Getting Loose

Kathryn

You learn a lot when you go to see someone, and just sit and listen. I love doing that very thing.

I had always known her as Kathryn. She has a rather serious look to her face. I know that she has traveled lots of miles so to speak in her journey of life.  She’ll admit it has been a pretty good one for her many decades.

But when she was much younger, she was Kate or Katie. I found that intriguing. All of a sudden a younger girl appeared who was full of life and activities that involved siblings and cousins—never mind whether they were first or second—they were kin and that is all that mattered.

She’s outlived two of the children she helped to rear. She has outlived two of her husbands, and some days are better than others.

She gets frustrated with her inability to precisely call a name or a date or a place, but the older I get, the more I sympathize.

But what really stunned me was that she was a Beckendorf. And that set of dogs is always related to each other through one way or another. Of course the one I knew the best was Harvey Beckendorf, a fellow clergyman. And then I found out there’s another Beckendorf who is pastoring a church in Beaumont under another name. I felt a kinship with her that I had not previously felt.

She was so appreciative of the visit. It made her day. She said, "You know, you can hardly find anyone anymore who cares about what it was like in days gone by."

But that is not me. I love to hear the stories of days gone by. I find myself, the older I get, ruminating around in my mind decades ago, reliving, dissecting, analyzing, wondering, puzzling about events that I feel certain most everyone else has forgotten about.  But somehow they linger brightly in my mind. Why that is so, I don’t really know.

Culinary Delights

There are some great restaurants in the Ealing area. 

Here are two at which we have eaten and enjoyed very much:

Papaya

Monty’s

Cool, Clear

Two comments about the water here in Ealing.

This has to be, by far, the hardest water
I have ever come into contact that is used on a regular basis.  It is so hard, that scaling forms in water heaters so easily, and in electric percolators, and even in clean tea cups.  I just have never seen its equal anywhere.

The second thing is the water pressure. 
 It is by far greater than I have ever experienced in any household.  I love that part of it.

Shantini

She pronounces it SHAWN-t^e-knee’, and I went to take communion to her 90-year-old mother.  Florence was deeply appreciative.  Shantini had been in church last Sunday, but did not want to “bother” me with a request to bring the sacrament to her mom, because I was leaving in just a few days.

 

And so she was very surprised when I unexpectedly showed up on her doorstep.

 

She was very gracious, accommodating, and in a few minutes was able to help her mother down the steps for communion.  We all used the Methodist Worship Book for I had brought three copies with me, and we went through the service for Holy Communion in a home.

 

Afterwards Shantini and I got into a very interesting discussion about Sri Lanka, as that is the family home grounds.  Well, while it may be called Sri Lanka (a Sinhalese name), for hundreds of years, it was called Ceylon.  The island (off the SE coast of India), is beautiful, but after having gained independence from England, the two predominant ethnic groups began to undergo civil turmoil.  The Tamils who tended to be the more educated, and who coalesced in the north and east, had been the ruling class for hundreds of years.  But at independence, the Sinhalese became rulers by sheer force of numbers of ballots at the ballot box, and things began to change precipitously.  Ceylon was thrown out, and Sri Lanka (a Sinhalese name) took its place.  One day, a decree was suddenly made that the Tamil language could no longer be spoken, and overnight most, if not all, Tamil students were kicked out of universities.  The world’s first suicide bombers made their appearance in Sri Lanka. 

 

I had no idea about the turmoil, and wished I had made Shantini’s acquaintance much earlier in my stay to glean more of her perspective.  Shantini’s mother kept interrupting her narrative telling her in Tamil that I was a busy man and had other things to do besides learning this piece of obscure history.  But I loved it, and I thirsted for more of the Shantini's story.  Who knows?  Maybe she might have taught me a little of their alphabet--a very distinctive lettering that I've not seen elsewhere.

 

On another day, Shantini took my partner and me through the Southall section of Ealing—it is like the “Little India” section of London.  There one can find a Punjab flavour of India, that very multi-cultural country, and the Southall section conveys a representative flavour of that part.  As an example, here is the largest Sikh temple outside of India in Southall.   While in Southall, we got some mango,tea, and spices.   

 

Shantini was most gracious, accommodating, and had a very infectious smile and a winsome personality.

Accomplished

I’m not sure what to call it.  Genteelness?  Refined?  Cultivated?

English people seem to be into that more than Americans are.

Whatever it is, Gerald and Sue took us to another concert, this time at a desuetude Catholic Church.  An absolutely spectacular 20 year old violinist, Kristine Balanas,
played some Brahms, Prokofiev, and Saint-Saens.   To be at such live performances uplifts one’s spirit.  The church was packed.  SRO.  Thunderous applause.

Rolling on the River

It used to be the case a long time ago, that the best and easiest and cheapest transportation to get around from certain points in London was by using the Thames River.  (I always thought the British pronounced it “tims”, but I think it is closer to “tams”, Love).

The Thames is a tidal river.  By that I mean it truly ebbs and floods like the sea.  I did not know that.  Going to our destination we were on a high tide, coming back we were in a low tide. 

There are river islands all over the place, and for some of them, the only way you can get to them is by boat.  And people live there like that.

Harold and Linda took us on a cruise down the Thames.  I do not know how to describe it adequately.  One thing that both Harold and I talked about was that when you travel by water, it is somehow more soothing and at a much slower pace.

For example, when we got to theTeddington Locks, there was either a broken lock, or there were not enough personnel available to make sure that both sets of locks worked, hence we were tied up there for more than an hour trying to make our way further west. 
Harold pointed out, “You know, had we been in a car or the tube or a bus and had been tied up in traffic for this long, people would have been screaming mad.  But here, we just sort of take it in stride.”

He was right.  I opined that maybe it was because when we take those other kinds of transportation, we are already running late for some appointment that we think we just have to get to, and we depend upon the time approximation or schedule to be spot on, and when taking the river there is no such expectation.  We are just more willing to go with the flow.

I guess I had been told, but I thought we were just taking a cruise down the river and back.  It turned out not to be so, but I thoroughly enjoyed the boat ride.

In England, things tend to occur at a more genteel pace it seems to me.  Not every deadline is an urgent life or death situation. 

Seeing a Bit of History

We spent a major portion of yesterday touring the Museum of London. 

It is a fascinating place.  I especially liked the part of the exhibit that was pre 1600’s.  They go way back in history to the ice ages and how England was attached to the continent and show you what geographically transpired over hundreds of thousands of years and how civilisation developed and the many archaeological sites in and around London.

And for those of you who can't be bothered with too much history, there is plenty of post 1600's exhibits as well.

Sundry Activities

Basically, there is no air conditioning over here except, perhaps, in some stores.  We open the windows for the cool air.  There are no screens, and I have yet to see a mosquito.  The only flying pests of which I can detect are bumblebees and what the British call wasps.   But they are not like our thread-waisted wasps.  They look more like bees.

Today it will not even get into the 70’s.  I’m so glad I brought a sweater.  And the humidity is moderate. 

Yesterday the Mrs. went shopping at several charity shops, and I stayed home and pulled weeds out of the driveway, and trimmed a vine on the front porch so that I did not have to duck down every time I entered the house.  However, I did get to the bakery and got a sausage/bean pasty (remember, that’s POSS-tee) of some kind.  Crust is phyllo dough again.  Superb.

Tried to go to a house group meeting at 8 p.m. last night.  (I find that most meetings start at 8 p.m. over here.  But there is also an expectation that they will last only one hour.)  I walked five long blocks in the misting rain to get there only to find out that the people sponsoring the group were on a holiday (i.e.,  vacation).  Well, I needed the exercise anyway.

The scales over here are different as well.  I find that the British are shocked and pleasantly surprised when I tell them we are not using that nasty European metric system very much.  I buy gas in gallons.  We measure lumber in feet and inches.  We still use ounces and pints and quarts and gallons.  We use Fahrenheit. 

We use pounds, but in England, they weigh in terms of stones.  Now, I believe that a stone is somewhere between 12-16 pounds.  But right now I can’t be bothered with trying to figure out that conversion, so I just don’t weigh myself.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Adagio

This is from Khachaturian's Gayne Ballet Suite.  It is some good stuff if you feel blue or depressed and just want to have some music to parallel what you feel.

 

 

Aase's Death

Well, since this is my blog, here is another piece that moves my soul.