Today has apparently been the hottest Hallowe'en on record - by some way - and everyone seems to have gone a little insane as a result. I'm told the next hottest was about fifty years ago and that one was at least three degrees cooler, although Raily, whom we saw earlier today, tells us she remembers one Hallowe'en when it was so hot, her costume consisted of nothing but a cape and a pair of knickers! (Awkward: I'm not sure that was a Hallowe'en...)
London has been bathed in a deep golden light all day today. The heat the sun was kicking out in the early afternoon was positively Mediterranean...
Raily, Iain and the kids came early this morning. It was Will's birthday last week, and for a treat he wanted to go to the nineteenth century operating theatre in Southwark, which is about as charming and eccentrically Will as anything I know. They brought a painting with them, from Raily's father, who's an artist. He wanted us to have it as a wedding gift. He was apparently very moved when he saw the wedding on television, having known so many gay men in his lifetime and watched helplessly as they endured first brutal homophobia and then the hell of HIV/ Aids. He lives in Northern Ireland, where, of course, gay marriage is still illegal, so I suspect this, and the fact that his grandson is my godson, was all feeding into his great generosity.
The painting itself is a charming still life of a violin and a lot of books and clippings about Ivor Novello, who couldn't have been a more perfect choice for us, him having been a brilliant composer and known gaybo, who even dated my hero Siegfried Sassoon.
Of course Raily and co arrived at the start of the two-hour period when parking is not free in Highgate, so we spent ages, driving in circles, looking for a parking space attached to a meter. It turns out there are very few of them round here, and sadly, the one we chose had been earmarked for some kind of roadworks, because when we returned, despite having shelled out £6 for the privilege of parking there for two hours, we discovered a heart-crushing yellow parking ticket. £65 immediately down the drain. We apparently hadn't noticed the tiny sign which informed us that the bay was closed. The only positive was that we arrived before the tow-truck came, which the workmen assured us had been called. Haringey council will fleece you for anything they can get away with. I was mortified. I spend my life telling people who have moved out of London how fabulous it is to live in our part of the city.
In an attempt to put the embarrassment and anger behind us, Nathan and I walked through the glorious Highgate Wood to a sun-baked Muswell Hill, where we bought pumpkins to carve. There has never been a Hallowe'en when I haven't created a little Jack o'lantern and I hope there never will be...
We decided to take advantage of the weather to take pictures of some of Nathan's new knitted creations. His last pattern, a double-knit Sanquhar-inspired scarf is selling really well on Ravelry, and he's quite rightly rushing out a few more of his designs. Funnily enough, we were photographing the Sanquhar scarf the day we found out that Channel 4 had commissioned Our Gay Wedding. That was the first sunny day of the year. Perhaps this will be the last.
There was a minor panic when we reached the house and discovered that Nathan had left his bag - filled with keys, wallets and passports - under a tree in the wood, but fortunately, when we rushed back, it was still there, being watched-over by a family whose children were playing on a nearby log. Only in Highgate!
This evening we went to see Shakespeare In Love at the Noël Coward Theatre, which turned out to be an unexpectedly pleasant experience. Yes it was all a little alienatingly thespie; lots of hoarse actors shouting their lines, pointlessly gesticulating and genuinely having a little too much fun on stage, but it's a show with heart, which doesn't take itself too seriously, and the incidental music is written by someone with a serious understanding and love for medieval music, which I appreciated hugely. I could have done without a few of the knowing Shakespeare puns which crept into the script, and furthermore the audience's reaction to said lines. "Oh yes... a reference to Macbeth... Oh yes, we know that quote gaffaw, gaffaw, fnah..." There was also a sequence in which two men kiss, which the audience found particularly amusing. Yeah, 'cus that's still REALLY funny, isn't it?!
Anyway, we were home before midnight to carve our pumpkins. I'm not quite sure yet what mine is going to be. I might go quite traditional this year. Mix things up, you know... Living the dream!
Friday, 31 October 2014
Thursday, 30 October 2014
Round and round
I had a call today from one of our friends in India whose job it is to tell us their records indicate someone in the household has had a minor accident. I picked up the phone and felt my heart dropping when he announced himself. It happens with such alarming regularity, that, to keep things interesting, I now try to say something different every time they call. I learnt this trick from my Grannie, when late-onset dementia meant she asked the same six questions in a loop. "Do you have a girlfriend?" "No." "Do you have a girlfriend?" "Yes." "Do you have a girlfriend?" "Several." "Do you have a girlfriend?" "I'm married to my job at the sewerage plant, Grannie." On one occasion she entered a cycle in the middle of the night of coming into my bedroom, asking if I was warm enough and when I said I was, disappearing to the airing cupboard to find something else to put on my zed bed. By the morning I was covered in sheets, blankets, net curtains and towels!
So today, when my Indian friend told me his records showed I'd been in an accident, I said I had. I heard his eyes lighting up. "And you were driving?" "Yes." "And it wasn't your fault?" "Oh, I'm afraid it was... Everyone died. Everyone. Except me." "Oh" he said, the panic levels rising in his voice, "that's, um... Very nice." He then hung up.
Perhaps these people need to learn a little about compassion. After all, there's a strong likelihood that someone they randomly call will have been traumatically affected by a car accident, and "very nice" would, by all counts, be a somewhat inappropriate response!
You know when you spend a day wishing that someone who does nothing but complain would simply disappear and let you get on with enjoying life? That...
I sometimes feel this must how the rest of Europe feels about the UK. Sometimes people whinge so hard that you end up wanting to scream "if you're that unhappy, please, just get yourself out of my face!" I got fairly close to thinking that way about the Scots in the recent referendum, and am perilously close to telling a friend of mine that life doesn't always have to be a drama. God knows I've tried myself over the years to make desperate mountains out of mole hills, but bitter experience tells me that most people just want a quiet life!
I've done another hard day's work on the Fleet Singer's commission, and can reveal I'm now mid-way through the first draft of the last movement. I've worked at lightning speed, largely because I've been so inspired by this composition. I think this has a great deal to do with the fact that I'm setting lyrics which are exclusively about North London - my gaff. Besides, nothing but the best will do for my special Fleet Singers!
So today, when my Indian friend told me his records showed I'd been in an accident, I said I had. I heard his eyes lighting up. "And you were driving?" "Yes." "And it wasn't your fault?" "Oh, I'm afraid it was... Everyone died. Everyone. Except me." "Oh" he said, the panic levels rising in his voice, "that's, um... Very nice." He then hung up.
Perhaps these people need to learn a little about compassion. After all, there's a strong likelihood that someone they randomly call will have been traumatically affected by a car accident, and "very nice" would, by all counts, be a somewhat inappropriate response!
You know when you spend a day wishing that someone who does nothing but complain would simply disappear and let you get on with enjoying life? That...
I sometimes feel this must how the rest of Europe feels about the UK. Sometimes people whinge so hard that you end up wanting to scream "if you're that unhappy, please, just get yourself out of my face!" I got fairly close to thinking that way about the Scots in the recent referendum, and am perilously close to telling a friend of mine that life doesn't always have to be a drama. God knows I've tried myself over the years to make desperate mountains out of mole hills, but bitter experience tells me that most people just want a quiet life!
I've done another hard day's work on the Fleet Singer's commission, and can reveal I'm now mid-way through the first draft of the last movement. I've worked at lightning speed, largely because I've been so inspired by this composition. I think this has a great deal to do with the fact that I'm setting lyrics which are exclusively about North London - my gaff. Besides, nothing but the best will do for my special Fleet Singers!
Wednesday, 29 October 2014
Sweaty head
It's been a somewhat testing day, largely due to the weather which has been hot, sticky and wet. Every time I've arrived at a new location I've had to take a towel to my forehead to get rid of sweat, rain water and goodness knows what else. The tubes were filled to the rafters with people whose hair had all gone frizzy and all I've wanted to do since 8.30 this morning is lie under a duvet.
I had a meeting with Jezza and Victoria this morning about the future of Brass in the hands of the NYMT. Exciting things, if not quite what we expected, are afoot. A number of complicated but crucial decisions were made in the meeting which I believe are critical for the long-term happiness of all cast, writers and current and future creatives. More difficult decisions are often taken out of your hands. I can't really say a great deal more until we've crossed a few more ts, but I believe it's sometimes more important to take a longer-term view on things.
I popped into Central London to see my agent and to have lunch with Nathan at a crazy little pizza place on one of the back streets between Covent Garden and Holborn. I can't really imagine how it survives. It sells pizzas for about a fiver, and you sit eating them in a little back room on a mish-mash of benches surrounded by cardboard boxes stacked to the ceiling. It was just what the doctor ordered, however...
The doctor has also ordered me to have a lovely cup of tea in front of the telly. Thankfully the large amount of work I did yesterday enables me to take things a little more gently today. It'll be back to the grindstone with a vengeance tomorrow.
I had a meeting with Jezza and Victoria this morning about the future of Brass in the hands of the NYMT. Exciting things, if not quite what we expected, are afoot. A number of complicated but crucial decisions were made in the meeting which I believe are critical for the long-term happiness of all cast, writers and current and future creatives. More difficult decisions are often taken out of your hands. I can't really say a great deal more until we've crossed a few more ts, but I believe it's sometimes more important to take a longer-term view on things.
I popped into Central London to see my agent and to have lunch with Nathan at a crazy little pizza place on one of the back streets between Covent Garden and Holborn. I can't really imagine how it survives. It sells pizzas for about a fiver, and you sit eating them in a little back room on a mish-mash of benches surrounded by cardboard boxes stacked to the ceiling. It was just what the doctor ordered, however...
The doctor has also ordered me to have a lovely cup of tea in front of the telly. Thankfully the large amount of work I did yesterday enables me to take things a little more gently today. It'll be back to the grindstone with a vengeance tomorrow.
Tuesday, 28 October 2014
Ghostly shadows
I rushed from Soho to Tottenham Court Road late this afternoon in an attempt to get on the tube before the rush hour started. Of course what I hadn't bargained on was the hideous pre-rush hour I encountered, created by tourists in their neon coats and heavy-rimmed glasses who'd plainly finished shopping on Oxford Street and were returning to their hotels in shitty places like Brent Cross for an early evening meal. The tube station was buzzing like a hive, with huge groups of young girls studying maps, and standing exactly where Londoners are basically programmed not to stand!
The warm weather we've been having becomes all the more surreal in the mid-afternoon. Since the clocks went back on Saturday night, a strange phenomena has started to occur. At about 4pm, the sun seems to drop like a halogen stone from the sky and weird, ghostly shadows creep across the streets. Because it still feels like summer, your body clock tells you it's too early to lose the light, so everything takes on shades of the post apocalyptic.
I got up rather early and decided to spend the day writing in cafés across London, the first of which was down in Borough, where I sat for an hour before, and then again after, an osteopathy appointment. The Starbucks opposite Borough Station is a charming little place. I know we're all meant to pretend to hate Starbucks for not paying taxes and for being generally loathsome for reasons only a Guardian reader would understand, but for some reason the staff in this particular franchise always seem to be in very good moods. They smile. They are helpful. They genuinely appear to enjoy their jobs and this can be hugely infectious. The last time I was there, one of the baristas was singing happily to herself as she worked in the back kitchen. I was charmed!
I ambled into Soho and had my fourth cup of tea in a cafe on the corner of Old Compton Street, where two care-in-the-community old dudes had been deposited by their carer, who'd paid for their food up front and made himself scarce after asking the cafe owner with a sort of knowing wink to keep an eye on them. I assume it was an exercise in independence which was a regular occurrence in there because the cafe owner wasn't at all fazed and carried out his task with great aplomb, particularly when one of the men began to panic because he didn't have any money and wasn't sure how he could pay for his sandwich. The owner told him very kindly that everything had been sorted out and that he wasn't to be upset. "But how much will it be when we next come here?" "You never need to worry about things like that when you come in here," came the reply. It was an incredibly touching moment.
Cafe four was the Starbucks on Wardour Street where there are plenty of sockets for tired mobile phones and lap tops. By the time I exited, I'd achieved a huge amount of work, but was buzzing from too many cups of tea. I met Nathan for dinner in his ridiculously late lunch break - 4pm - and was basically climbing the walls, having been living in my head-phone-fuelled, low-blood-sugar-tinted world of music and tannins for 7 hours! Not the best time to brave a rush hour, but I still seem to be alive.
...Small mercies, and all that!
The warm weather we've been having becomes all the more surreal in the mid-afternoon. Since the clocks went back on Saturday night, a strange phenomena has started to occur. At about 4pm, the sun seems to drop like a halogen stone from the sky and weird, ghostly shadows creep across the streets. Because it still feels like summer, your body clock tells you it's too early to lose the light, so everything takes on shades of the post apocalyptic.
I got up rather early and decided to spend the day writing in cafés across London, the first of which was down in Borough, where I sat for an hour before, and then again after, an osteopathy appointment. The Starbucks opposite Borough Station is a charming little place. I know we're all meant to pretend to hate Starbucks for not paying taxes and for being generally loathsome for reasons only a Guardian reader would understand, but for some reason the staff in this particular franchise always seem to be in very good moods. They smile. They are helpful. They genuinely appear to enjoy their jobs and this can be hugely infectious. The last time I was there, one of the baristas was singing happily to herself as she worked in the back kitchen. I was charmed!
I ambled into Soho and had my fourth cup of tea in a cafe on the corner of Old Compton Street, where two care-in-the-community old dudes had been deposited by their carer, who'd paid for their food up front and made himself scarce after asking the cafe owner with a sort of knowing wink to keep an eye on them. I assume it was an exercise in independence which was a regular occurrence in there because the cafe owner wasn't at all fazed and carried out his task with great aplomb, particularly when one of the men began to panic because he didn't have any money and wasn't sure how he could pay for his sandwich. The owner told him very kindly that everything had been sorted out and that he wasn't to be upset. "But how much will it be when we next come here?" "You never need to worry about things like that when you come in here," came the reply. It was an incredibly touching moment.
Cafe four was the Starbucks on Wardour Street where there are plenty of sockets for tired mobile phones and lap tops. By the time I exited, I'd achieved a huge amount of work, but was buzzing from too many cups of tea. I met Nathan for dinner in his ridiculously late lunch break - 4pm - and was basically climbing the walls, having been living in my head-phone-fuelled, low-blood-sugar-tinted world of music and tannins for 7 hours! Not the best time to brave a rush hour, but I still seem to be alive.
...Small mercies, and all that!
Fighting wasps
Whilst chatting to my mum on the phone this morning, I noticed what appeared to be a pair of wasps fighting on the pavement. They were really going for it; rolling about on the Tarmac, getting stuck in. It was a proper brawl. On closer inspection, I realised I was was actually watching was a wasp attacking a bee. My save-all-bees instinct instantly kicked in, and I carefully trod on the wasp, pinning it down for long enough for the bee to disentangle itself and fly away. At that stage I released the wasp and was not unhappy to note that it flew away as well. I used to kill wasps with great alacrity, but have to confess that these days I find it difficult to deliberately kill anything, however gross it is.
I made a point of walking down to my favourite cafe this morning to do some work, but found it closed, so I took myself instead to Jackson's Lane, where, for some time, and until the lunchtime rush, I was the only person in the cafe there. I did, however, bump into a drama school acquaintance. We had a brief catch-up chat, and were horrified to realise that it's now 19 years since we were students at Mountview. He lived below me in bug-filled bedsits in Crouch End which were called Highgate Lodge, but known locally as Hellgate Lodge. There was rarely any hot water, we shared bathrooms and had baby belling ovens in our bedrooms to cook with. There was a single pay phone in the building's hallway, which was the only number I could offer anyone wanting to get in touch. This was before the days of mobile phones. If I went on a date, I'd have to give him the payphone number, which, of course, meant I could always find an excuse for someone not calling me back, convincing myself I'd simply not had the message passed on to me!
The one positive thing about Highgate Lodge was the fact that I had a little ledge outside my window, where I could sit and drink orange juice for breakfast whilst looking out across the North London skyline. Majestic on the horizon was Alexandra Palace, and I spent hours gazing at it, deciding then that it was London's most beautiful building. Little could I have known that the best part of twenty years later, it would be the location of my wedding.
It's been very hot today. Fiona, who's just returned from the States, called me in a state of confusion. It's almost November, and the mercury was up at 21 degrees.
I went out this evening to rescue some cup cakes from the car which Nathan had brought back with him from his trip to Flanders where he was singing in British Legion concert. It was still fairly warm and I was able to go out comfortably in a T-shirt. Sadly the cup cakes had melted in all the heat and ground themselves into the car's parcel shelf. As I strained to scrape cake goo off the upholstery I heard my trousers rip all the way from buttock to bollock! When I returned back to the house, I discovered we'd entirely run out of tea to drink with the melted cake. All in all a pretty disastrous outing!
I made a point of walking down to my favourite cafe this morning to do some work, but found it closed, so I took myself instead to Jackson's Lane, where, for some time, and until the lunchtime rush, I was the only person in the cafe there. I did, however, bump into a drama school acquaintance. We had a brief catch-up chat, and were horrified to realise that it's now 19 years since we were students at Mountview. He lived below me in bug-filled bedsits in Crouch End which were called Highgate Lodge, but known locally as Hellgate Lodge. There was rarely any hot water, we shared bathrooms and had baby belling ovens in our bedrooms to cook with. There was a single pay phone in the building's hallway, which was the only number I could offer anyone wanting to get in touch. This was before the days of mobile phones. If I went on a date, I'd have to give him the payphone number, which, of course, meant I could always find an excuse for someone not calling me back, convincing myself I'd simply not had the message passed on to me!
The one positive thing about Highgate Lodge was the fact that I had a little ledge outside my window, where I could sit and drink orange juice for breakfast whilst looking out across the North London skyline. Majestic on the horizon was Alexandra Palace, and I spent hours gazing at it, deciding then that it was London's most beautiful building. Little could I have known that the best part of twenty years later, it would be the location of my wedding.
It's been very hot today. Fiona, who's just returned from the States, called me in a state of confusion. It's almost November, and the mercury was up at 21 degrees.
I went out this evening to rescue some cup cakes from the car which Nathan had brought back with him from his trip to Flanders where he was singing in British Legion concert. It was still fairly warm and I was able to go out comfortably in a T-shirt. Sadly the cup cakes had melted in all the heat and ground themselves into the car's parcel shelf. As I strained to scrape cake goo off the upholstery I heard my trousers rip all the way from buttock to bollock! When I returned back to the house, I discovered we'd entirely run out of tea to drink with the melted cake. All in all a pretty disastrous outing!
Sunday, 26 October 2014
Waves and ripples
I'm in Brother Edward and Sascha's sitting room, listening to the waves from the Thames lapping below us, looking across to the O2 where Lady Gaga is singing tonight.
We've actually just been watching footage on You Tube of the Mini-pops, that ghastly early 80s troop of lipstick-bedecked, helium-fuelled children who used to perform cover versions of songs written for adults. The Mini-pops were controversial even at the time. Viewers were horrified by the sexualisation of children, and newspapers described them as the "mini-whores." The show was subsequently axed after one series. It is brutally awful. We watched with terror as two children gyrated their way through "You're the One That I Want." I remember thinking the 'Pops were rubbish at the time. In retrospect, they were also deeply sinister. Apparently, they were better accepted outside of the UK in countries like Canada who have a better-established tradition of child stars.
Our You Tube fest took us on a search for more old school gems, and we ended up watching about thirty Eurovision songs; winners, losers and never-selecteds from every decade of the competition. It's charming viewing. We saw the only entry ever from Morocco, listened to Cypriot and German ballads from 1983, a surreal 1969-winning tune from Spain (the disastrous year when four songs won) and half a tonne of Schlage from Scandinavia.
As I sit here, I find my eye periodically distracted by a boat lit up like an enormous Christmas tree, drifting along the pitch black Thames outside. In it's wake, a series of waves ripple in an ever-growing triangular shape through the water, before crashing against the river bank.
I have to leave fairly soon as I'm heading back to Highgate by public transport, and it feels a long way away at this time on a Sunday, when the transport network in this part of town goes to sleep. The Isle of Dogs is a funny old place, full of dead ends created by building works. The whole area is now a massive building site, littered with cranes and hastily erected tower blocks pointing towards the stars. It's as though the recession never happened. It would seem developers are making up for lost time! Within a year, the view from Edward and Sascha's flat will have changed out of all proportion. Change is a funny thing. It doesn't happen at all up in my North London gaff, but Edward's part of the world is as transient as fame.
We've actually just been watching footage on You Tube of the Mini-pops, that ghastly early 80s troop of lipstick-bedecked, helium-fuelled children who used to perform cover versions of songs written for adults. The Mini-pops were controversial even at the time. Viewers were horrified by the sexualisation of children, and newspapers described them as the "mini-whores." The show was subsequently axed after one series. It is brutally awful. We watched with terror as two children gyrated their way through "You're the One That I Want." I remember thinking the 'Pops were rubbish at the time. In retrospect, they were also deeply sinister. Apparently, they were better accepted outside of the UK in countries like Canada who have a better-established tradition of child stars.
Our You Tube fest took us on a search for more old school gems, and we ended up watching about thirty Eurovision songs; winners, losers and never-selecteds from every decade of the competition. It's charming viewing. We saw the only entry ever from Morocco, listened to Cypriot and German ballads from 1983, a surreal 1969-winning tune from Spain (the disastrous year when four songs won) and half a tonne of Schlage from Scandinavia.
As I sit here, I find my eye periodically distracted by a boat lit up like an enormous Christmas tree, drifting along the pitch black Thames outside. In it's wake, a series of waves ripple in an ever-growing triangular shape through the water, before crashing against the river bank.
I have to leave fairly soon as I'm heading back to Highgate by public transport, and it feels a long way away at this time on a Sunday, when the transport network in this part of town goes to sleep. The Isle of Dogs is a funny old place, full of dead ends created by building works. The whole area is now a massive building site, littered with cranes and hastily erected tower blocks pointing towards the stars. It's as though the recession never happened. It would seem developers are making up for lost time! Within a year, the view from Edward and Sascha's flat will have changed out of all proportion. Change is a funny thing. It doesn't happen at all up in my North London gaff, but Edward's part of the world is as transient as fame.
Meriel's day
It was Meriel's birthday on Thursday, so a group of us met today in Rye to celebrate. Rye is an awfully long way away. Ironically, despite being only 30 miles from Lewes where Meriel lives, it takes almost the same amount of time to get there from Lewes as it does from London... If London behaves of course, which it didn't today. On our way down we got stuck in some inexplicable traffic jam on the Ball's Pond Road, which essentially made us an hour late. The journey down was somewhat edgy, not just because Nathan and I hate being late, but because an email arrived about Brass which slightly hurt my feelings. One of the issues about being the writer of anything is that you tend to get a little over-looked. The next time you're out and about in London and you see a show poster, see how often the name of the writer is displayed. Not very, is the answer. At the UK Theatre Awards Brass was billed as "performed by the NYMT, directed by Sara Kestelman." Even the award for best playwright was announced by the name of the show rather than by its writer! It is, of course, part of the writer's duties to put up with this. Nathan reminded me yesterday that being in the limelight is what turns a level-headed individual into a crazy person who craves more and more attention, and I guess there's a massive element of truth in that.
Anyway, once we'd arrived at the harbour at Rye, eaten something, and my godson Will had come bounding over to say hello with a huge pleased-to-see-me smile on his face, the panicking began to subside.
A picnic on a pebble beach in October oughtn't to have worked, but I actually sat for much of the day in just a T-shirt, despite having brought scarves and hats and things.
We had drinks in a little pub overlooking the harbour where the locals ignore the smoking ban in the back half of the bar. The landlord obviously didn't like the cut of my jacket, because he kept me waiting to be served as long as he could, and then charged me a whopping £7.80 for two pints of lemonade! A couple of pints of beer would have been cheaper... In Soho! Plainly he saw me coming. I did the terrible English thing of paying without questioning anything and then whinged for hours afterwards!
We went into the town of Rye which is a mile or so in land from the harbour. It's a beautiful and ancient town, which winds up and down a hill. A curious observation we made about the shopping street was that there seemed to be a lot of shops hanging out in pairs. There were two old-fashioned sweet shops, two shops which sold natural remedies and vitamins right next to one another, and even more curiously, two pharmacists literally sharing a wall. I went in to buy Gaviscon and asked the woman behind the counter how it worked to have two shops selling the same stock next to each other. "It's brilliant" she said, "we share medicines when we run out of stock, and often, if we don't sell it, they do..." Whatever floats your boat, I guess.
Anyway, we bought sweets, ate chips and then went back to Meriel's house in Lewes. The last part of the trip was a bit of a disaster in terms of timings. Nathan, who is off to Belgium in the morning, had booked a hotel for himself in Folkstone (further East than Rye) and yet the journey to Lewes took us over an hour in the opposite direction. There was no way around it, however, as there weren't enough spaces in cars to get me back there any other way.
So essentially we had a quick cup of tea and a gander at Meriel's new house before I had to take a train back to London and Nathan had to drive for a couple of hours past Rye again and back to Folkstone. Frankly, it would have been quicker and cheaper for us both to drive back to London and for Nathan to head to Folkstone first thing in the morning!
Still, it was worth going to Lewes to eat the delicious and highly camp cake which Meriel had saved from the jaws of disaster with some hastily improvised decorating skills! A great day all round.
Anyway, once we'd arrived at the harbour at Rye, eaten something, and my godson Will had come bounding over to say hello with a huge pleased-to-see-me smile on his face, the panicking began to subside.
A picnic on a pebble beach in October oughtn't to have worked, but I actually sat for much of the day in just a T-shirt, despite having brought scarves and hats and things.
We had drinks in a little pub overlooking the harbour where the locals ignore the smoking ban in the back half of the bar. The landlord obviously didn't like the cut of my jacket, because he kept me waiting to be served as long as he could, and then charged me a whopping £7.80 for two pints of lemonade! A couple of pints of beer would have been cheaper... In Soho! Plainly he saw me coming. I did the terrible English thing of paying without questioning anything and then whinged for hours afterwards!
We went into the town of Rye which is a mile or so in land from the harbour. It's a beautiful and ancient town, which winds up and down a hill. A curious observation we made about the shopping street was that there seemed to be a lot of shops hanging out in pairs. There were two old-fashioned sweet shops, two shops which sold natural remedies and vitamins right next to one another, and even more curiously, two pharmacists literally sharing a wall. I went in to buy Gaviscon and asked the woman behind the counter how it worked to have two shops selling the same stock next to each other. "It's brilliant" she said, "we share medicines when we run out of stock, and often, if we don't sell it, they do..." Whatever floats your boat, I guess.
Anyway, we bought sweets, ate chips and then went back to Meriel's house in Lewes. The last part of the trip was a bit of a disaster in terms of timings. Nathan, who is off to Belgium in the morning, had booked a hotel for himself in Folkstone (further East than Rye) and yet the journey to Lewes took us over an hour in the opposite direction. There was no way around it, however, as there weren't enough spaces in cars to get me back there any other way.
So essentially we had a quick cup of tea and a gander at Meriel's new house before I had to take a train back to London and Nathan had to drive for a couple of hours past Rye again and back to Folkstone. Frankly, it would have been quicker and cheaper for us both to drive back to London and for Nathan to head to Folkstone first thing in the morning!
Still, it was worth going to Lewes to eat the delicious and highly camp cake which Meriel had saved from the jaws of disaster with some hastily improvised decorating skills! A great day all round.
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