Thursday, May 7, 2009
London
After a whole week of glorious sunshine, it felt kind of odd to wake to a grey day–thankfully, not a rainy one. Most of my morning was spent cleaning my flat–and a thorough job I did of it too, even if I say so myself. Between scrubbing my sink and my granite counter tops, washing the bathroom and vacuuming the whole house, I had the whole place shipshape in a couple of days and sat back to enjoy the glow!
Email and the editing of another chapter for the anthology on Anglo-Indian Women took up the rest of the morning. I stopped for lunch briefly, then returned to finish the editing and revision of the piece before I curled up for a short nap.
When I awoke it was almost four and I decided to take on Part 5 of the Jubilee Walk. Hopping into the 55 bus that ran along Clerkenwell Road, I got off at Old Street, then made my way on foot to the Museum of London where I resumed the route. Today’s segment took me through parts of the city I have grown to know very well and love very much from St. Paul’s Cathedral and Ludgate Hill to Fleet Street where the memorial plaque to Edgar Wallace was very moving indeed. Past a couple of old churches I went, turning right on to my own Chancery Lane of Bleak House fame and then presto, there I was on my own street–High Holborn–with my building staring at me across the road. I am so delighted to know that the Jubilee Walkway goes right by my road–it feels special to live on a road that is considered important enough to be placed on this historic route.
Then, I cut right through Red Lion Street to arrive at Theobald’s Road–this, of course, is my own stomping ground and parts of the city that I know like the back of my hand. This was a good time to nip into the Holborn Public Library to see if I could find Lonely Planet’s France to carry with me to Paris next week. And yyyessss! It was there! With it safely under my arm, I walked towards Bedford Square to my office on campus where I managed to photocopy a great deal of the book that will be of use to me. Unexpectedly, I met my colleague Karen who shares my office and I sat chatting with her for a while before I remembered that I had to rush off to pick Chriselle up from Heathrow airport.
Back on the bus I hopped, got home, had a shower and then I was off. I took a couple of buses as far as Hammersmith and changed to the Tube from there arriving in Heathrow bang on schedule–only to discover that the flight had come in early and that she had cleared Immigration is no time flat! Chriselle had reached the Arrivals area already where we had a loving reunion before I whisked her right off into the Tube for the ride into the city. Needless to say, we chatted non-stop on the one-hour long ride to Holborn from where we walked home.
Chriselle loved my flat and the quiet sense of serenity that fills it. She says it looks to her “like a hotel that feels like home”–which is really the best compliment she could pay me. Despite her long flight across the Pond, she was full of beans and had so many stories to share with me.
Then, because she was hungry, she decided to eat some of my home-cooked pasta and a salad that I fixed for the two of us. She tried to get online using my wireless system but was unable to log on and that made it impossible for her to get a bit of work done as she had intended to do. Giving up for the time being, we shall try to see how she can get online tomorrow.
It was well after 1.00 am that we finally decided to go to sleep–still leaving a great deal to talk about tomorrow. ..