My dear Family & friends, 21 July
My letter is later than usual this week because we had houseguests over the weekend. Our friends Johan and Linda came up from London by train on Friday evening and stayed over for two nights. Much like my brother-in-law Terry, they commented on the comfort of the bed in our spare bedroom which I find quite curious. I never liked that mattress. It used to be Lucia’s and my mattress until I insisted that we buy another for ourselves. Although it’s firm, I find it just too bouncy; if one person shifts about a bit, the other person bounces along with them. We now have a firm, non-bouncy mattress. Be that as it may, the weekend went by all too quickly before we had to take Johan and Linda back to the railway station shortly before the German F1 Grand Prix yesterday afternoon.
The Grand Prix didn’t go the way I would have wanted it to. I was much distressed that the McClaren Mercedes had the Ferraris completely outclassed – so distressed that I promptly fell asleep on the sofa while Lucia worked away on her laptop next to me.
Last weekend was also fairly busy with the highlight being a visit to Lucia’s cousin, Sue, for Sunday lunch. Sue lives with husband Chris and their two children in Tidmarsh, near Reading. Sue’s mother, Lorna (Lucia’s aunt), was also visiting from Cardiff for the weekend especially for the lunch. A good part of the early conversation revolved around when last everyone had been together. The answer, as best I can remember, was a very long time ago. I seemed to crack the nod of approval from this branch of the family whom I had never met. Later in the afternoon, Sue’s brother, Sean (also from Cardiff), his wife, Alison, and their three children arrived just in time for desert. The adults sat and chatted amiably away (occasionally ducking an errant ball) while the children cavorted gaily and squealed with delight. The afternoon zipped by in a flash and it was early evening before we were on the road back to Warwick. The late afternoon sun on our journey home turned the yellowing wheat fields into gold.
The big event of the week was our trip down to London on Tuesday for Lucia’s visa “interview” at the Portuguese consulate. The first thing we had to decide was how we were going to get down to London – car or train. If the train to London arrives before 10am, the return ticket costs £75 against the off-peak fee of £30 for arrivals at Marylebone station after 10am. The interview was set for 11am which meant that we would need to catch an earlier train to be sure that we would be at the consulate on time. That then makes it vastly cheaper to drive down to London. I always park at Brent Cross shopping centre near Hendon where the parking is free and it’s just a 10 minute walk to the nearest tube station. We left Warwick at 8am thinking that it would be more than enough time to get down to London, have a leisurely coffee somewhere, and then stroll to the consulate. The drive took us a lot longer than we thought it would, but we were still able to make it to the consulate by 10:45.
We had expected to be seen at the given time, but were instead given ticket number 26 in an automated queuing system. Progress was painfully slow. When we arrived, number 11 was still being seen to. Twenty minutes later, number 11 still hadn’t budged. Then there was a flurry of activity before the queue got bogged down on number 16. At noon, Lucia and I started taking bets as to what time we’d be seen. Eventually, at quarter-to-one, number 26 flashed up on the board to signify that it was our turn. The “interview” lasted no more than 120 seconds (and most of that time the interviewer was on the telephone talking to someone else.) She ticked off our documents against a marking sheet, smiled, and said the multiple entry visa would be ready for collection on Friday.
We pondered later why it was that our interview was so short and the others were so long. For a start, we definitely had every document that they could possibly want. (Bank statements, credit card statements, a copy of my (British) passport, a copy of our marriage certificate, a copy of Lucia’s UK settlement visa, a letter confirming Lucia’s employment, pay slips, a notarised letter of invitation from Terry and Barbara, copies of their Portuguese Residência’s, and letters from Lucia and me motivating the grant of a multiple entry visa.) But I think the most obvious reason was simply to be found in the sea of humanity from all corners of the earth in the waiting room who want to get into Europe any way they can. If you are from a first world country and have a job, then the visa is no problem, otherwise you get grilled.
After the interview we went to a cafe for lunch on Great Portland Road. We managed to snag a table on the pavement from where we could watch the world go by. Given how expensive things can get in London, I was surprised at how cheap our lunch of sandwiches and cool drinks was. Lucia still had work to do, so after our lunch she caught the train home, while I wandered around London. I strolled through Regents Park and then caught the tube to Notting Hill so I could investigate the market and antique shops along the Portobello Road. It’s a funny thing – although Paddington Bear was my favourite character as a child, I’d never been to Portobello Road on all the previous occasions I’ve visited London. For those who don’t know Paddington, he took his elevenses everyday with Mr Gruber at Mr Gruber’s antique shop on the Portobello Road. And now that I’ve been to see the Portobello Road, I feel hard done by that I had never been there before.
It’s a riot of colour from the fruit and veg stalls on the street at the lower end of the road to the up-market antique shops higher up as one approaches Bayswater Road. In between there are plenty of chic boutiques, quaint coffee shops, smart restaurants and bright ice cream parlours. One is as likely to hear reggae music blaring from a ghetto blaster, as the strains of Vivaldi from a busker around the corner. The mix of cultures is represented by the polyglot of languages and accents that one hears all around you. I wouldn’t mind living around here ... when we win the lottery. Perusing the windows of the ubiquitous estate agents it quickly becomes clear that one can't find anything of a decent size for less than £1 million.
I went back to London (by train) on Friday to collect the visa. To add some interest to the day (and despite twisting my ankle on the stairs outside the consulate) I thought I’d make the trip to Arsenal to go and see the Emirates football stadium. It’s one of the newest and most spectacular stadiums in the English Premiership. It cost a couple of hundred million pounds to build and can seat around 66 000 people. In fact, it’s only a tad smaller than the new Wembley stadium. I wanted to take the tour of the stadium and was even prepared to pay the £12 fee – but, much to my disappointment, all the tours were booked up well into this week. I find that so curious – if the tour is that popular, why not provide more tours?
So, anyway, I took the tube back into central London and walked from King’s Cross down to Covent Garden. Along the way, somewhere just off Drury Lane, I walked past James May from Top Gear surrounded by a camera team. (For those who don’t know, Top Gear is an iconic BBC motoring television programme.) And when I say “walked past”, what I mean is that I tripped on a paving stone, stumbled, and yelped in surprise and pain. (Remember, I had already twisted my ankle earlier in the day.)Of course I completely interrupted whatever May had been saying and the whole production team (cameraman, soundman, light man, make-up artist and a few others whose jobs I couldn’t figure out) stopped and stared. I felt like such a twit. A young lady asked me if I was alright; I assured her that I was as I hobbled off.
At Covent Garden I had a sandwich and Coke for lunch while listening to a quartet of buskers go through their repertoire of chamber music and other classical pieces. I stayed till the end of their set and then made my way back Marylebone for the train ride home.
Lastly, what I forgot to mention last week was that I finally received my NHS hearing aid. It makes quite a difference. Occasionally it feels a little irritating in my ear, but then I just take it out for a while.
That’s it for now. Pictures at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/llewellynijones usual.
Love, light & peace
Llewellyn
