THURSDAY, APRIL 25
ESCAPE
We finally left Ifield, Depp and the creepy home we were tending. The house looked quite different from when we arrived, tidier, and definitely cleaner. We petted sweet Depp and kissed his head, looking into his soft, sad brown eyes one last time and shut the door, dented where we had hit our too-high heads so many times, behind us. The BBC blasted through the cracks in the old wooden door as we dragged our bags across the gravel path, in the gentle rain, and down the street to Ian and Maggie’s. Ian drove us to the airport where we caught the train to London.
It was a relief. All of it…to be on the train, to be around more people, to be leaving. By the time we reached Victoria Station, the rain had cleared. We took another train to Brixton Station.
Our first order of business was to get Chloe’s computer to a repair place.
ANOTHER COMPUTER DISASTER
Water spilled on Chloe’s computer that morning. Jeeeez!
Luckily the computer repair person, who had a small shop right by the station, was able to turn her computer on right away. We didn’t turn it on because we knew — remember my computer also somehow got wet! He told us he would clean it up and we could return for it at 5:30.
Big sigh of relief…
3 STORE…DITTO
Next we went to the 3 store to “top up” our service. Yet again, and of course, we ran into problems with payment. We can’t get a contract because we don’t have a credit card registered to a UK address. It took us an hour, with lots of people helping, to figure this out. We left the store without topping up, hoping I could get a Monzo card using a friend’s UK address. But we needed the card in a day in order to get the contract. Wishful thinking…to say the least. Naive… may be more accurate.
KENNINGTON NEAR BRIXTON
The Kennington/Brixton neighborhood reminds me of Fort Greene and other areas of Brooklyn, with its variety of architecture and people and many people of color, mostly of African descent. It feels like a great neighborhood to live in, lots of two and three story townhouses and condos, and only a few taller buildings (we stayed in one that was project like). One thing London definitely has over Italy is diversity.
GOING THROUGH THE THEATRE
We had tickets to a play, “Going Through,” at the Bush Theatre, ,and walked from Notting Gate Hill. It felt great getting off the train in a neighborhood we were somewhat familiar with. This is one benefit of traveling…you do become, at least a little bit, a citizen of the world. We visited a consignment store we had gone to before, argued about which direction Jenny and Richard’s house was in, then walked a wide street with tall, commanding trees and elegant, stately, mostly white buildings, remembering back to when we were here in the fall. The trees then were losing leaves, colors of rust, to the wide sidewalk. Now they are coming to life with soft, vibrant greens.
The play was insanely boring, and a bit off-putting. The story of a refugee girl and her mother but done as an “everyman” tale, which rarely allows an audience to feel the intimacy of the personal and thus universal. To add to the distancing, the mother was deaf — lots of sign language that we and others didn’t understand. And…every night a woman with turrets is in the audience. She repeatedly and uncontrollably makes noises and blurts out Fuck. She is part of the show…very weird and I think disrespectful of her. I don’t think people with disabilities should be props. Enough said. We are back in civilization!
