The five-second rule doesn’t apply anywhere outside your home. So I ate the rest of my food with the knife. And suddenly, I was feeling homesick.

Hours before the start of the men’s 100 metres final, there I was, sitting on the floor of the train station like a vagrant, eating food from a plastic container on a Sunday afternoon, no less. I can only imagine what was cooked at home today.

Going through security has started to become a hassle. I understand it is for my safety, but I no longer wear a belt because I have to take it off every time. Yesterday, I was told the small bottle of skin creme I had been travelling with for the past week wasn’t allowed.

So instead of the really, nice man in the green shirt telling me I couldn’t bring my food through the security scanners, I decided to eat it before I went inside.

Unfortunately, there were no seats outside and although the sun was blazing, the rain had fallen less than ten minutes before, so I couldn’t even sit outside and enjoy the sunshine.

I picked a spot near the back of the station where the light was streaming through and sat down on the floor to eat.

At first, I was all alone. Then a train disgorged what seemed to be about 1 000 people, who all passed and stared. They were all looking at the green mushy mess I was eating and one woman even asked her husband how much I had paid for it.

The vegetarian ravioli – spinach and parmesan cheese – was swimming in a bath of basil pesto sauce and was quite nice. I didn’t have any drink because it is too cold to have anything other than tea.

As I sat there avoiding eye contact and chewing slowly, someone stepped out of the steady stream of people and stopped.

I looked up and it was photographer Bryan Cummins of the Jamaica Observer. I offered him some. But he politely declined.

“I’ll take your word for it,” he said.

Then, naturally, he pulled out his camera and took several pictures.  “We have to let people see this isn’t a bed of roses,” he said.

We chatted for a bit and then he left. Bolt, Blake and Safa running, remember.

A few minutes later, my fork dropped.

I am prone to dropping things all the time, but I usually do a quick juggle. This time, I was so close to the floor, the fork just hit the deck and I still had about six pieces of ravioli to eat.

Remember, the five-second rule does NOT apply outside the house, so I couldn’t pick it up and blow it off.

My only option was to use the knife to spear the pasta and I continued eating. By then, the majority of people had passed, so I didn’t feel like I was living in a fish bowl.

My thoughts took a “feeling-sorry-for-myself” turn at that point.

Then I remembered I had to go and pick up my laundry which I had paid £15 to get washed.

I literally got up off the ground, dusted myself off, picked up my garbage and threw it away. Time to get moving.

It’s Day 9 of the London 2012 Olympic Games and as much as I am enjoying this unique experience, there is no place like Barbados.

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