Sunday, May 31, 2009
London
I awoke on the last morning of my stay in my cozy flat at High Holborn at 6 am. I guess you could say that at the very end, I was sleeping almost the whole night through and for that I am grateful. I did check my email and I continued drafting my monthly newsletter to my friends around the world, then checked the website of the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Field as I had never been there before for a service. I figured that Pentecost Sunday would be a good time to get there and listen to the choir of a great church.
Only, I did not bargain for the fact that because the church sits at Trafalgar Square right in front of Gerard Street and the heart of London’s Chinatown, it has a huge percentage of Chinese parishioners and the service was, therefore, bi-lingual—in English and Mandarin Chinese. This, of course, made it very interesting but it also made it very long. In fact, it went on for almost two hours! There was an English priest and a Chinese one and they alternated as co-celebrants. What was particularly interesting was that the readings were done in fragmented fashion by a number of folks representing different nations and in different tongues. This was especially significant as Pentecost, which represents the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles after the death of Christ, bestowed upon them the gift of tongues. This allowed them to travel far away from the Holy Land (some as far as India as St. Thomas did) taking the message of Christ with them and spreading Christianity.
The preacher, the Vicar of the Church, whose name I did not catch, was, as all Anglican preachers are, simply compelling. The quality of these sermons astonish me, Sunday after Sunday, and given that he included detailed references to Mohsin Hamid’s novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist with some very interesting interpretations, I found it very absorbing indeed.
The light at the end of the lengthy tunnel was that the entire congregation was invited to attend a Bring-And-Share Lunch in the Crypt after the service. And because the congregation was so diverse, there was a variety of foods on the table—from three kinds of Chinese noodles to sausage rolls and cold ham. Indeed it was all quite fascinating.
A couple of people came up to speak to me and welcomed me into their midst—one of them happened to be a Malaysian named John who informed me that he had been a member of the congregation for the past 30 years. Another lady told me that she was originally from Cape Town, South Africa, and had spent about 40 years in England. She had recently retired and wished to return to South Africa but she was disappointed by the lack of racial harmony in her country and the terrible corruption, she said. An Indian woman, who informed me that her father was a Sikh and her mother a Christian, also came up to chat with me.
Of course, I need say nothing about the fabulous interior of the Church that is a London landmark, what with its strategic position on one of the country’s most-visited sites. The lavish plasterwork on the ceiling is just stunning, embellished here and there with touches of gilding. There is a huge royal Crest in the center featuring the lion and the unicorn that I have seen all over this country—in churches, palaces and all sorts of venues associated with the royal family. I had once sat upstairs in one of the pew boxes during a fusion concert that featured Middle Eastern, Indian and Western music in the compositions of Talvin Singh. This time, seated down, in the midst of the congregation, I had a very different perspective of the church and I thought it was quite arresting indeed.
Finally Finishing The Order of the Phoenix:
Despite the fact that it was moving day for me, the bulk of my packing had been done and I could not resist joining the throngs of people who had gathered on this extraordinarily bright and beautiful day to enjoy the outdoors. Since I was so struck by the Victoria Embankment Gardens in spring when the tulips and primroses had filled the green oasis with color, I decided to take a look at it again. I had carried The Order of the Phoenix with me and I thought that the gardens would make a great place to finally finish the book—I had about 30 pages left and I wanted to return it to Barbara who had lent it to me before I left the building in the evening.
My thorough knowledge of the geography of London now allows me to find my way to my desired destination in the shortest possible time and with the least amount of walking. I have to say that I myself marvel at this ability as London is not laid out in a grid like New York and there are no numbers to guide you to a venue—you need to have a very good map or a very good instinct for direction.
In less than ten minutes, I was entering the gardens and, expecting to see loads of blooming flower beds, was in for a huge disappointment. All the spring flowers had gone and the beds had been dug up, in time, perhaps, for a new round of planting. At any rate, they looked bare and devoid of any floral interest whatsoever. Not willing to be dissuaded from my goal of finishing the book, I found a shaded bench and spent the next one hour turning the pages and people-watching (and unconsciously eavesdropping) at the same time. A pair of elderly ladies joined me on my bench and twice I entered into their conversation as I could not help overhearing them and both times I had the answer to their questions.
“What is that thing called?” said one of them pointing in the distance. “I always forget it’s name”.
The other shrugged. She did not know and she not care.
“That’s the London Eye”, I said. Though they thanked me warmly, I wondered if it was impolite of me to have butted into their private conversation. In the States, I wouldn’t think twice about doing this; but in the UK, where everyone is so reserved, such an intrusion on my part might well be considered rude and I am not yet fully familiar with the social protocol governing casual chatter with strangers.
A few minutes later, the sharper woman stopped a member of the cleaning crew to ask, “What is the name of those flowers there?” –pointing to a flower bed.
“I don’t know”, replied the man. “You will have to ask the gardener there”.
“Those are hydrangeas”, I said.
“Oh thank-you”, they said again, then proceeded to ignore me for the rest of the time I sat there! Again, I am certain that such a thing would never have happened in the States where this exchange would have been the start of a long and interesting conversation about mutual interests, such as, in this case, gardening!
Back to Pack at Home:
I stopped for a few minutes to gaze at the Thames before I walked back home to begin the final stages of my packing. It stunned me that no matter how many hours I devoted to the job, it seemed never ending. Finally, it was all done and I was able to await the arrival of my elves—Rosemary, my friend, arrived with her car, from Battersea and a little later, Chriselle’s friend, Rahul, joined us too. We began loading my boxes (about eight of them in all plus 3 large suitcases and a bureau—how on earth did I accumulate so much stuff???) at about 7 .45 pm but we were not done until after 10 pm because though I am only moving about a ten minute walk away from my current place, the one-ways and the barriers erected between buildings made the journey convoluted and cumbersome. Still, I have to say that my friends were a pair of workhorses as we loaded all my stuff into the car and then into my new digs and carried the bureau like a pair of stalwart movers! Between the three of us, we got the entire job done and then we got out in search of dinner, but not before the pair of them expressed their awe at the place into which I have moved.
Moving into my New Digs:
Indeed, my new digs have to be seen to be believed. From a tiny one-bedroomer, I have entered a sprawling loft-like apartment whose “living room”, as Rahul put is, “is larger than a football field”. My own room is cozier though and has a lovely, very spiffy attached bath. The place is tastefully furnished, crammed with medieval sculpture and modern abstract art (Andy Warhol and Maggi Hambling among a host of contemporary artists), Polynesian carvings and a whole whale vertebrae. It is a very classy place overall and I know that I will enjoy finding my way around it as I rattle around on my ownsome.
Because it was almost 10. 30 and none of us had eaten, I decided to take them out somewhere for dinner but Carluccio’s where we went first, at Smithfield Market, was closed for the evening and at Rahul’s suggestion, we drove far off towards Old Street, close to where he lives, to the heart of Vietnamese London where we finally settled down in a restaurant and ate steaming bowl of Pho, the noodle based soup. My Hot and Spicy Prawn Pho was just that—hot and spicy! Rosemary sniffed her way through her Chicken Pho while Rahul had beef with bamboo shoots and mushrooms. It was late, really late, when I returned to the flat, feeling a bit uneasy about the strangeness of my surroundings and the vast size of the rooms.
With so much unpacking to do the next morning, I decided to call it a night but not before I had a long chat with Llew on the phone. Since we hadn’t talked all day and he wanted to know how my move went, it was a long call, so that it was after midnight when I finally switched off my bedside light and hoped for a good night’s sleep.