Sunday, December 30/2018

Saturday, December 29/2018

Once again we take advantage of the hire car and go a little up the Sussex coast to Aldeburgh, passing golf courses and then fields, some with sugar beets. We even see a number of thatched roofs as well as quite a number of tile ones. Aldeburgh is an attractive seaside town, once a Tudor port, given borough status by Henry VIII. Wooden painted houses here as well as the more common brick and stone.It was formerly home to Ruth 

Rendell and Benjamin Britten, among others. And about a third of its residences are second homes. (Average detached house price £690,840 ($1,195,153 CAD). 

We stop for a walk along the shingle beach, fascinated by the multicoloured pebbles. There are a few boats in sight and a number of places selling fish - fresh or smoked - and seafood. So we stop and buy salmon steaks, smoked mackerel, large scallops, and fish paté.

Our next stop, a few miles down the road, is a complex  that rejoices in the name of Snape Maltings, in the village of Snape. The Domesday Book records 49 men in Snape in 1085. Current population is about 600, but presumably this is not men only. Its history goes back well before that, though, at least 2000 years, with the village serving as a centre for salt production in Roman times. More recently - as in mid nineteenth century to mid twentieth - barley malting for domestic and export purposes was a major industry. 

When that ceased Benjamin Britten was key (well, can’t say instrumental) in developing a major music study and concert centre in the former malting facility. We have lunch in the little restaurant and visit a shop with extensive cook ware, kitchen gadgets and furniture, varying from the beautiful to the functional, all of it classy and none of it underpriced. Fortunately, most items are too heavy to be seriously tempting. (Marble figures prominently). Pass Smugglers Cottage, built in 1859, and think what a wonderful address - Smugglers Cottage, Snape Maltings, Snape, Suffolk. Worth acquiring for the address alone.

Salmon for supper with a sauvignon blanc, and it’s lovely.

Friday, December 28/2018

Replay of yesterday,  but this time get the paperwork right. And about 15 minutes worth of paperwork it is. Right down to agreeing to the £20 surcharge for returning the car on a Sunday and leaving the keys in the dropbox. What next? Extra £20 for leaving the keys in the hotel room instead of queuing at reception? Car 🚗 is a shiny little Fiat 500, and Duxford under an hour and a half away. Distances always seem surprisingly short in the UK, although traffic can make them unpredictably slow. We’re lucky at Duxford. Park in disabled parking and explain that as it’s a hire car there is no disability sticker. They’re good about that and even come up with a mobility scooter for Jane. Important  because there are a number of hangars, with the one furthest from the Visitor Centre being about a fifteen minute walk away. We start with a collection of classic planes. The test Concorde is there, and we get to walk through it. Tons of historical planes, including a Mosquito and a Lancaster. Doing the tour with Bill is better than doing it with a museum guide. He’s not only ex RAF but a real airplane and war history buff. He and J enjoying themselves immensely.

Then out for a meal at the Red Lion pub. It’s a former coaching inn on the old London to Yarmouth turnpike road, dating from the16th century with some original exposed wooden beams and open fireplaces. Very nice game pie - partridge, pheasant, and venison.

Wednesday, December 26/2018

Invited over to the in-laws of Jane and Bill’s granddaughter Jenny. All relatives except us. Four children including a month old baby, at the sweet age of sleeping happily in the arms of whichever adult picks him up. Huge buffet and a house big enough to comfortably hold all seventeen of us. A ten minute drive away, but Tony kindly ferries us. Sample a surprisingly complex and attractive gooseberry and elderflower liqueur before bed.

Tuesday, December 25/2018

🌲 Christmas Day. The aromas of turkey and potatoes, brussel sprouts, parsnips, and carrots roasting. Bill and Jane’s son Kevin comes over to join us for lunch. Prosecco and Christmas pudding. Bill’s sloe gin very nice as well. Add a couple of Jane’s Christmas earrings to the decor of the little tree that’s been brought in from outside for the occasion.🎄

Monday, December 24/2018

Christmas Eve. Bill the busiest, as he makes pastry - mince pies and sausage roll. And then, as there’s extra filling, a large pork pie. Jane and I to Tesco for the forgotten bits - carrots, more butter, goat’s milk. We pass an older woman on our way. Jane says, cheerfully, that it’s a beautiful day. What’s beautiful about it, the woman asks, without smile or irony. Says she’s just spent two hours trying to get through Tesco. When we get there it’s busy, but nothing like as jammed as yesterday. 

Stir fry and mince pies ready when we get back. Bill ambitiously digs the bed ready for the new bulbs while the rest of us enjoy the warmth inside. And I make cranberry sauce for tomorrow.

Sunday, December 23/2018

Last shopping day before Christmas. Not technically, but very nearly. Tesco walking distance, or in Jane’s case mobility scooter distance. Weather at the dividing line between mist and rain, but still not cold. 

Tesco crazy busy. Almost impossible to manoeuvre a shopping trolley, though it helps that there are four of us to head off in different directions with a short list that runs from cranberries to cognac. The latter boasting a much better discount than we ever see in Canada. Quite a few special reductions. Our best acquisition a packet of very nice looking streaky bacon for 88p ($1.55 CAD). Oddest markdown a plant based protein advent calendar for £1.89 ($3.24). Taking into account that this is December 23, and considering the dubiously seasonal nature of the  treats, I think that £1.89 is rather a lot. Discover later that such calendars regularly sell for £40! Coffee at Tesco café, which is surprisingly unbusy, and happily allows the worst of the queues to shorten. 

Bill and Jane have acquired an electric soup maker, which turns the broth and leftover bits from Friday’s kleftiko into a puréed soup - boils, blends, etc. Interesting appliance. Grandson James (son of Tony and Mandy) comes over in the afternoon. 

Saturday, December 22/2018

The house is in a quiet residential park. In the morning we head out to the little local fruit and veg stand and fill the covered trolley with brussel sprouts, tomatoes, cucumber, potatoes, parsnips, oranges, apples, and duck’s eggs. Jane takes the mobility scooter and the rest of us walk through the woods. Beautiful weather. Temperature must be 13, and young children out with footballs on the green. 

Lunch at the Douglas Bader pub. Steak and ale pie and pints. Pub named after Group Captain Sir Douglas Bader, RAF flying ace, despite being double amputee, who was briefly stationed here. Bader also became acting squadron leader to a Hawker Hurricane unit based at RAF Coltishall, mainly made up of Canadians who had suffered high losses in the Battle of France. Interesting as I remember reading his biography some 50+ years ago. 

Bill’s son Tony and wife Mandy come over in the afternoon. Mandy, who works at a busy garden centre, bearing large bags full of bulbs, dozens of them, that she says the centre would throw out now because they would freeze - crocus, daffodils, and tulips. We’re all appalled at the waste and delighted with all the free bulbs.

Friday, December 21/2018

Train from Liverpool St station at 12 noon. It takes just over an hour to each Ipswich and Jane and Bill just behind the exit barrier waiting to meet us. Martlesham is six miles  outside Ipswich, and they’re in the part known as Martlesham Heath, a planned village begun in the 1970’s in the area that was previously RAF Martlesham airfield. (Though Martlesham itself has been inhabited since the Bronze Age and appears in the Domesday Book).  So we take a taxi from the station, entertained by a driver with a strong Suffolk accent and equally strong opinions, an old timer who grew up here. Lovely not-so-little modular home and us installed in the guest bedroom. Slow cooker on and Bill has made lamb kleftiko, remembering that it’s J’s favourite and not knowing he’d missed going for it last night. Lovely to see them again.

Thursday, December 20/2018

Last day in London. Jane and Bill are now in England - flew in yesterday - and she called today, so we know we each have the correct number for each other’s mobiles. So tube tomorrow to Liverpool St station. Have the tickets with seats reserved, so now only packing. The Chinese puzzle. Do the things that came out of the little suitcases, with a few inevitable additions, fit back in? 

We’re lucky to be going by train and not flying out of Gatwick, now paralysed for about 24 hours by one or two unidentified drones. All flights disrupted, thousands of people affected, diversions to airports as far away as Manchester, Cardiff and Paris. Many kept on grounded planes for hours. Interview with one couple who spent eight hours in a plane on the tarmac, along with their 15 month old daughter. Still don’t have luggage with the Christmas presents. Multiply story many times over.

Wednesday, December 19/2018

There’s a flower seller on the corner of Queensway, two short blocks from us. In nice weather it’s lovely walking past and inhaling the scent of the flowers. We have on occasion bought bouquets here, mostly daffodils (my favourite flower) in the spring. In cold or rainy weather, though, you have to feel sorry for the vendors, often a young woman working on her own. Through December there have been Christmassy offerings - wreathes, branches of red berries, mistletoe, little wicker donkeys (which I covet but which are much too big for a suitcase) and small Christmas trees 🌲🌲🌲. The going price for a tree about a metre high seems to be about £25 ($42.50 CAD). Astonishing to any Canadian, let alone one who could walk out the door and choose from an area that needed thinning anyway. Doug C says that December 20 is the day the prices drop. Not an early putter up by preference myself, but can see that many would find that distressingly late.

Tuesday, December 18/2018

We’re on the tube heading toward Camden Town when, at Westminster station, J says that he’d intended to have a look at the protests outside parliament, so we jump off and exit. There is a protest across the road from the Palace of Westminster. We can see the EU flags and Union Jack before we get close. Protesting the Brexit deal and asking for a people’s vote, all under the watchful eye of police presence. Police presence heavier in front of Parliament, along with uncompromising notices on the iron fencing on the serious nature of the charges to be brought should anyone attempt to enter without appropriate permission. Under no doubt that were anyone foolish enough to attempt to climb the fence they would be lucky to be taken down by only a taser. 

There are also a number of 1000 kg anchors outside the fence, looking more than capable of stopping any vehicle. In fact it’s curious that they are in metal “cages”. Theft obviously not much of a risk. We’re reminded of being in Estonia days before the Russian coup attempt and effective end of the Soviet Union. Our hostess commented on the large concrete objects in the streets of Tallinn. We tell the Russians that they’re sculptures, but they could stop a tank.

Monday, December 18/2018

Revisit Harrod’s in all its Christmas decadence. Probably ten years or more since we were there last, as for us it’s not shopping, just an exercise in viewing pornographic displays of food and jewellery. Beautiful, in both cases, but not tempted. Even a plate of fish and chips eaten on a stool at the counter is £27 ($46 CAD), not including the glass of what looks like champagne but might, of course, only be prosecco at champagne prices. 

Round the corner from Harrod’s is the Ecuadorian Embassy, uncomfortable home to Julian Assange. A very small but committed group of supporters has mounted a supportive and informative vigil on the sidewalk opposite the embassy - itself simply a floor in a red brick apartment building, circa 1900. The other floors contain ordinary flats. There is a great deal of scaffolding in front of the building. As one of the small group says, midwinter is an unlikely time for renovation and painting but the framework and covering does shroud the building and may well hide some of the seventeen closed circuit cameras that are supposed to be in the immediate area, only seven of which they have identified. They’re pleased that we know Craig Murray went to see Assange - he’s been a support to them as well as to other justice causes. The previous ambassador was sympathetic, but a new one arrives today, so the future is uncertain. The difficulty, of course, that the Americans would be more than happy to extradite Assange and silence him permanently. One member of the group, who refers to himself as a Catholic anarchist, has been strongly influenced by the Berrigans, with whom he was in touch, and Dorothy Day. Younger visitors than we are might not relate! We don’t meet this man, but are told he spends nights in a sleeping bag on the corner. They’re a committed little group, as concerned about social justice and equality as transparency and freedom of speech. Leave feeling, not for the first time, that our life is pretty self-indulgent. 

Dinner at the Polish Cultural Centre café. Cabbage rolls, goulash, pierogies, and dessert - poppyseed cheesecake (J) and apple charlotte (me). And a bonus of a small art exhibit on the theme of “taste of freedom“ on our way out.

Sunday, December 16/2018

Not yesterday’s bitter old, we’re promised. And it isn’t. Though warmer and not raining, it is some way away from sunny and warm. Overcast and still wet pavements, but the wind has dropped. Notice, at 12:30 when we are coming back from coffee, that the chap who has the blue sleeping bag next to the Bayswater tube station is still asleep. Or at least still in the sleeping bag and alive, as he moves. Which is better than it might have been, as people sleeping rough in London are sometimes found dead. 

In the afternoon to the Victoria and Albert. As usual, something old, something new. The sculptures in the entry hallway are familiar. Include a bust of Oliver Cromwell. J had mentioned earlier that this was the anniversary of his vicious intervention in Ireland (or of becoming Lord Protector, which provided the opposite of protection) and said we should have a drink later. To celebrate what Cromwell did to Ireland? No, no. To celebrate Irish resistance. Well that’s all right then. And we still have a little Irish whisky left. 

The “new” is an exhibit on censorship. Fifty years now since the Lord Chamberlain, familiar to Elizabethan theatre companies ceased censorship. The exhibit is mostly more recent, as in post Lord Chamberlain when theatre and film censorship stopped being government imposed and became more a question of self-regulation within the industry. Interesting changes over the past century, particularly in what requires censorship. Sex always more than violence, of course. Heterosexual sex without any kinkiness the least censored. Political censorship seemingly less important except in wartime, where it’s our information and their propaganda. Although a drawing of Harold Wilson sitting in a Christine Keeler position seemed to have crossed a line. (By the brilliant cartoonist Gerald Scarfe. Video of interview with him included in the exhibition). Modern sensibilities seem to worry less about sexual diversity but a great deal more about racism - Birth of a Nation, for example, is deeply shocking. Freaks, which showed circus “freaks” as main characters was disturbing at the time it was made, and still is, but the film maker had worked with the people portrayed and was clearly on their side. Currently gender stereotyping as well as racism and stereotypical portrayal of the disabled is considered dubious.

Saturday, December 18/2018

London becoming Christmassy, sometimes in unexpected ways. As we’re waiting on the platform at Bayswater tube station, we hear, first, the football fan style chanting. But what appears down the stairs is Santa and a troop of elves, seemingly all high on their own enthusiasm. Seldom photograph strangers, but can’t imagine that they would mind. 

Umbrellas up at West Harrow. Actually, we’re lucky. Major storm warnings in Scotland and the north of England, with gale force winds and freezing rain. Here it’s raining, but not too windy for umbrellas. We’re having supper at Jean’s and arrive in time for a chat before Shanthi joins us. Jean is scheduled for back surgery and scheduled to see the surgeon next week but has no date for the surgery itself yet. Certainly after Christmas and could be three months away. Shanthi back from a month in Singapore and Sri Lanka and busier than ever at work re government probation services and victim protection. 

Friday, December 14/2018

To the opening of a photography exhibit in the east end celebrating exactly a hundred years since (some) women first got the vote in Britain. Slightly later than the first women’s votes in Canada. And in both cases far from universal suffrage. In fact when WWI broke out there were male conscripts who didn’t have the vote, and this too became a concern of the East London Federation of the Suffragettes.  The opening is free, but we have booked places, and when we get to the little gallery we can see why. It’s very small, but it’s abuzz  when we arrive. There’s a jazz trio playing and two rooms full of photographs, and even a contemporary film projected on the wall. It’s interesting to see how intertwined, in the east end at least, the suffragette movement was with the fight for improved social conditions, for more and better food and medical care and better working conditions and childcare. It was pro union and pro socialism, and there is even a poster on display suggesting that Soviets in Britain would be a force for equality and workers’ rights. 

Thursday, December 13/2018

At Starbucks when we get a text saying that our new glasses are in, so we stop on our way home. Two new pairs each on the two for one deal, and they seem fine. None too soon, as we’d reached the point where J was alternating - unsatisfactorily from my point of view to say nothing of his - between distance and reading glasses. And I was wearing a pair with frames that Claude had soldered on one side and J wired together on the other, as it came apart after we had left home. Seems like astonishing luxury to have a pair and a spare, both intact. 

And, still in the interests of self-improvement, get my hair cut on Kilburn High Road. Too busy at the place across from Kiln Theatre so stop further along the road. 

Price for a dry cut? 

£15 ($25.50 CAD). 

But that’s the same as the price for a wash and cut. 

No, that’s £2 more. 

But that’s not what it says on the sign outside. 

Oh, all right then. We like to keep the customer happy. We have a Christmas special. 

(All this in perfectly amicable, conversational tones on both sides). I forbear saying that no one could possibly have had a large and detailed sign printed with dozens of different services on it - waxing, nails, etc - just for Christmas and have failed to mention Christmas on it. It’s more than some in Kilburn, but not at all an unreasonable price. There’s a salon on Queensway where shampoo and blow dry STARTS at £27 ($50 CAD). I regularly pay more at home than this girl is quoting. It’s just a modus operandi I dislike even more than I dislike disputing it. So, shampoo and cut for £15. And I do tip. 

Thursday is lamb kleftiko night at Roses, and we’re in luck. The best kleftiko we’ve had anywhere. The young (Eastern European?) waitress is sweet, and having a difficult night. A man in a wheelchair wants to come in, and she gets a small ramp and helps him manoeuvre his wheelchair in and adjust the footrests. Taking his order isn’t easy as he’s hard to understand and inclined to shout. Probably his life is harder than hers, but still. He has part of his meal put in a styrofoam container to take with him, indicating that it should be placed in one of the shopping bags on the back of his chair by dint of throwing it over his shoulder in the right general direction. It’s not until his second attempt, accompanied by shouting, that I realise what he’s doing. The waitress is a bit quicker and catches the box twice before managing to deposit it in one of the shopping bags, somewhat damaged. I tell her she deserves a glass of wine - and give her a bit more than usual.

Wednesday, December 12/2018

Kilburn Tricycle Theatre as was, its name now changed to Kiln Theatre, is a vibrant community theatre located in the heart of Kilburn. Combines youth theatre, traditional and experimental presentations, and cinema. There’s a couple of bars and a restaurant, and a nice sense of its belonging to the community. We have matinee tickets for White Teeth, a play which promises - and delivers -“Strobe Lights, Smoke and Haze, Loud Noises or Gunshots, and Strong Language”, as well as the underlying drama. It’s multigenerational, multicultural, multi viewpoint. 

Adapted from a Zadie Smith novel, and reset in Kilburn, itself a highly multicultural community. 

Kilburn was, as its name suggests, originally Irish, and we do have an Irish friend who lived there as a child during the war. Later waves of immigrants from the West Indies, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East have left it pretty thoroughly mixed. The plot is interesting enough to follow, the choreography super, and the energy highly engaging. We have front row seats, not considered prime and therefore a modest £10 ($16.70 CAD). Good unrestricted view, though, and close enough we could have unlaced a dancer’s shoes. 

Pick up a packet of shrimp and some wholemeal pitas and a bottle of wine at Aldi, which allows us to be home to watch the results of the Conservative leadership no confidence vote. The infamous 1922 Committee yesterday reached, not on its first attempt, the critical 48 letters needed to trigger a non-confidence vote. Announced this morning that the balloting would be this evening, voting restricted to Conservative parliamentary members and by secret ballot. If she survives the vote there cannot be another leadership challenge for a year. 

Tuesday, December 11/2018

J has been wanting to go to the lovely Turkish shop on Green Lanes Road and today we’re free, and the weather is good. There are lots of Turkish shops in London of course, but this one is a cross between a warehouse and a retail shop, and does its own importing. Possible to buy normal retail shop quantities, such as a packet of soup, or much larger, like a kilo of pepper flakes. 

We’re travelling, of course, so limited space and no refrigeration, but still acquire a large jar of sun dried black olives, some olive paste, a jar of pepper spread, a packet of redpepper flakes (not the kilo size) and dried apricots and figs.

Typo in yesterday’s post re LSE book download reference. Should be https://press.lse.ac.uk/site/book-publishing/

Would have preferred, obviously, to put this correction on yesterday’s post, but #x#@x blogger doesn’t allow me to see the whole post for editing purposes. Only one of its many defects. Suggestions for a better free blogging service welcome. Suspect it would be better if I were using a computer instead of the iPad mini, but it’s not going to happen.

Monday, December 10/2018

Booked at a panel discussion cum book launch at the London School of Economics. Seats were limited and when we get there we can see why. Possibly eighty seats in what is really a wide classroom rather than a lecture hall. We sit, foolishly, in the back row. Only about six rows back, and it’s fine until a very large, very square man comes and sits directly ahead as the room fills up. The book being launched is the UK’s  Changing Democracy, The 2018 audit. It’s a major edited work examining the effects of current events on the democratic character of UK institutions and legislation. Patrick Dunleavy, the book’s editor is on the panel, as is a young academic lawyer and two others. Consensus that democratic institutions and practices need constant attention, and that democratic backsliding is possible and indeed not uncommon. Joelle, the academic law teacher, is concerned that there may be democratic rights that will be vulnerable post Brexit, because when rights are not held to an external agency there is a temptation to reduce them. As in deregulation affecting employment standards. Or devolved powers returning from the EU but not, with any speed - or necessarily at all - being returned to the governments of Scotland or Wales. And, most of all she is worried about legislative power being given not even simply to government (rather than parliament) but to individual ministers who may consider particular legislation necessary. There are some major exceptions, like taxation, and there is a great deal of legislation to be enacted in a short period of time. But Joelle regards the drift from parliament as the legislative body as undemocratic and frightening. 

(Mostly) intelligent questions. The executive summary is quite good and includes a couple of interesting graphics, particularly the one on the current divisions in Labour and the Conservative Party. As this is a book launch, it’s accompanied by wine and nibbles after. Very happily, Dunleavy announces at the beginning that the whole book is downloadable free of charge, so there is no need for embarrassment at reluctance to add an extra kilo to the luggage for £21 pounds. No doubt several LSE students similarly pleased. 

Further chat with other audience members and panel. Very large very square man embarrasses Patrick Dunleavy by saying he considers Theresa May stupid and mentally ill, as we consider this a good time to drift off toward the nuts and olives. Where we encounter another Brexiteer who claims, largely inaccurately, that Trump has done what he said he would. Where do these people come from? Rest of audience seems quite normal. Excellent evening and new download book. At https://press.lse.ac.uk/site/boo-publishing/ should anyone else be interested. Not only applicable to UK. 

Sunday, December 9/2018

Out to Sunday lunch in Thames Ditton at Jenny and Doug’s. Doug still recovering - we all think not fast enough - from having tripped on a fallen broom handle and fallen face down on the cement outside the door. Facial abrasions pretty well gone, but seems to have been significant damage to right arm and consensus is that, wait times notwithstanding, he should go to see a doctor. Lovely visit though. And traditional Sunday lunch. Doug takes J to see his current project renovating a house for sale. D a perfectionist as always, so project impressive. Emma and Gilles come over with the girls so we get to visit with them as well. Take advantage of the wifi to set up the new phone for which we have, fortunately, a sim not in use.

Saturday, December 8/2018

The theory was that we’d go up Kilburn High Road and I’d see about getting my hair trimmed, as the current cut isn’t going to last until Cyprus. To be honest, what attracted me initially wasn’t the women’s haircuts, £8 for short hair. The last half inch trim I had on Kilburn High Road was £5 - seniors’ special - but to be fair that was several years ago. What led me to this spot was the sign outside offering two gin and tonics for the price of one. Did see that the sign belonged to the establishment next door but it made the whole block look more cheerful. Too busy today, but if I came back on a weekday, so probably Wednesday. We have matinee theatre tickets pretty near here. 

As usual look in the shop windows at the prices for used iphones. Never dead cheap, but iphone 5’s and 6’s have been coming down. Critically, they have more LTE bands than most and therefore work more or less anywhere in the world. On the other hand, they could have pretty old batteries. Carry on down the road stopping at Aldi and Sainsbury’s. Then Roses for a meal. One of the lovely European waitresses tells me - before being asked - that there is no salmon. So we settle for cod. And she quite cheerfully agrees to salad instead of chips in one order and mushrooms instead of peas in both.The boss comes through and says hi. Would like to ask him about Brexit, but he’s gone too quickly. Over to catch the bus to Kilburn Park tube station and pass the shop with the mobiles in the window. J inquires about the iPhone 6’s in sealed boxes. Reconditioned by Apple, which is no longer making the 6. New battery, sold as reconditioned, with a three month warranty. So we go for it. New phone.

Friday, December 7/2018

 

Our regular visit to the Saatchi Gallery, having checked first that it is in fact open. We’ve been caught a couple of times when they closed to host a private function. Theme of social satire, and some good works. Like Michael Cline’s work, although in the current climate of homelessness it has undertones of sadness as well as the obvious satire. Wendy Mayer’s figure of a woman is intriguing, not least because it lists the materials used as papier maché, wax, acrylic, eyes, mixed media. 

EYES? 

As we leave it’s dusk and Christmas lights in the chestnut trees along Kings Road.

Thursday, December 6/2018

Photograph the “mattress” left on the pavement outside Bayswater tube station. Passed earlier in the morning when the “bed” was still occupied and said then that the coverings didn’t look warm enough. Would not have taken a photo of the young man then, even if he had been asleep and his face obscured, but it doesn’t seem disrespectful now that he’s left. The government is proud of being the fifth, or arguably sixth, largest economy in the world, but its wealth is pretty unevenly divided, and the program of austerity has claimed a lot of victims. A program with very little outside approval, from the World Trade Organisation, which considers it ineffective, to the UN report last week with a scathing condemnation of the resulting poverty in a nation that could do much better if it chose, saying “Austerity could easily have spared the poor, if the political will had existed to do so”. So as NHS hospitals are closing beds some are opening in corners that never had them before. And one child in eleven in the borough of Westminster is homeless. 

Need to put in the order for our glasses if we’re to get them before we leave. J jokes re pressure to go beyond the entry level varifocals that he can say we’re old and may not last that long so there’s no point in more expensive lenses. As in exit level?  But the witch of yesterday’s visit isn’t there, and we get a lovely young man who is pleased to sell us exactly what we want without suggesting that we’ll be needing white canes with them. He’s from France - and going to Montreal for Christmas. Resist temptation to ask if he’ll have to leave after Brexit. Do ask the young waitress at Roses - whose English is barelylater though. Will you be all right after Brexit? She says she doesn’t know and I tell her I hope she will.

Wednesday, December 5/2018

Stop at Specsavers to check on their various sale combos. Not unusually there is a profusion/confusion of deals, mutually exclusive. Senior discount but not on the two for one, etc. Free varifocal lenses with some frames, but at what the lady describes as “entry” level. Our older lenses. Circa 1920, I suggest innocently. And get a bit of a laugh. But “entry” surely a term designed only to sound contemptuous. It’s right in there with training bra. Fourteen year olds don’t wear varifocals. Do they say to forty year olds whose arms are no longer quite long enough to hold the phone book that they might like some entry level progressive lenses? Not for the fully mature man or woman. Maybe I’ll be up against an entry level cane in another few years. 

But how much difference is there with the new and improved? All lenses are indeed not created equal, but what are we talking here? And I have not really had anything much to complain about with previous bog standard glasses. What I would like to be able to do is offer the lady £10 to skip the patronising jargon loaded sales pitch, but can see that this is not really on. However will have to do something to replace current frames, now soldered on one side and wired on the other. 

Bit of shopping on Kilburn High Road. Then stop at Roses for a meal. They do very nice grilled salmon fillets and will let you trade potatoes for extra veg if you want. At the next table a woman with a strong Irish accent complains volubly to the young European waitress that the roast chicken takeaway she had here recently turned out not to include stuffing. And chicken HAS stuffing she repeats. The girl is discreetly inaudible but seems to be saying that there is only stuffing with the turkey. Sounds reasonable - and seasonal. Have had roast chicken here myself, although not recently, and quite sure that I neither got nor expected stuffing. Wonder what the owner will do for staff post Brexit. Don’t know if we’ve ever seen a waitress here who wasn’t East European. 

There is a menu, but specials as well as many of the regular offerings are listed on huge chalkboards on the wall. Take the opportunity to photograph the breakfast menu, only slightly obscured by Christmas lights. Always reminds us irresistibly of the Monty Python spam, spam, spam and spam skit.

Tuesday, December 4/2018

Jenny has a meeting at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, frequented by Samuel Johnson and Charles Dickens, and rebuilt shortly after the great fire of 1666. (Haven’ been for some time and must go again).  So we choose a coffee spot nearby, The Fleet Street Press, a great name for a coffee shop located on Fleet Street. Had good reviews, and a cosy place, although the wide, shallow cups are ideally suited to cooling coffee as rapidly as possible. Interesting times in parliament. 

Conversation both familial and political. The Conservatives have a minority government propped up in a supply and confidence arrangement (which unlike a coalition gives them some agreed bribes but no cabinet positions, and lasts as long as it lasts) by the Northern Irish Democratic Union Party. Bribes notwithstanding, the DUP has reached the point, re Brexit, in which it is no longer willing to support the government in the coming vote on the acceptance of Theresa May’s compromise Brexit deal - a compromise which, unfortunately pleases virtually no one. More immediately, and more interestingly, the house, no longer under government control, has voted to instruct government to publish the full legal advice they have been given re the tentative Brexit agreement. The government has refused - a summary but not the whole advice. The government position, with which Jenny (a former government lawyer, and no Tory) agrees, is that it is a bad precedent, which jeopardises senior civil servants asked for detailed advice. The opposite view is that parliament is sovereign, and in fact the Speaker has said that arguably the government is in contempt of parliament. 

And, post script, by the end of the evening, the government has relented and agreed that it will indeed publish the full advice.

Monday, December 3/2018

Lovely evening begins with a misreading. Yesterday I was checking on shows at the National Theatre and discover what appears to be an incredibly low price for tonight’s performance of David Hare’s I’m Not Running. Super playwright, political theme, and an astonishing £7 price. Could only assume that on a Monday night it was undersold, and booked two tickets. Looking at the receipt later I realise that what we are booked for is not the play but a talk by the playwright. So, having paid, we go to the six o’clock talk. And it’s super. Satisfying mixture of lefty politics and a bit of exploration of the complexity of both political motivation and the craft of writing. And quite an appealing presence. We’re both delighted. And, as I collect the tickets and inquire about queuing for day release tickets at £15 ($25.50 CAD) the girl at the ticket counter offers me £15 seats for tonight. So we get both the talk and the drama - a play looking at the question of the passionately committed vs the party man. The natural attraction is to the passionately committed, but a single sacred cause with no need to administer a policy is in some ways a luxury. An interesting play - but we both found Hare’s talk the more compelling. 

Sunday, December 2/2018

Coffee cum wifi at Pret A Manger. Notice as we pass that our Starbucks is open again, so we’ll have to check it out tomorrow. Feel at Pret like I’m guardian of the loo. There are three unisex cubicles and a disabled unisex cubicle behind a door opened with a code printed on the receipts. Twice women ask me if I have the code and I give it to them. The second woman apologises. She isn’t a customer but her small daughter badly needs to use the toilet. Then another woman deposits her coffee on the table next to us, asking that we keep an eye on it while she’s in the loo. May sit somewhere with less responsibility next time. 

To Angel tube station. Quick look in the supermarkets and at the stalls in Chapel Market. Then Indian Veg, for the first time this year. Almost vegan - think with one exception this time. Always similar set up, with minor changes. The ingredients aren’t expensive and it’s not haute cuisine, but iy is all you can eat for £7.90 and no charge for bringing your own wine or beer. And we have small plastic airline wine bottles filled with the remainder of our last Portuguese bottle. Best is that they give free boxes of food to the homeless. And then there’s the vegetarian propaganda on the walls. Some of it I quite agree with, such as the environmental unsustainability of producing meat for a rapidly increasing world population. Some of the health proclamations seem considerably less sound. Such as warm water resolving both high and low blood pressure as well as all diseases related to the eyes ears and throat. That’s warm water. Cold water causes heart attacks and stomach cancer. I’m happy drinking water at room temperature but don’t think I’ll be switching to warm. It appears to reverse poor appetite - and increasing appetite seems like too much of a risk. The food for the homeless is lovely though.

Saturday, December 1/2018

Alarm set for six, and transfer pick up due at 8:20. So fairly leisurely tidy up, sandwich packing, and rubbish out. Transfer shuttles only collect from hotels, not private residences, so back to the Hotel do Cerro a block away. Cerro means hill, so seems to have given its name to quite a few places around here. Driver late - in fact immediately after I phone the Ticket Shop to inquire. 

He takes the slow route through small towns, a bit inland from the coast. On arrival we came by the motorway, so this is interesting. Actually much more interesting. But why is he doing it? Speed limit mostly 50, so it’s going to take longer. Suppose that he may wish to save petrol and has no customers after us anyway. Or? See short story plotting itself in my head. Robbed by shuttle driver well away from the public eye.  Though some tweaking required. We are going east, as we should be, and this is scarcely uninhabited territory. Arrive at the airport the regulation two hours before the flight. 

And another, much more intriguing short story in the making. There’s a two stage escalator up to the floor of our departure gate. The woman ahead of me has placed her carry-on on the step ahead, somewhat awkwardly, and as she reaches the landing between the two stages, she trips over it and clumsily removes both bag and herself to the side of the escalator. And, clearly distressed, begins plaintively and repeatedly calling « Bernie, Bernie «. I assume that she’s trying to summon assistance from the man who had been just ahead of her, who is paying no attention, but who could be slightly deaf. So I touch him on the arm and say that I think his wife is calling him. He’s very pleasant about it but says not his wife - he’s travelling alone and a free man until he gets home in the evening. So a mystery. Eventually she comes through the security check into the departure lounge, with much discussion well out of hearing range. But joins a couple who are obviously friends of hers and sits immediately behind us, where I hear only enough to be sure that her husband has not turned up at the airport. She’s upset but actually sounds more angry than panicked. Would love to know the backstory. All sorts of fictional possibilities. 

Happy we’ve taken sandwiches on the plane - toasted cheese, mushroom, and caramelised onion - and tap water. Have noticed that very few people seem to buy the food (M&S) that British Airways insisted most wanted when they stopped providing free meals and snacks. Some by drinks, but at £1 ($1.70 CAD) for a bottle of water, it’s no bargain. The couple next to me have brought sandwiches but buy a cup of tea each, and are charged £4.90 ($8.33 CAD). Yes, realise my response is generational but think it’s taking outrageous advantage of a captive audience. 

Land at Gatwick, and as usual the non-EU queue moves slowly enough - for much of the time served by only one desk - that the carousel with our suitcases has long stopped and four lonely bags, two of them ours, are standing beside it. This strikes J as a security risk. For us, obviously, but also for the airport, as presumably someone with an explosive device and timer could have checked luggage blow up in the airport if uncollected cases are an unremarkable occurrence. 

Train to St Pancras and then tube « home ». Renovations continuing, so not our usual room, but we’re fine.

Friday, November 30/2018

Last day. Last walk down to the old town. We’ll have its winding streets and lanes figured out just in time to leave - and if it’s another seven years before we’re back we won’t remember them. Do we like Portugal as much as Cyprus? Hard to say. Not as warm in the winter. Hillier. Accommodation cheaper but food more expensive. Cyprus now more familiar territory and we have a bit of community. And, importantly, Cyprus is not Schengen and Portugal, like most of Europe, is. People who are not from EU or Schengen countries get to spend a total of three months out of any six in Schengen territory. A nuisance for us and also potentially for UK citizens post Brexit.