Friday - waking up with a cold

Most unwelcome to wake up with a cold on a Friday when you've made some nice plans for the weekend. I got though the working day all right, despite the dreadfully cold and wet weather conditions. After all, I work indoors, so I was safe from the rain. The heating was not very effective, maybe because all the energy went into producing the rather unpleasant sound...

Today I had a chat with a Kurdish Turk waiter who came to London eleven years ago, got a degree in engineering and landed... working at a restaurant. We reflected upon the weird situation of his forty million compatriots scattered around the world as the whirlwind of history deprived them of their own independent country.  Then, the other waiter, from Teheran, turned out to have a degree in IT. . It was sort of after lunchtime and the place was nearly empty. Although they serve excellent food, I'm not sure they were very busy earlier. There are more and more businesses closing down in this popular street. Some of them have been there for many years and they will surely be missed when get replaced by Starbuck-like ones who could afford the increased rent rates. I also talked to an old lady who shared with me her very good memories of volunteering at the charity shop presently called Octavia Housing in Turnham Green which was joined by the Notting Hill Trust a few years back. She, like many others, was saddened to find out that her happy workplace from twenty years ago has to disappear from the Chiswick map.

Another noteworthy Friday encounter was with a kind man who donated an autobiographical book written and signed by his friend, an Eastender evacuated to the West Country during the war and living there, near Bristol ever since.

I do find it fascinating to meet all these people, complete strangers, and I feel honoured to get introduced to a smaller or bigger fraction of their lives. I do not think it happens so much in smaller communities. In the smallest ones, people do know about one another anyway (sometimes much more than there is..;-) ) and in towns and cities people tend to keep themselves to themselves. However, this is kind of superficial knowledge, facts, assumptions, impressions, sometimes gossip and presumptions, while I have a feeling that, in many cases, here, in London, these short, brief encounters can sometimes be more meaningful. Maybe… In truth, I tend not to generalize about anything in life. J