My dear family & friends, Wednesday 24 June
We’ve got some changes coming up. Lucia has accepted a new position within Millward Brown here in the UK which is going to keep her very busy for the next six months. She’s very excited and enthusiastic over the opportunity. More on this at another time. The changeover is going to happen fairly fast so we decided to take ourselves away to the sunshine of Portugal for a quick break this weekend. We are greatly looking forward to deep blue skies, bright sunshine and some proper scorching heat.
It’s just as well then that we got Lucia’s new multiple entry Schengen visa when we did. You will remember from my last letter that we went to London with Lucia’s mother for the visa interview after which we took her mother on a trip down memory lane. I went to fetch Lucia’s passport with the new visa the following week. As with all my trips to London, I try to make a day of it. (It would be a horrible waste not to given the price of transport. A return ticket to London from Leamington Spa with a day travel card for London costs £32.)
I had to wait a while at the Portuguese Consulate which appeared to be busier than usual. Afterwards I walked down the back streets parallel to Oxford Street from the consulate in Great Portland Street to Tottenham Court Road. Then I caught the Northern Line to Archway and headed for Highgate Cemetery which I had never visited before. You can see a picture of me next to Karl Marx’s grave in the usual spot at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/llewellynijones. I was way too early for a tour of West Cemetery and the grand tombs hidden in the undergrowth, and had to settle for strolling around the East Cemetery with its famous epitaph to Marx. From the cemetery I walked through Waterlow Park to Highgate Village where glamorous people gathered for lunch in the sunshine on the sidewalk sipping champagne. I kept a sharp eye out for movie stars. I didn’t see any. I looked in at the window of an estate agent just to see exactly what it is that I can’t afford.
I wandered through Highgate to the tube station and journeyed across London to Golbourne Road where it cuts Portobello Road for a late lunch at a Portuguese cafe. I also wanted to pick up a couple of bottles of bagaçeira (that’s what the Italians call grappa) at a small Portuguese-run supermarket. Looking at my map book over lunch I spied a pleasant looking walk along the Grand Union Canal from Golbourne Road to Maida Vale. So, with a much heavier backpack, I set off along the canal.
It wasn’t long before I came across a canal maintenance barge. The fellows on the barge were cutting back branches hanging over the canal and fishing out all the shit that people throw into the canal. There were THREE scooters (not the child toy variety), what looked like the remains of a sofa, and a lot of bicycles (ten, twenty, maybe more.) I have been surprised by the level of littering here in the UK. The parks only look pristine because the local councils pay quite a bit of money to cleaning staff to keep them looking that way. The author Bill Bryson is a leading anti-litter advocate and has succeeded in using his high profile to draw attention to the matter. But he might as well ram his head into a brick wall. The parks here in Leamington Spa and Warwick look like a tip on Monday morning if there’s been good weather over the weekend. The only difference between here and SA is that somebody comes to pick it up here (thankfully). It reminds me of an occasion many years ago when I was driving through Hillbrow, Johannesburg, with the Business Report photographer John Woodroof. His comment about what had become of the litter strewn warzone that was New Hillbrow was that the residents had “no fucking pride. No fucking pride whatsoever.” I really wonder why people do it – why they deliberately ruin a beautiful park with their litter even when there are LOTS of rubbish bins all around them.
I really liked John Woodroof. He was short and tough as nails. When some “people” tried to hijack one of The Star’s staff cars a number of years ago, John – a fluent Zulu speaker – stuck his camera monopod in the back of one of the hijackers and threatened to blow them all away if they didn’t put their hands in the air and slowly lie face down on the ground. They all surrendered. I just love that story.
At Maida Vale I hurried to the tube to get to Marylebone Station before the rush of commuters trying to beat a two-day underground strike due to commence that evening.
The next evening we had a big braai (barbecue) at our house for the farewell of one of Lucia’s Spanish colleagues, Monica, her partner and their daughter. Pyromaniac that I am, I made a huge fire that would be certain to cook everybody’s food. It was a good party. Monica’s partner – I’m not saying his name because I don’t know how to spell it – helped me doing the grilling. I couldn’t have done it without him. But it was a surprise party, and I’m sure that he was very surprised that he had to cook.
And so the weekend came where we said goodbye to Ann. On Saturday we went to Kenilworth Castle (got quite a few pics of that) and to lunch at the Heron’s Nest on the canal near Knowle. We were much exercised by a sign next to the canal which warned of deep water – 4ft. I bet the Health & Safety commissars came up with that one. On Sunday we took Ann for a walk in the park and then to the Pastelaria Portuguesa before driving her to Heathrow in the afternoon. The traffic was incredibly thick going in to London and slowed to a crawl as we passed an accident. I wished I had taken heed of Lucia’s warnings that we needed to leave earlier – but we got to Heathrow in plenty of time in the end. The drive home was a joy – in all the time we have been here I have never had such a free, open road that allowed me to do some of the speeds I used to do in South Africa. It seemed like everybody had just disappeared.
We haven’t really done much in the week and half since Ann left. My one task has been to get all debit orders onto our local account and also finally get my mobile phone contract into my name. It’s impossible to contract for anything when you first arrive in the UK until you have a provable address so Andreas wife, Michelle, took out a cellphone and mobile broadband account for me in her name. I sent the forms in to transfer the contract to my name months ago but nothing had happened. Dealing with the call centres at Vodafone or British Telecom is not fun. I ended up having a real row with Gareth, who sounded Irish, at Vodafone who promised that he had done everything that needed to be done and all that Vodafone required was a call from Michelle to confirm the transfer. Michelle called and was told that the full transfer couldn’t be completed because there was something wrong with my credit check.
So, I called back the next morning, and I was not happy. I spoke to Jose from Spain, and he just blew me away with his service. He chased everything down, and even found the original transfer of user forms I’d sent in months ago. Even though I was an angry customer, Jose was patient and won me over. When he was told that he would have to wait a couple of minutes for a piece of information he said: “Let’s talk. Where are you from?” And while Jose just got the job done, I guess that Gareth was still muttering that people shouldn’t be allowed to talk to him like that. Tsk.
And talking of service, I just have to mention Warwick District Council. Fast, friendly and efficient. We’re just not used to that from the organs of state. I know British people can sometimes complain about state service, but coming from South Africa there is just no comparison.
What else?
Lucia was right. There are TWO foxes in living around the playing field behind our house.( I got a nice picture of one of them.)
That’s about it.
Love, light & peace
Llewellyn
