an A-Team overthetop stripe) on other journeys North.

I close my eyes and focus on the duties and joys of single granddad-hood and try to ignore the give in the one-size-barely-fits-all plastic seating beneath my oversized frame. My eyes refocus and I'm struck by a three-gen family arguing over Burger Kings, and I hate their voices forcing me back to 1984,  RAF Scampton, forcing down a much-too-early, much-too-bleak breakfast ahead of a slow day taking stick from families of maddened miners.

I close my eyes again to breathe my regrets back into place, and I sup and look ahead.