Saturday, January 12/2018

One of the pleasures, well dubious pleasures, of travelling as much as we do is to take breaks from the more frustrating political situations as we trade them in for new, and equally enraging fiascos in other venues. Not that anything is truly ever left behind in the days of the internet. Some political dilemmas are simply overwhelming, and it’s impossible not to be drawn in to the self-inflicted injuries of the current American impasse or the slow motion inevitability of the Brexit disaster. And the Middle East is a constant running sore. 

Then there was the Canadian election of 2006 when we had our ballots couriered to Cyprus and back to Canada. But indignation over Sioux Lookout council decisions does fade as we observe, with gratitude falling a little short of schadenfreude at our political detachment, the scene in Cyprus. And this quite apart from the endless and futile negotiations over the reunification of North and South. So in the Cyprus Mail, the Cypriot Attorney General’s brother makes accusations in some astonishing detail of the incestuous relationship between the Supreme Court and the banks, saying “There is not a single supreme court judge who does not have a child at the law office that promotes the banks’ interests,” and following up with a very long list of names and relationships, adding that this was “the reason Cyprus was convicted by the European Court of Human Rights in January last year for lack of impartiality of the Supreme Court”. Truly shocking even in the tribal system that Cyprus enjoys.

Friay, January 11/2019

Walk home past lemon 🍋 and olive trees. Unfortunately, the comfort of being at home in a place is incompatible with the excitement of being in an exotic location. So we now have the happy sense that Cyprus is one of our homes, but have lost the thrill that we had in December 2000 of seeing oranges on the trees - trees at that time in Syntagma Square in Athens, also decorated with Christmas lights. 

Now reading aloud Heroic Failure by Irish journalist Fintan O’Toole. A look at Brexit through the lens of England’s (not Britain’s - he specifically exempts the Scots, Welsh, and Northern Irish) exceptionalism, conscious sense of superiority, and experience of loss of empire. Because “when your neighbour is going mad it is only reasonable to want to understand the source of their distress”. Written with wit and insight. A bit over the top, but much truth in it.

Thursday, January 10/2019

Jane and Bill collect us at 9:30 and we head north. First stop is a frozen food wholesaler that Bill patronises, with freezers full of seafood and fish, as well as lamb and other delights. Tempted by the enormous (though not inexpensive) prawns, but restrained by the knowledge that the minute freezer in our bar sized fridge is already partly full, and that before we have taken half an empty plastic egg carton to make ice cubes. 

Then an exploratory trip to find a new (as of November) crossing to North Cyprus. Road signs not entirely helpful. Driving east looking for the town of Derynia, we repeatedly pass signs saying it is 11 km away. If the first is right, the others can’t be. No South Cypriot sign ever says that the border, or the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus, exists, let alone in close proximity. So we come upon it quite suddenly. Passports checked on both sides and we’re driving down a long road, maybe a mile, lined with abandoned houses, some small and made of clay, collapsing ruins, others larger brick or stone buildings. Presumably left to the elements in 1974. And then we’re in the city of Famagusta proper. 

Thursday is market day here, and it’s always a delight. Fruit, vegetables, bedding plants, cheese, butter, yoghurt, nuts, clothing, minor hardware, kitchen ware, jewellery, and more. Jane and Bill fill their trolley, and we, with less kitchen space to return to, get sundried olives, dried apricots and red lentils. (The green lentils here, as in the south, are almost always Canadian). A meal at Minder, home of traditional Cypriot cooking, first introduced to us by Femi, our dentist, and Feliz, his wife. Everything here good, but my favourite has a minced meat and onion (and sometimes ground nut) filling with a bulgar, onion, and mashed potato based crust, deep fried. Check the recipe at home. Complex and labour intensive, and very tempting, though salt and deep frying oil quantities every bit as dubious in health terms as one might have guessed.

Wednesday, January 9/2019

 More or less the last day of getting restocked, although with a half sized fridge, limited cupboard space and an endless supply of fresh produce, shopping is more or less daily anyway. We missed the pre-Christmas to New Year liquor and wine sales at the supermarkets, which are usually pretty good, the difficulty being that ideally one should predict consumption through to the beginning of April and stock up. Still, post New Year’s Cyprus remains one of the better countries to buy in. Grant’s triple wood whiskey blend on sale for €7 ($10.64 CAD, £6.30) for a 70 cl bottle. Not that one wishes to become alcoholic simply because it would be inexpensive to do so. 

Always some entertainment value to shopping as well. Looking at the various jars of honey, I’m puzzled by “theme” honey. And spend a few seconds wondering what the theme might be, until it occurs to me that the intended word is almost certainly thyme. Paused yesterday over “backed” beans, but clearly that was baked. My previous favourite was self raisin flour. But actually we’re pretty lucky in the larger stores that they make any effort at all to put it in English. The alternative is the chancy judging by the picture, which can be quite misleading. 

Tuesday, January 8/2019

Settling in. As with other rooms/flats where we’ve stayed before, much simpler when we know where everything goes. Couch is new, and about time as its predecessor was getting embarrassingly threadbare. Or at least management should have been embarrassed but probably weren’t. This one is, as J points out, designed to open out into a bed. In its unopened state the seating seems to have a slight tilt. Well, not all that slight, as the spirit level app on my mini iPad shows. OK to curl up on, though, and the armchairs are comfortable. J has kept the plastic coated wire for a number of purposes - like hanging the frying pans, their stainless steel and our ceramic, from the ceiling slats. The too very large glass jars we’ve kept are back in service storing the heavily chlorinated water until the chlorine dissipates, thus avoiding the environmentally ugly (and expensive) local practice of buying all drinking water. Heavy to carry too, and our system works very well. 

Still in the stocking up department, trip over to Super Discount Store. Still known to us by previous title of Elephant Store and to many locals by longtime name of Sarris. Reminds me of Rachel’s complaint in Sioux Lookout that residents referred to local businesses by unguessable former names. Buy excellent bacon and lountza (smoked pork tenderloin). Meat counter also features somewhat disturbing collection of sheep’s heads, eyeballs included. Don’t bother asking the price.

Monday, January 7/2019

Stock up day. Trips to Lidl and Prinos, the greengrocer. Lidl, home of one of our favourite multigrain seeded breads as well as perfectly drinkable French wines at €3 ($4.56CAD). Whole grain spaghetti at 90 euro cents for a kilo ($1.37 CAD). A pail of Greek yoghurt, olive oil, chocolate. Stop at the Russian shop on the way back for pepper spread and herring fillets. This a little trickier, as the languages of the shop are Greek and (I think) Bulgarian. Whereas we are capable of purchasing in English, Polish, and probably French. Thus the overlap is imperfect. But lots of good will on both sides. 

Sky overcast as we leave for the second errand, though it’s only four short blocks away. Prinos always an aesthetic delight of colours and shapes. Prices always a delight too, now that we’re into entirely local produce. So sun-dried olives, red peppers, carrots, bananas, onions, courgettes, tahini, bananas, parsley, two heads of garlic, three conference pears, nearly a kilo of clementines, over a kilo of tomatoes and a lemon come to a grand total of €10.82 (16.45 CAD). Going away for the winter isn’t free, but there is a rebate. And everything fresh. Umbrellas up as we return, though it’s not raining heavily. 

Sunday, January 6/2018

Somewhat depressingly, we’ve returned to Cyprus to wet and (for Cyprus) chilly conditions.  Realise that January 6 is also Epiphany. In much of the world a feast attracting minor religious interest but in Cyprus a major public holiday. Implication for us being that the stores will not be open, excepting the little peripteros. That’s the Greek. In Québec read dépanneur. Somehow convenience store doesn’t do it. Corner shop a bit better sounding, but not very descriptive - or often inaccurately so. Bakeries open 365 days of the year, so we get a round loaf of whole grain village bread. 

And off to Cambanella’s with Bill and Jane for Sunday lunch, British style. Cypriot restaurateurs know how to treat their customers. Warm greetings as we go in, arriving at the table with Jane’s regular cushion, the owner round at the table to see us, his wife and partner at the carving table and disappointed if we don’t eat enough. They’re just back from a holiday visiting their daughter in England, where, she says, it was warmer and dryer than it’s been here. We picked a good year for our alternative Christmas. 

Collect the boxes we’ve stored for the winter in the staff coffee room cum junk area. A Norwegian couple, whom we know slightly from previous years is there on the same errand, having also arrived yesterday. Not highly fluent in English, and of course our Norwegian limited to the words for thank you and I can’t speak Norwegian. But she and I lament that despite our intentions we still have too much stuff. Though can’t help noting that their too much is considerably more spare than our too much. Rediscover stash of everything from french press coffee maker and mugs to cd’s and tapes from lucky charity shop purchase one year (also player for same) to a small crescent wrench.

Thursday, December 27/2018

The plan was that we would take the bus in to Ipswich and collect the hire car to use for the next four days. The bus bit worked fine. UK seniors free and us £2.40 ($4.13 CAD) each. The car bit no so much. Bill had booked the hire in September and showed them his (Cypriot) driving licence. Everything was fine, but they had neglected to say that since his driving licence was foreign he should bring his passport as ID. So a little unhappy discussion resulting in an agreement that we would be back tomorrow with the documentation and get the car for three days. 

Bus back, but interesting stop at a charity shop where we admire much but actually only buy a lampshade for Jane’s sitting room lamp. Which turns out to fit the lamp and the living room decor very well. Quiet afternoon. Turns out it’s Jane and Bill’s forty-second wedding anniversary. Time to open the port. 🍷🍷

Saturday, January 5/2019

Dark when we get up. Well, it would be. Not much beyond the winter solstice, and the alarm set for 6:50. And Ipswich is fractionally north of London, which is north of Sioux Lookout. Interestingly, when we got up yesterday the temperatures were the same in Martlesham and Sioux Lookout - at minus one.  Chilly for England, but not inordinately for January. Unusually mild for Sioux Lookout in January, of course. 

Taxi collects us at ten to nine, which leaves us quite early for the ten o’clock coach from Ipswich to Stansted Airport. Time pleasantly filled by coffee at McDonalds. Coach takes an hour and a half to Stansted, but it’s a comfortable ride and interesting, going through Colchester, a Roman city in its time, and past its stone castle. Stansted looks to be in contention for London’s least pleasant airport, although in fairness I haven’t been to London City - just Heathrow, Gatwick, and Luton. A single storey barn of a building in which passengers come a very obvious second to commerce. Endless duty free along the winding sparkly path, and wooden slatted seating.  Our priorities in airports are decent toilets, free wifi, and free drinkable tap or fountain water, probably in that order. Well, the toilets are fine. Cheapest water is £1.15 ($1.95 CAD) for 750 ml, and the wifi, while free in theory, simply doesn’t work. Also, the waiting room at the gate has seating for considerably less than half of the passengers on our flight, leaving a lot of people (though not us) standing for over half an hour. Not impressed. 

Flight very full, and seats pretty narrow. J and I have aisle seats opposite each other, chosen last October. The man in the middle seat next to me overflows a bit, probably on both sides, but can hardly fault him. His shoulder width is simply more than the seat is designed for. Have visions of centre seats occupied only by prisoners with hands handcuffed in front as most suitable use for the plane. Then, stroke of luck, As soon as seatbelt sign is off broad shouldered man disappears to join friend in front of plane. Window seat bloke and I beam happily. J not similarly fortunate. 

We’ve ordered a prepaid meal, on the flight, in part because it was a reasonably good deal as part of seat selection and luggage check package and in part because of arrival at hotel some time after ten on a Saturday evening. Turns out to be quite nice and fairly substantial. Much better than the à la carte offerings on the seat pocket menu, which features bottled water at £1.80 ($3.06 CAD) for 333 ml. 

Plenty of reading on our tablets, which is good, as the entertainment consists largely of the crew trying to sell scratch style lottery tickets. Though there’s also a round of “duty free” sales, talked up, almost barker style, by a stewardess before the trolley comes through. A little confusing as UK still, barely, part of EU. Unable to assess the value or efficacy of the “magic oil” but liquor prices almost certainly still better in Cyprus than aboard. 

Jane and Bill have ordered a cab from a driver they like. Turns out to be a limo, so space no problem. Friendly receptionist at the Sunflower. We’re given the key for 404, but expecting our old 403. Take both keys and decide - return the one you don’t want. Look at 404. It’s a corner flat facing the main road, so noisier. Couch is really flat covered bed. No arms or back. On the other hand fridge, kettle and corkscrew are better than 403. Frying pan much better - stainless steel instead of weathered non-stick. So we swap above items, in accordance with longstanding local practice, and settle in. 

Friday, January 4/2018

Last day. Tantalising introduction to Suffolk. Sutton Hoo closed for improvements and we didn’t get to Woodbridge, home of Adnam’s Brewery, and about three miles from Sutton Hoo, home to a complete excavated Anglo-Saxon burial ship and treasure. Not much evidence of Bronze Age settlement, or for that matter of three hundred years of Roman occupation. But this bit of East Anglia, once the independent kingdom of the Angles. Its east coast location made for very early Anglo-Saxon settlement, as well as significant Danish and Viking incursions. It also makes for villages and towns of sailing and second homes as well as farming and fishing. 

Bill’s sons both grew up sailing the rivers and coast and Bill and Jane initially retired onto a yacht that Bill had built. Kevin, in a wheelchair since an accident in his teens, won a gold medal in sailing at the 1996 Paralympics. Seventy miles from London, but a different world.

Thursday, January 3/2019

Jane to the doctor for medication, inhaled and antibiotic. 

Bill, J and I take an afternoon walk nearby. Chilly, but lots of green to see - holly, for example. Lovely, huge oaks, many over a hundred years old. Plenty of bright yellow flowers on the gorse bushes, a few tiny brave daisies, and even three lonely blackberries, unripe but still clinging on.

Wednesday, January 2/2019

Cancel our planned trip to Woodbridge, as Jane has an ugly chest cold. J and I do the Tesco run - walk, rather - taking, inadvertently, the scenic route. Two new concrete pads opposite the end of our driveway will soon be the sites of modular park homes like Bill and Jane’s. As we leave for the store there is a loud, slow drumming sound, rather like Indian drumming. Turns out to be a young man rhythmically hitting a small cement mixer with a mallet, to knock off dried cement. J stops to joke with the men and I note that one of them is sporting a mohawk.

In the evening we watch a British program on the finding of Sir John Franklin’s ship Erebus in the Northwest Passage. Interesting watching with Bill, who is both sailor and diver and has a fair number of comments.

Tuesday, January 1/2019

New Year’s Day. Chillier today, and a bit windy. We’re to meet up with Kevin and Ann and Tony (Mandy’s working) for a meal at a pub called the Farmhouse. We’re planning to take the bus, assuming the Sunday and holiday schedule applies. Turns out it doesn’t - there are no buses on New Year’s Day. And the taxis are fare and a half. But we’re soon there. Cheerful and very busy. Beef and ale pie for us, but it’s a menu with lots of choice, including vegan sausages for Tony. 

Opportunity to book same taxi firm as took us to the pub and back for the trip to Stansted Airport on Saturday. 

Monday, December 31/2018

Overcast, with low clouds, but not cold. Or so J and Bill say after a morning planting bulbs - which sadly will result in crocuses and daffodils that are finished before they’re back from Cyprus next May. J suggests installing a camcorder. Jane to Tesco on the mobility scooter for coffee. We seem to have a superabundance of everything else, thanks to our own shopping and an enormous Christmas hamper sent by Jane’s brother. 

Afternoon tea at Tony and Mandy’s. Laura there as well. Christmas coloured strawberry daiquiris, and Tony’s homemade vegan Christmas cake. 

Can hear a few distant fireworks in the evening but end with London’s pretty spectacular ones via BBC.

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.