Usually, and certainly if the weather is good, I have lunch in the garden – an avocado, some of my terrine perhaps, and salad. The latest terrine includes chicken livers and prunes and is very good. I watch the birds and the birds, especially the robins, watch me. If I get up it’s to deal with the squirrels or the pigeons.

On rainy days I’m inside enjoying and appreciating my house and this beautiful room. I look out into the garden. The menu may be soup, made by me of course. A friend suggested adding a lump of blue cheese to vegetable soup and stirring it in. It works and is delicious.

Earlier this week, when I was in the kitchen thinking about what to have for lunch in the garden, I noticed a large van draw up and park in Braganza Street alongside Kennington Station immediately opposite my kitchen window. Painted on the side were the words, ‘HARRY’S TRIM-IT’, and underneath, Mobile Barber Shop.

Apart from private cars I get quite a range of vehicles parked opposite my house. The day before there had been a pest control van and I’d wondered if I could get them to deal with the squirrels. Pimlico Plumbers are fairly frequent visitors. There are TFL (Transport For London) support vehicles often. Sometimes there’s an ambulance because someone’s ‘had a turn’ on the Underground or something like that. This was the first time I’d seen a mobile barber shop.

The driver got out and rolled back the sliding side door of the van facing me. I could see inside. There was a barber’s chair, facing the front of the van with, I guess, a mirror in front of it. Beyond the chair on the other side of the van there were shelves with various bottles on them, hair creams and so on I imagine. They must have been fixed down or they’d have fallen off going round a corner. Everything must have been fixed down. There was no basin so clearly it was a matter of a cut not a wash.

The driver of the van was now in the ‘shop’ moving about, arranging things it seemed. A customer arrived. Off the street or by appointment I couldn’t tell. The customer was young. He didn’t seem at all surprised to be having his hair cut in a van parked in a street and showed no particular curiosity in his surroundings.

I’ve never seen someone have their hair cut from this angle before. The chair and the customer were in profile. Usually at the barbers, certainly at mine in Kennington Park Road, I’m sitting, waiting my turn, behind the row of chairs. From my kitchen I could see the customer and the barber having a conversation about the style of the impending cut. I couldn’t hear anything of course but the gestures said it all.

Decisions made, away the barber went throwing the cape around the customer and tucking it in to the tissue he’d wound round his neck. The tissue looked as if it might be loo paper but I wasn’t close enough to see. Then it was on with the job, clippers, a comb, scissors all the usual thing, and the barber standing back from time to time to have a look, just as I’ve been taught at City and Guilds of London Art School – to stand back from the easel to assess how the work in progress is progressing. The barber and the customer chatted. Probably about football, I thought.

Standing at my kitchen bench (New Zealand) worktop (U.K.) countertop (U.S.) looking out through my Venetian blinds I had a very good view of the hair cut though I wasn’t close enough to see the detail. The barber did take a lot of trouble and time – longer than my barber takes – but then the customer had more hair than I have. When he’d finished there was more discussion. The barber held up a mirror so the customer could see the back. The customer nodded so he must have been happy with the result. I saw him pay. Cash not card. I couldn’t tell how much.

After the customer had left the barber swept up, put things away, came out of the van, closed the sliding door, climbed into the driving seat and drove away.

While I was watching I had managed to have an avocado, on toast, for my lunch.

There are rules at the swimming pool which everyone obeys. You must shower before swimming. In the Slow Lane you must swim clockwise, slowly. In the Fast Lane you must swim anti-clockwise, fast. I’m not sure which way you swim in the Medium Lane as it’s over the other side but I think it’s clockwise. These are the rules and we obey them. Very occasionally when someone doesn’t the Duty Lifeguard sorts them out.

I remember early on when the pool was first opened. I was swimming in the slow lane. I was swum into, quite forcefully, by a young man trying to pass me on the inside – between me and the side of the pool. I was very surprised. He was very cross. I was not pleased.
I said, “You’re not to do that.”
He said that, where he came from, he could. I said that, here, you could not.
He said, “Is there a rule that I can’t?” He also made some rather derogatory comments about my age and state of fitness.
Fortunately, before things became nasty, a lifeguard appeared and told the young man that he was not to swim fast in the slow lane. There was a rule about that. He also said he was not to swim into people.

On Monday, swimming in the Slow Lane, I became very aware, not of rules but of the importance of manners.

There were those with good manners. I count myself among them. We indicate to those faster than ourselves to go ahead of us. We say, ‘Thank you’, or at least indicate a ‘Thank you’, to those who allow us to go ahead. And we never bump into anyone. I’ve even been known, in more recent times, to be gracious towards those who have bumped into me. Swimming is a pleasure.

Then there were those with bad manners. They don’t give way. They do launch forth very slowly before those who are faster. They even swim closer to the centre than to the side which is very inconsiderate. And if anyone bumps into them they make their displeasure known, loudly. Swimming, sometimes, has its irritations.

And there was a swimmer with no manners. They, (Let me be clear. There was only one of them but I am giving no hint of age, gender or race so that I cannot be accused of stereotyping, or discrimination, or something I haven’t thought of.) They swam as if there was no one else in the pool at all. Sometimes they did walking exercises, slowly, then, without warning, freestyle, fast. Or the other way round. Tricky when you were trying to pass or swim behind. Sometimes it was backstroke swimming into others without acknowledgement or apology. They were oblivious of everyone else and simply did their own thing however they wished, regardless.

I have come to realise that having no manners is the worst of all.

PS On Tuesdays and Thursdays for Silver Swim we are over a certain age, we are regulars, we acknowledge each other, we obey the rules and we all have good manners.

The Christian Feast of the Transfiguration has been celebrated by the Western Church on August 6th since the year 1456. The first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th 1945. The symbol or reality of each is a bright light and a cloud. The Christian Feast celebrates the glory of God in the Transfigured Christ. The light and the cloud of Hiroshima indicate the destructive power we have achieved . The dates and the symbolism are the same for each event. Each shows what we can be.

I almost panicked. I thought I had lost the remote control for Laetitia. I knew the remote must be somewhere. It couldn’t have walked. Or perhaps it could? This gives ‘losing control’ a whole new dimension. I found the remote for the television. The remote for the radio and disc player wasn’t where it was meant to be but I found it, eventually, on the shelf under the television with the remote for the uplighter at the end of the sitting room. I never use that remote so I don’t know why I keep it.

I still couldn’t find the remote for Laetitia. I even looked in the drawer where I keep the remotes for the garden lights and the garage door but the remote for Laetitia was not there.

Perhaps I should explain about Laetitia. My younger daughter has given me, as a birthday present, a vacuum cleaner. I must admit my heart sank slightly as the box was big and the instructions looked complicated. But after a week I unpacked the box, several boxes actually, each inside another, and discovered the vacuum cleaner. With the help of a friend I dealt with the instructions. It was, is, a remote controlled vacuum cleaner.

My elder daughter has a similar vacuum cleaner. I think that maybe where the idea, as a present, came from. Her vacuum cleaner she has named ‘Mr Humphries’ as in, ‘Are You Being Served’. Sometimes, she tells me, she watches it moving around the room instead of watching television. That’s sad.

When I saw mine I sent a message of thanks saying, ‘It’s a girl, and she’s called Laetitia’. I have a friend who has named his electric bicycle Laetitia (Latin: joy or gladness) because she does the work going uphill leaving him joyful. My Laetitia does the work cleaning leaving me somewhat glad. The vacuum cleaner is round, about the size of an old 78 record, about two inches deep and on wheels. It is also extremely efficient.

My Laetitia, when I’ve found the remote, moves around my sitting room cleaning while I go to mass or to swim or, when I find the remote, to bed. When her batteries begin to fade she returns, of her own accord, to home base to recharge. Home base is under the black leather chair in which I sit to watch television, using the remote of course. It’s possible that one day I will replace that chair with one that has a remote so that it can raise my legs or stand me up when I need to get out of it.

Each of these remotes is helpful as they save me from mildly irritating tasks. I’m told that I can transfer most of their functions to my telephone along with changing the sound level for my hearing aids, controlling the central heating and seeing whose at the door. All that is just a step too far. My telephone is just a telephone. Except of course it isn’t. When I was in New Zealand it was my telephone that registered me in everywhere I went, supermarket, bus, church, café, everywhere. I’m told I can use my telephone as a debit card. I’m not going to risk that.

I truly do recognise that technology is wonderfully clever and helpful. However the pandemic, zooming and doing everything at a distance, remote, all of that has shown me that I never ever want to be distant, remote, from other people or for them to be remote from me. Well, not all the time.

P.S. I’ve found the remote for Laetitia. It was where I first looked. I mistook it for the remote that turns on the gas fire. Now, before winter, I must find that remote.

A friend has directed my attention to a radio programme, ‘Just One Thing’, with Dr Michael Moseley. It’s on BBC’s Radio 4. The introduction to the programme states, ‘If time is tight, what’s the one thing that you should be doing to improve your health and wellbeing? Michael Mosley reveals surprisingly simple top tips that are scientifically proven to change your life.’

After a slight struggle I’ve managed to download some of the programmes. One was broadcast on Sunday June 6th and was called, ‘Count your Blessings’. It’s all about being thankful. Research has shown, it seems, that being thankful can change and improve not only your mental life but also your physical well being. It can also help you sleep.

On the programme, apart from talking to someone who had done research on the subject, Dr Moseley set someone else the task of writing down, each evening, three things for which he was thankful, and interviewed him as well. It was all very interesting and informative, and it did take me back.

When my children were small I used to say prayers with them, individually, when they went to bed. We didn’t follow conventional patterns as they climbed into bed and I was the one that knelt beside the bed, my head near each of theirs so that no one else could hear – no one other than me and God, that is.

We would start with ‘God bless,’ and the the predictable, ‘God bless Mummy and Daddy’, then, depending on whether they wanted to shorten or lengthen prayer time, we’d go to siblings, grandparents, various relations, school friends and so on.

Next it was ‘Sorrys’. There were strict rules around ‘Sorrys’. I could not suggest anything that I thought should be included. There were sometimes when I thought there were glaringly obvious faults to be acknowledged. However it was not my business to point them out, even with a hint. Being sorry and God’s forgiveness was their business not mine – even though I was listening in.

‘Thank yous’, on the other hand I could encourage. ‘Thank yous’ were the final prayers before my, ‘Good night, God bless, Sleep Well, See You in the Mooorning’, which was a sort of chant, before a final three kisses goodnight. If ideas were not forthcoming for ‘Thank you’, the rules did allow me to prompt, ‘What about, thank you for …’, just to get the mind’s wheels turning. And, of course, once the wheels were turning there was another opportunity to extend lights out.

All of which takes me back to Dr Michael Mosely and ‘Just One Thing.’ I am very pleased that he has confirmed I got something right all those years ago. In another talk the ‘One Thing’ is, ‘Stand on One Leg’. I didn’t teach the children that. I’m trying it now, myself, each morning. It’s not easy. I hope it does some good.