From Ealing Common to Ealing Broadway

There were four of us who braved the weather and met at Ealing Common Station for another 'walk and talk'.
How do these walks and talks work?
 We meet in a given place and walk through the area talking only in English because many people who join us need more practice to gain confidence in speaking English. However, the walks are also an opportunity to get to know different parts of London, its history, culture and things it has to offer nowadays.

Here are a few pictures from our walk in the snow that melted before it fell to the ground:

When you come out of the station and look to the right, imagine going along this road for a long time and eventually you will find yourself in... Oxford Street. Yes, you are right if you are guessing that if you kept going left, you would eventually arrive in Oxford, but that's a much longer way. Now, if you could travel back in time and stopped in the 18th century, you could have visited Henry Fielding, a famous novelist whose 'Tom Jones' gained immense popularity and is still a jolly good read, I'd say. If you'd like to read an interesting biography of Henry Fielding, please go to this link, and should you wish for more reading, click here.

It was necessary to wait for Tomek who was coming from far away.

As usual, I had fun taking a picture of someone else taking a picture. Nobody took a picture of me at that moment though. It was too cold.

One day I will arrange a visit to this place...

A view across Ealing Common gives you an idea of how bleak the day was.

 What a great suggestion it was to have something hot at The Gryf, Polish restaurant, by the Polish (of course) church in Windsor Road.

These musicians in the restaurant window, where do they come from?

My barley soup was excellent!

 Tomek was impressed to see our Ealing 'Percheron', a popular meeting place, according to Beata, who started her London adventure with English at Edward's School of English here, in Ealing Broadway, many years ago.

 Having walked through the Ealing Shopping Centre, we climbed the stairs and entered the library which is soon to be moved to smaller premises above PRIMARK.  'Use it or you will lose it' was a slogan heard a number of times during the event held at the library this afternoon. If people don't come to libraries, they will get closed down, as simple as that...

Beata and Tomek want to make sure they will remember the dates of the local history lectures 

Near the entrance there was a small but informative display on the subject of recycling.


Nearby is an exhibition showing photographs of LGBT community members holding their childhood portraits.

 Soon I met Rachel who urged us to make our way to The Green Room so we didn't miss the music performance. It was nice to see many familiar faces there.

The previous time I saw Robbie, he was in a different role:

Cllr Dr Patricia Walker, the Mayor of Ealing, spoke at the event as well.

 We listened to a poet from the Kurdish part of Syria. It was very moving.

There were many hands-on activities for children. I met Judith who runs art projects at Bunny Park in Hanwell. That's yet another destination for the Ealing Walking, Talking and Exploring Group.

This lady I had a pleasure to meet at the Acton Carnival last summer. You can learn a lot about Afghanistan and its culture from her.

That was a feast for the ears: music and singing.

 Richard, the storyteller I first heard at a Greenford festival, was brilliant as always. Pity my friends had to leave early and missed his performance. We chatted afterwards and he told me he had started studying anthropology and is really interested in the history of storytelling and its popularity within educational systems in other countries. Well, I could tell him instantly about a school in the outskirts of Skarzysko-Kamienna which invites storytellers to work with the students.

Colourful headgear and fabric from Afghanistan

Children's works photographed!

The last person I spoke to at the event was a lady from the library. She got really interested in my walking and talking tours and introduced me to a man called Jonathan who is in charge of the local history centre. We had a nice chat. He showed me a book about the Polish church in Ealing which was written by a Polish man, Juliusz Englert.

Looking through the book, I couldn't help noticing a familiar name: Alicja Poloczek. She died last year...

I met her through mutual friends at the Polish Cultural Centre. She was involved in so many activities. RIP, Ms Poloczek.

Life goes on and here are some events you may like to put in your diary, Dear Reader:

Thank you for reading this lengthy post. I would be happy to hear from you in the comment section!:-)