Time To Stand And Stare
We’re now coming to the end of the first stage of our post-work O.E. trip.
Since the last post, our pace has definitely slowed, spending most of our time in London, staying with James, Tamara, Eva and Josh. It’s been an opportunity to kick back, slow down, watch the world go by and smell the flowers. For such a long time during my working years, I’ve been driven and task-focused, always conscious of time pressures trying to get things done efficiently and expediently, before moving onto the next task. Ticking off tasks on to-do lists has been a way of life, both professionally and personally. Now, with our travels underway and the main logistical arrangements for our pending bike trip booked, we’ve had the ‘time to stand and stare’. There have been simple pleasures like walking the kids to school in the morning and then nipping into a neighbourhood cafe for a leisurely coffee. Sipping on my long black (necessitating careful instructions to the barista), I’ve looked out the window wondering what all those busy people outside are doing. It’s been rather the mirror image of my previous life - on the infrequent occasions I’ve been in a town centre during working hours, I’ve wondered how people were able to be lazing around drinking coffee. Now I know.
Besides time with the kids, we’ve made a number of day trips into central London. One was based around meeting for lunch with Julie’s sister, Chris, friend Terry and Julie’s 88-year-old mother, Pam. Pam’s amazing - she’s still incredibly accomplished at handcrafts (sewing, embroidery, knitting and lace-making) and she can kneel and stand up again quicker than many people half her age. She’s quite comfortable getting the train to and from London from her house 100km away and can walk for hours during a day of tripping around the city. Seeing her off on her return train back home, padding happily down the platform towards her carriage was quite a sight.
I also managed to catch up with former colleague, Annie. She started as a graduate in the Water team at Beca’s Christchurch office just before I showed up there in early 2008. Since leaving in mid- 2010, she’s been working in London and is now a senior in chemical and energy advisory company. We’ve kept in touch over the intervening years and it was great to spend an evening reminiscing, sharing some management war stories and hearing each other’s news. One drink became two, which became three…
Julie and I visited the London Museum Docklands, where there was an exhibition on the peculiarly London practice of mudlarking. On display were some amazing artifacts that had been recovered by people fossicking about the muddy banks of the River Thames over the last few centuries, including a magnificent bronze Celtic shield and helmet - both over 2,000 years old. The museum also had an exhibition on the history of Docklands, once the largest port in the world. I’d always assumed Docklands has simply been a derelict industrial area, left over from the 1960s and 70s which had been transformed into an impressive corporate jungle of glass and steel towers. It was evident from the display, however, that the area had been populated with a longstanding and close-knit working community that had been unwillingly displaced to make way for the developers. Certainly, the area is now an imposing - if not intimidating - edifice to the corporate world, with some token reminders of its industrial past.
One of our forays into London featured afternoon drinkies at the terrace bar of the Royal Opera House, overlooking Covent Garden, as recommended by James. Being crowded, while I was getting drinks at the bar, Julie perched on a table with another (very elegant) drinker. Julie being Julie, she got chatting and discovered that he worked as a brand manager for Hermes, who lived in a flat just across the market square. He just happened to have a Hermes handbag with him. When Julie coyly enquired as to its price, he replied that it was “about 8”. “Wow! Eight hundred pounds!” says Ian in response. And just there, Ian displayed his complete ignorance of all things fashion. I was only an order of magnitude out…
We also took the kids to visit the Monument - the 62m-tall column, completed in 1677 to commemorate the Great Fire of London of 1666. Its height is its distance from the fire’s starting point at a bakery on Pudding Lane. For a small entrance fee, you get to climb the internal spiral staircase - all 311 steps - to the upper viewing platform for some great views over central London. Ours was a very quick view due to the howling gale blowing at the time.
My time in London was punctuated by a trip to Stonehaven in the north-east of Scotland. In the early 1990s, I spent two and a half years in Aberdeen working as a Pollution Control Officer for the North East River Purification Board (now part of SEPA - the Scottish Environment Protection Agency). I was one of the first-ever tranche of outsider recruits into the Board’s pollution control roles. This was my first permanent job and they were formative years for me, during which I formed close and lasting friendships. Reflecting this, my trip north was to spend time with two of my workmates (David and David) from almost 35 years ago - both of whom still work for the Agency. The trip is the latest instalment of what’s become a semi-annual boys’ long weekend of chat, banter, beers at the harbour-front Marine Hotel (much like we did all those years ago), walking, laughing and good craic. As always, we had the local David telling us - ad nauseum - that “you’ll niva hae this agin!”. He does have a point, of course - even though I’d never admit it to him. There aren’t many places you can sit on your patio, watching a yacht sail past, with dolphins frolicking around it. Nor where you can walk from your door to a ruined medieval castle (Dunnottar Castle). And the ice cream from the Guilianotti parlour was simply outstanding. I will always have some very happy memories of sitting on the Stonehaven harbour wall, drinking beer and enjoying the craic with the Davids.
Returning back south, Julie and I have spent the last week staying in Bedford with Sam, Sarah and Freida, including time with Pam. More time slowing down and enjoying little pleasures with Freida - at the playground, bath time, bedtime stories, holding hands while crossing the road, waving at people while walking down the street, marvelling at birds hopping around the garden and, yes, smelling the flowers.
Now our minds are turning to cycling. Today, Julie and I return to London for one last night before setting off on our bikes on tomorrow morning. It all feels a bit surreal - after the flurry of activity getting everything organised and packed in Christchurch, then some time setting up the bikes in the first few days in London, we’ve spent the intervening month focused on time with family and friends. Apart from some walking, I’ve done less exercise than I have since I was last in the UK a year ago. Getting onto heavily laden bikes is going to be a shock! Also, although we’ve got trains and the ferry booked to Copenhagen, I’m a little nervous about how the logistics will play out. When you’re not actually riding a bicycle, it’s not much fun travelling with one. We’ve got seven separate train journeys between London and Copenhagen, with very short transfers between some in which to get our laden bikes between platforms and into the next train’s bike carriage. Also, the European leg (five trains, starting in Rotterdam) is all via Deutsche Bahn trains - all the reports I’ve had about their service have not been good. We’ll just have to see how it plays out. Thankfully, we’re not working to any deadline and can make things up as we go along - who know, we may end up cycling from Rotterdam up the Rhine?
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