Midsummer Madness

Travelling up to London to raise funds for my beloved thousand year old church, I arrived in the city to find myself in a huge, apparently empty, glistening white building, looking down on the ruins of a Roman wall and, amazingly, a wild flower garden. As  I waited on the 11th floor I could help myself to coffee and then get out onto a balcony with plenty of greenery.

The city is amazing (Le city the French call it) and not all bad!

Then 'flying' along on the Elizabeth line for the first time, I was amazed at its elegance, splendor and efficiency.  I felt proud of my country; not all bad I thought to create such a magnificent and useful thing.

And so on to a grim hour and a half at the dentist (old age striking again) with no time for lunch.  At 3 o'clock  I treated myself to a delicious snack in my favorite coffee bar, full of wonderfully elegant people of all races and nationalities. "We take coffee seriously" the menu announces proudly.  The mushrooms were extraordinarily tasty - 'must have been air fried' I thought, promising to try this myself later (I did but not quite so successfully).

Then to a favorite bookshop which like most British bookshops, sadly doesn't take religion or poetry seriously. No wonder there is a plague of anxiety and mental illness, I thought.   I  bought a book by someone I once met about stealing the corpse of her father who  I had lunch with once. Rather romantic character I found him, famous in the 60s for using computers to compose music (not very successfully).

 Up to London again  two days later for a memorial lunch to a dear friend who died ten years ago. We meet in a Soho club which we were both very fond of. It is in a charmingly somewhat delipidated 17th century room with excellent food brought up from the restaurant below. I had a very moving conversation with the widow of one of the group who sadly died recently.  We had known each other for 76 years. He had been always ready to meet for a cup of coffee and a chat and to help with my little African charity which supports the conservation of South African - plants so wonderful and so vulnerable. The club is now run by my goddaughter, the owner, another old friend having died recently. Old age striking again.

 I was able to catch up with her as well so revisiting a large part of my life in one of the last real bits of Soho left.

Two days later we went  to Bristol to see my stepson and his new partner  and an unusual production of An ideal husband, Oscar Wilde's drawing room comedy about corruption in high places. ( I think I  might have acted in it once during my three years on the London fringe. Elderly memory, not quite sure!).  The cast was nearly all Afro-Caribbean and it had a wonderful reggae flavour to it. They really brought this off, the combination  of Oscar's genius and Afro-Caribbean exuberance was lovely.

 The following day another trip to London for the opening of an art exhibition by my dear friend Leigh Voigt a leading  South African artist. Arriving in South Kensington early I found a splendid chocolaterie in the Fulham Rd. I have a real passion for both chocolate and coffee and had a magnificent mocca surrounded by svelte young women mostly speaking Italian.

The exhibition, 12 large oil paintings of Remarkable Trees, all South African except for one Chinese, was as wonderfully inspiring as expected. I wrote to her afterwards comparing them to Constable's famous 'six footers'. The trees and the usually arid spaces around them have a spirituality and transcendence. Some have a patch of sunlight in the foreground, just as Constable often does, balanced with the magnificence of the trees in the middle distance where Constable often has a church spire. He long struggled for academic recognition in England, being dismissed as merely naturalistic - though not in France where he was immediately recognised as one of the greats. I find a deep spirituality in his work and I find the same in Leigh's. Fortunately the best ones had all been sold  or I might have been tempted to spend a great deal more than I can afford.

 So ended 10 days of intensely exuberant experiences leaving me absolutely exhausted! For the next few days I woke every morning feeling very depressed in a sort of hangover reaction only cured by a very happy morning prayer in my dear church which inspired the following poem

The Chancel Stone

Below the arch it lies.

 A narrow declivity worn down by 

a thousand years of footsteps 

walking to the altar,

to partake of Jesus' flesh 

and drink his blood,

in the quiet of this holy place, 

where farmers, serfs and nobles

have prayed and sung together,

 safe from Danes and Vikings. 

This fertile vale, 

a land of orchids, bees and butterflies, 

rich harvests and chalky downlands, 

deep within the heart of England. 

A holy place, lively with dance and colour, 

with music, joy and song,

among the soft green meadows,

soaring oaks and ancient yews. 

A happy place, 

holy and enchanted.