Back From England
Arriving in England gave
me culture shock. I didn't realise what a village country bumpkin I
had become. It's not that long since I was last in London but that
was just for an evening. The proliferation of crowds of people,
cars, buses and houses all around was simply so unfamiliar. I was
well aware that Bow, where my son Carl lives, is something of a
Bangladeshi enclave but there were also significant numbers of
Chinese, Turks and Caribbeans. There were most probably also many
others from origins that I couldn't readily identify, a real racial
melting pot.
However, I didn't witness
or sense any racial tension, although there may be some. Voltaire
once wrote of religion that if one were to have religion it was
important to have something like twenty religions rather than just
two; two would always be in conflict whilst twenty could live happily
together.
Bow, I discovered, is an
area of London that is due a makeover and, indeed, in the process of
getting it. Whilst many of the main streets could probably do with
wome demolition, the side streets were full of Georgian houses that,
renovated, would form sublime roads. No doubt the speculators will
be in there in force before long.
The shops in the main
streets were much better than the dreary line-up of financial outlets
and betting and charity shops that is the lot of many high streets in
towns where all the best shops have moved into malls. The food
shops, most of which proclaimed themselves Food Centres, all seemed
to have a very wide selection of fruit, vegetables and « exotic »
provisions, reflecting the cultural diversity of the area. They were
complemented by a similar variety of retaurants and takeaways, many
very good and cheap.
And I discovered the
Oyster card, the cheap way of using public transport in London. It
works brilliantly as do the buses and tube trains, all cleaner than I
remembered them, frequent and the former relatively fast even in
areas of traffic congestion.
Wandering around Oxford
Street I acquired some garb that I had wanted for a long time: the
most garish Union Jack T-shirt I could find and a black bowler hat,
garb to wind up my French friends at boules or for England-France
games watched in the Bar du Pont. I duly wore them to the first
boules game on my return, to laughter and jokes all round.
What didn't go well in
England was the weather. I had anticipated spending some time in the
many good parks, reading and watching the world go by. But windy,
cold and often wet conditions ruled that out. I did manage a trip
out to see one of my favourite National Trust gardens, Mottisfont,
with friend Margaret, but although the garden still looked beautiful
it was a good two weeks away from the peak it should have been at at
that time of the year. Mercifully, the rain that fell on the way to
it ceased when we got there athough the cold conditions didn't help
appreciation of the scents for which it is rightly famous.
What most surprised me
about my trip was the realisation that, despite having lived almost
all of my life in and around towns, I have quite quickly become a
contented villager of southern France. Driving back from the airport
I was immediately at peace rediscovering the calm, the wooded hills
all around, the sense of space and the sun.
