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From: Remi
Category: Other stuff
Date: 22 June 2004
As soon as I returned to making my way to the station, the rain fell upon us with avengeance. Fortunately my anorak was equipped with a hood, which I pulled out of its pouch, and then trundled on towards my destination. A car hailed me over and turned out to be under the command of Debbie, who was the ward manager of Woodlands nursing home where I had worked two days previously. She kindly escorted me to the train station, something the local bus service was unable to do by the advertised time. When I eventually reached my lodgings for the night, I greeted the various memebers of its household, detailed the recent portentous events in my life, before retiring to my rooms. Barbara Trapido's latest novel took me to bed. I enjoyed its description of South Africa in the 1930s and particularly revelled in coming across italicised Afrikaans phrases, which help me fathom the mystery of Leytonstone embodied by Pik and Bok, our friendly rugger-loving street dwellers and bus-stoppers. But soon enough I felt that I was merely using this novel as a means of acquiring factual knowledge, something that has hindered my appreciation of literature through the ages, so I placed it on the floor and returned to my earlier effort, 'Le Corps' by Isaac Asimov. This did the trick and soon enough I was dreaming of exams for the twentieth time. Saturday afternoon, I helped myself to two French beers and appreciated the glassware on display in the Coleherne theatre whilst chatting with some of their creators. Before long, I found myself aboard the no.19 bus on the way to Highbury, not to support Arsenal but to depose my sausage bag at my newly-acquired companion's home. She regaled me with sweetmeats and I told her, and her lodger, tales of my days in the Guards. They listened with amusement before I made my way to Notting Hill, where the great Lundhini magically appeared at Cafe Costa, speaking on an identical mobile to my own. We greeted and merried eachother, and made our way to the party. I made a real effort to speak to people as they would like to be spoken to, or not at all, as is the case. Dan the man held an audience of art-lovers and money-spinners in his thrall. We southern-talked our way to the tube, then parted. Sunday held fewer surprises, other than meeting up with a great film-maker of our age and ,not being able to play tennis for the rain, I skipped down Charing Cross Road. A habitual client of Borders met me in a nearby store, then told me not to bother reading Lewis Wolpert. I let him speak, he said I'd changed. Maybe I wasn't putting my party talk into practise, but I did found that he had his own agenda of topics. No nursing work available, but back to Norfolk where I realised that I'd left my kind benefatcor's keys locked in his home. Did this dampen his return journey? At least, it emphasised my transitory appreciation of London life.
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