To West Harrow and a visit with Jean. Her eightieth birthday coming up next month, although you'd never think it. On New Year's Eve actually, and as she says there's always a celebration with fireworks along the Thames and parties everywhere. We go over to collect the very nice Chinese food she's ordered and Shanthi arrives to share it, full of stories of her month's holiday in Sri Lanka and India, from temples and five star hotels to the horrors of the Indian railways.
We emerge from Bayswater tube station to the sound of sirens. There's a fire- smoke but no visible flames - next to, or perhaps over, the bureau de change. The currency exchange is a glass fronted box now full of smoke, so we wonder whether the firemen have brought a battering ram in addition to the long hoses and oxygen tanks. If so, they don't use it and the cash remains secure, if indeed that is where it reposes at night. A few people are led out of the building, one of them an old man with long black coat and black woollen hat, who is eventually found a chair at the Lebanese restaurant, oddly outside rather than inside where it's warm. There are quite a few of us viewing the excitement from the pavement opposite, shop keepers and passers by. Eleven thirty is relatively early for Queensway. After a few minutes the police tape goes up and we're moved along a bit. Time for home anyway.
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