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It's been a good day, this sunny Tuesday: working with pleasant and easy-going people, enjoying a stroll to the edge of Richmond Park along quiet suburban streets of Sheen followed by an amazingly aromatic and tasty espresso from a Milestone Green corner cafe and many other simple but enjoyable moments.
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On the way to Richmond an elegant lady sat next to me on the bus and we started chatting. It turned out she came to England from Poland in 1967 and now was enjoying the senior years. She was on the way to the cinema to see a movie for only three pounds a ticket. Something to look forward to!:-)
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Then, at the Octavia Sheen shop I saw a book by the celebrated Stephen Fry which I am going to read, or at least skim through. It turned out that my colleague knows him through her husband who is a director or producer! What a small world! Although I'm not a TV-fan, but I've long admired Stephen Fry's wit and have always wanted to have an opportunity to meet him. I suppose that's as close as I can get to that.;-)
Inspired, I looked up his blog and read one of the recent entries 'Only The Lonely'.
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At lunchtime I gave my legs a test and walked to Richmond Park.
I found it most enjoyable, despite a bit of discomfort in the knee on the way back. Fresh air, beautiful views, plenty of deer (in the distance...) and nice relaxed people smiling and stopping for a chat. A young woman with a pram told me that her dog had gone through a special training so as not to chase the deer at the park. I wonder what that involves...
Sheen Gate to Richmond Park:
'Zoomed in' deer:
The car roof cat - only in Sheen!
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When I returned to the shop, I accepted a donation from a lady who had come back from Burma recently and was still deeply moved by the living conditions and hardship that life has in stock for the people there. The people in our part of the world do not realise how privileged they are, how little others have...
She left a donation of a china set and a pair of china elephants, one of them being from Folkestone, the town I visit so very often. The items belonged to her family for generations. She told me they were more than a hundred years old.
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I also heard about a private screening of a new film at Chelsea Arts Club last night. The film was made during the production of a play "The Two Worlds of Charlie F." at The Theatre Royal, Haymarket. The play follows the lives of the British soldiers in Afghanistan from the moment they were wounded right through to their recoveries back in Britain. The actual soldiers are the cast, but the stories are fictional. Well, then this evening I tuned in for the live-streaming of a British Council lecture at The English Language Union. Titled Voices and images from the First World War, with Lucinda Hawksley, it examined the role of propaganda in that war in Britain. Yes, I know, Remembrance Day, poppies, honouring the glorious dead. Yes, fallen soldiers deserve to be remembered. However, isn't it just glorifying a big business machine that the war in itself is? Just a thought.... But why did they have to go to war in the first place? Why did ordinary men had to kill other ordinary men in the name of this or that? It's horrifying to realise how much pressure was put on the men during the war to make them feel obliged to join the army. I don't think I was aware of 'The White Feather Campaign' led by Emmeline Pankhurst alike. A man who didn't wear a uniform was presented with a white feather by a woman. I was deeply moved when Ms Hawksley told us about a man from Shepherds Bush who couldn't join the army because of his heart condition. So many times he would be given a feather that it led to his committing a suicide...
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When I got back home, the neighbour's cat was waiting by the door. We haven't met for quite a while.
Good night...
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