Last weekend, in London, the sludge of the Thames flowed with blue sky and spring lamb clouds. Park cafes were snaked with daffodils and people tottering on Spring legs. Folk flowed up the steps from the depths of the Underground into the sun strewn streets of St Paul’s, Piccadilly, Green Park, Knightsbridge. The city highways and by-ways were like a murmuration of starlings gathering, dividing, re-shaping.
I sprang back into my home town by eating, drinking, visiting the Pooh and Picasso exhibitions, meeting friends, family, theatre. The Picasso Exhibition was fabulous. A circular swoop of colour and shape, of women and sexuality with a pumping under current of lust and sensuality. The Pooh Bear exhibition was charming. I travelled to South Ken in a tube carriage over flowing with excited, neatly limbed, small children, the sort that go to exhibitions. I loved the narrative around EP Sheppard’s drawings: how to show expression with a just a dot and a dash.
On Friday and Saturday morning, I woke in bed bathed in sunshine and traffic. As I stretched, so did the day. Each morning, afternoon and evening was creased into a linen fold of coffee, lunch and tea, exhibitions, theatre, restaurants, all arrived at by way of linked arms, laughter, murmured secrets and silver service. Sirens blazed, horns blared, people forged. Prince Albert glowed golden in Kensington Gardens. Snippets of stories spilt into the Serpentine or on to cracks in the pavement as we walked, talking of work, writing, retirement, rape, child sex abuse, war and chemical weapons, and books. We single filed and dodged through traffic, hailed taxis, grabbed tables. And my world mixed the magic and sadness of belonging and un-belonging.
On Sunday, it rained. In the morning, I sat quiet in the grey of the window, watching my brother’s magnolia tree slowly bloom in his London garden. In the afternoon, I went out for tea.
Of course, my mother wasn’t there. But that’s okay. She left me London, family and friends and I am grateful to her for that. I thank her.