Sam has come back to London from Perth to spend ten days decorating his Hackney house with my grandson Oliver. He will return home on Malachi’s birthday, so I was able to give him his son’s birthday present.
Jackie drove me to and from New Milton for me to pay a visit. From Waterloo I travelled by Northern and Victoria lines to Highbury and Islington, then the Overground to Homerton whence I walked down Hasset Road, E9 to number 94.
Whilst, like, continuing to read on my, like, outward train journey, I was, like, entertained by the, like, conversation of a group of like, teenage girls.
The buildings outside Homerton Station were decorated by such colourful graffiti that I took out my camera to photograph it. The battery was flat. My pace slowing, I walked despondently away.
‘Hang on a minute’, I thought. ‘I’ve got a camera on my phone’. By the time I reached the corner of Hasset Road, I had some vague idea about how to use it. Unfortunately not quick enough to catch the young woman and children who walked into the shot.
This East London street has, since the 2012 Olympics, been gradually undergoing steady gentrification. The whole area reflects the extensive post-war rebuilding juxtaposed with the terraced Victorian houses,
one of which belongs tp my son and his wife.
The young men continued their work whilst I sat on a bed and largely conversed through a window with Sam who painted the frames whilst aloft a ladder.
Olli was so amused
at my efforts to photograph Sam at the bathroom window, that he volunteered to do it for me.
For my return to Waterloo, Sam, seeking to simplify my journey, escorted me to the stop for the 26 bus which would take me all the way to the London terminus. This was reasonably straightforward. Except that as the bus I had boarded lumbered off I realised that I had left my book behind. No way can I contemplate a four hour journey with no crisp pages to turn. It was therefore necessary to disembark at the next stop, walk back to Sam’s, and catch a later bus. And except that en route an announcement informed us that the destination of our vehicle had changed. The next message stated that we were going to Waterloo. The bus terminated at Liverpool Street Station. Consternation and confusion were relaxed when we were informed that another 26 was waiting for us. This one went on a diversion at Bank Station. Fortunately , for me the intermediate route was of no interest. Had I wished to visit St Paul’s Cathedral, I may have felt rather differently.
We enjoyed a second helping of yesterday’s paprika pork and savoury rice with which I drank Kingfisher.
My greatest consternation and confusion came afterwards, when I couldn’t upload my photographs onto the iMac, which couldn’t recognise my Samsung, which in turn informed me that I should download kies. After struggling with this for a while I sought Becky’s advice on the telephone. We couldn’t solve the problem and I tried my laptop, where, eventually I was successful.