On a beautiful evening walking from Lewisham station to home, (husband) Jay finally said the words I was longing to hear……you’re not veering into me, J!……you’re walking straight!!….yay! We were returning from an afternoon touring the backstage areas of the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden organised by marvellous fellow BM volunteer and London tour guide Yannick (http://insearchoflosttimes.wordpress.com/) and the trains were packed…there is no time when London is not full of people making the most of what it has to offer. But a broken-down train meant no stopping at our station – so we took a chilly ride on Shanks’s pony instead…me doing a deliberate heel first and then pressing down onto big toe like James from Vivobarefoot told me to…
We went the whole hog and had afternoon tea in the Rosewood Hotel, Holborn after the tour with fun ex-neighbour and friend Eve (nearly 80!!) ..where we fantasised from our armchairs about all the travelling we want to do, how we were going to spend 6 months in Venice learning Italian, or German in Berlin, or sunning ourselves in Greece, or visiting the Met in New York. Neither Eve nor I have lived anywhere else but London. London is our home … but the world is stunning and we want to see it and be in it and experience it. Check this (truly) awesome video of the gloriousness of the natural world….https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww8ONPOnfOE#t=15. Has anyone here ever cried after seeing the view? I was moved after seeing the vast span of red rocks in Colorado driving south towards Mesa Verde National Park I think (Jay driving)… it is huge and breath-taking and beautiful, and I felt I just wanted to be in and absorbed by the landscape (see pic)…like somehow it is part of me and me part of……it.
The young waiter at the Rosewood is finishing his 1 year of hospitality training and returning home to Amsterdam this Christmas; Yannick is leaving his beloved London and returning home to Luxembourg with his parents for the holidays…. and Driving Home for Christmas is on the radio…really simple lyrics but so evocative of stopping normal life, and winding down on the drive towards home, looking forward to warmth, comfort, cosiness, lovely people you feel truly yourself with, getting out of the traffic-jam busy-ness, letting go and doing next-to nothing….. unless you’re cooking the turkey of course….
jx
Colorado
Ain't we got it made? 