1st May, London

The trip in the plane was fairly uneventful except that for some unknown reason I was not given a plane with individual entertainment possibilities between Thailand and England, so I became bored and contemplated making trouble by getting drunk or pretending to be claustrophobic. That certainly would have ensured they put me on the right plane next time but I remembered I was representing my employer and my country (can’t remember either of their names for the moment) so I behaved myself. I am sure my mother would have preferred this choice as well as the airline.

I was surprised to be able to walk directly out of the terminal. I had heard about terminal 5 and was wondering if my bag would be sent to Italy (apparently quite a few bags got sent to Italy to resolve where they should go, the English not being very good at those kind of conundrums ) or even if I would be mistaken for a bag (the system being computer operated, and not necessarily able to discriminate between old women and bags) and scooped up. However, none of this happened. I collected my bags, ticked the ‘no, I don’t have anything I shouldn’t have’ boxes, and walked straight out, pulling my 20kg suitcase and 10kg hand baggage behind me.

I mounted a train to Kew Gardens and after only three unnecessary changes, I was there. It is a little challenging negotiating around a system that involves constant changes of train and station, complicated of course by stairs up and down from the platforms, which resulted in a sort of alarming thumping sound as my bag banged down the stairs behind me. People offered to help me but as I had not been introduced, I politely declined. My mother advised me not to talk to strangers, not to let anyone touch my bags, and always to keep my handbag done up when in a strange city. It would have been easier if I had followed my cousin’s directions and changed at the correct stops, but I took a short-cut that turned out to be a long cut. However, it was a pleasant enough journey.

My cousin’s daughter, Anna, had a cuppa ready for me when I arrived after the 10 minute walk from Kew station. I had my trusty PDA with directions: walk out of the station and continue walking for 10 minutes until you reach number 43. Anna is a ballet dancer (Royal Ballet) turned clinical psychologist and is a PhD sort of doctor. I find it confusing that a psychologist is a doctor that can’t fix broken legs but she is quite relaxed about it. She is very good at analysing people and providing explanations for possible confusions in their thinking, so she is very entertaining and informative, in a speculative sort of way. I suspect she has me figured out but I tried to look like a social scientist with a sort of absent minded demeanour. It wasn’t difficult.

After several cups of tea and information exchanges, we went to Richmond village to meet up with her sister Katy, and therefore the other daughter of my cousin, and went out for a pub lunch and on to the Tate Gallery. Richmond and Kew had me thinking England was very nice thank-you, tidy and clean, plenty of trees, no graffiti, and pleasant shops. More on that later. There’s a new Tate since I was last in London but Anna and Katy must go there regularly as they knew their way around and were familiar with many of the paintings. I liked a Kandinsky best – it looked like dancing figures – very energetic. However, I recognise that anything Kandinsky does is a mere accident of the brush, and my view of what he did is in my imagination. But it was good. We had more cups of tea and some cake. We ate Thai that night, with the spouses Kieran and Sam, and a couple of friends, maybe a Lisa and another Sam. I mentioned to the waitress that I had been in Thailand that morning but she was unimpressed. I guess it happens all the time. I mused to Sam2 that as my plane came into London and I looked at the rows of terraced houses, the grey, and the dirty Thames, and I thought about the English food, the terrible weather, and the idiosyncracies of the language, that it was a marvel that England, a small island off the coast of Europe, had attracted so much interest and so many invaders over the years. He explained that English men were the main drawcard, thereby explaining the hordes of tourists visting London every day.

Katy and Sam talked about their forthcoming trip to Paris for the weekend. Must be good living so close to Paris and not having to take a boat to get there.