London…!   Wednesday, 09/11/2022

How interesting to be back in London! The one thing that really struck me was how First World the city is – how ordered and organised, how much choice there is… In contrast to so much media comment, which would have you believe that things in the UK are falling apart, how prosperous and efficient everything appears. Of course some things are mainly invisible, like the crime wave that is undoubtedly taking place in west London – my house was burgled two weeks ago: it was undoubtedly being watched – the tenants went out on a Friday evening and one of the double-glazed doors in the kitchen was smashed to gain entry. This sort of thing happening on a Friday evening would previously have been very unlikely – I lived in the house for almost 14 years and it never happened. Instead of simply repairing the two doors that are damaged, I’m having the glass in all four of the doors replaced with laminated glass. Which is allegedly impervious to assault…

The excellent thing about being back has been to see a lot of people. I met my old neighbour Mark last Wednesday evening. After a couple of beers he headed for home; I went and got a takeaway and then returning to my hotel was surprised to find him standing outside. He’d witnessed an accident: it had been raining heavily and a car had come out of a parking area, clearly going way too fast. Skidded, mounted the pavement, flattened a pole, hit a young woman walking along (who went over the bonnet), then went across the road, hitting the side of an oncoming car before ending up against the opposite pavement. The police arrived and they asked me to get the young woman who had been hit and was now in the reception area of my hotel. I went in but she was too distressed to come out, so I went and told the police they’d have to go to her. And then, because I wasn’t a witness, I left poor Mark to it and went up to my room. People do stupid things, and don’t seem to take weather conditions into account. Surprisingly, the driver was a very meek-looking man in his forties – I’d have been much less surprised if it was a young man!

It has been great to see my daughters. Anna and I met up on the evening of my arrival on Tuesday, and then again on Thursday evening, when we went to the theatre in central London and saw the new play of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. It was outstanding – a superb transformation of the book into a stage play. And the atmosphere in these old London theatres is just fantastic.

On the Friday evening I met up with a dozen or so of my old colleagues in a wine bar in the City – great to be remembered, including by a couple of young colleagues who have since moved on. Then after spending Saturday afternoon with Anna in the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington – a place that has much improved over the past decade and now really showcases the beauty of the building – I met up with my old mate Andy in Chiswick. A typical London evening – a couple of pints in the George IV pub, followed by a kebab from a small Turkish place and then another pint in the Tabard…

Which left me quite tired on Sunday morning when I headed out to Heathrow to pick up a hire car in order to drive down to the New Forest, where Louisa is temporarily staying with her mother and her husband Tony. Anna decided to come along, so I had company on the 70 mile drive down there. Fantastic to see Louisa – who’s looking really well! Having finished her studies, she’s pondering her future and applying for different things, while working at the ASDA supermarket on the edge of Southampton (which, as you might imagine, is an interesting experience…). Her mother’s house is great, on a small road actually within the New Forest National Park, a brilliant setting. Wild ponies frequently walk along the road. In fact, the New Forest epitomises everything that is great about England. It’s one of the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture, heathland and forest in southern England, and was proclaimed a royal forest by William the Conqueror in 1079. Isn’t that extraordinary – 943 years ago!

I stayed there on Sunday and Monday nights and Louisa and I went down to Lymington and spent a few hours walking around that beautiful old town on the Solent – my last sight of it had been as I left the UK on February 27th last year, sailing past headed for the Caribbean. Returned to London yesterday and ended up in a pub in Little Venice with Anna last night. Then a Japanese lunch in the City today with my old friend and business contact Selina… great to see her!

So it’s been busy, but really taking advantage of the best that London has to offer. It’s wonderful to see people, especially Anna and Louisa. Although that was not as strange as I had thought it would be – thanks to modern technology, WhatsApp in particular, we’ve had video calls and frequent contact which makes it feel less than almost two years since I’d seen them.

While London is so familiar, and nothing much has really changed, it’s still strange to be back here – the happy hunting ground where I spent 32 years of my life! I wonder if I shall live here again? I really don’t know – and there’s no need to make any decision about things like that at this stage. I’ve changed – not least because I’ve had so much time to reflect on my past life and possible futures. And time was the thing that I’d never had. I travelled, but always had time constraints – a week, 10 days, possibly two weeks – and the clock was always ticking. I was brought face-to-face with this shortly after I arrived in Antigua after my Atlantic crossing. Talking with Laura, an English woman, I’d causally said Oh well, I suppose I will be moving on after two weeks etc… and she said You need to get out of the idea of having a schedule – we’re all the same: at the beginning, we all think that you need to keep on moving, that time is passing… you need to forget about time and just live; two weeks or two months, what does it matter? She was right. I tried hard to forget time, and a few months on I was surprised to find that I’d succeeded. And so the life that I’ve been living is very different, especially to London, where most people are governed by the clock and are time-poor…

Don’t get me wrong: I like the First World! I like how everything works properly, I like the fact that everything is clean and ordered, I like choice… But a contrast is good, and it’s always been said that the great benefit of travel is that on your return you see your home for what it truly is. You can never really appreciate it without leaving it…