London and a far away place.......
Where to start? I feel bloody awful, coming of these happy pills is killing me! I wont give up, I can't, quitting is not what I'm about. I feel like my perspective of the world is changing, not for the better either. My mother is back in hospital, god knows how long its going to go on for this time, we shall see.
I've got a week of work, feels like its just a couple of days, it should be a bloody month! Christine came back after her MOT, passed with flying colours. What does that saying mean? passed with flying colours? its crazy. The William Tell Overture is playing on You Tube and I'm bursting! bursting to write! I want to talk about lots of things but putting it all in order is an absolute bitch! its just flowing out in any old order, the faster the music gets the faster I type!
Intercity 125! a bloody train haha my first trip to London via train, Skeggy to Grantham then a 125 into the big smoke, I remember it purely because of some strange woman and her hamster. Who would take a furry little rodent on a train? at 10 years old it seemed amazing! Imagine it, first trip into the big city, sitting opposite a woman with a cage on the table, whats in the cage? curiosity is a funny thing.
Just fleeting images after that, the outskirts of London, those poor idiots living next to the main railway line, they must be nuts, to a small time country kid like me it just doesn't seem normal. Getting off the train, I've never seen so many people! grown ups wearing bowler hats, mixing with punks with bright purple hair, mini skirts with laddered tights, the culture shock is enormous! My tiny brain can't cope with all the new information, just bits of it get stored for later retrieval, like now, funny what triggers these memories.
I'm in London for a week with my Auntie Pat, she has two cats, Foxy and Scamp, they are buggers haha they run away from a monster like me, cant say I blame them, its play time for me, those cats had other ideas! That night it was hot, way to hot for me, I'm used to being next to the sea where its cool, not the stifling oppressive heat of the big city. What memories do I have of that week? not many, going on the Cutty Sark, a mooch around Queenie's old tower, that place with traitors gate, seeing the so called crown jewels, not too impressed with them, just stuffy old crap in cases. HMS Belfast stays with me forever, first time I'd been on a real ship and seeing Tower Bridge open to let some American cruise ship through, to tie up next to HMS Belfast. Oddly enough it was full of septic tourists, loud and gobby people, I didn't like them much.
My first trip on the tube, up to the Westend to catch a show, sat opposite some woman in a white top with no bra, to a 10 year old watching her boobs bouncing up and down to the rhythm of the train was fascinating, if I'd know then what fun boobs could be, I'd have been embarrassed, or maybe not paid so much attention to them. Funny what a brain remembers. The show, Paul Daniels, that so called magician fella, absolute pile of shite, bored silly for most of his show, lots of singing by some old bag, I swear he was on stage for about 10 minutes at most, very disappointing!
That's pretty much it, the lights of Piccadilly Circus, a trip on a tourist bus, the bloke Paul's cathedral, some old bones in a museum, 10 Downing Street closed because of IRA bombs, its just another street in a big place of many streets, the roads are not paved with gold, paved with dog shit, but that's about it, dirty horrible place but fun at the same time, definitely an eye opener.
That was my week in London many years ago with my Auntie Pat.
Pat passed on yesterday, good old New Zealander, smoked like a chimney, drank Gin like it was going out of fashion, crashed cars like the best or worst race car driver but best of all planted the seed of a dream to visit New Zealand. I've never managed to visit, as yet, that is going to change maybe not this year or next but it will happen. My bucket list has been added to, it's is to see those far away islands on the other side of the world.
RIP Auntie Pat
Gaz xxx
