A friend has written:

Serendipity
“July 31st “Remote Control”.
“I thought I had lost the remote control for Laetitia”. The name was new to me. So was the word. In Bath, when the sun is shining, I like to go for a walk in the delightful Henrietta Park, a short distance from my home. There are certain park benches which I favour for their seclusion. Sometimes I look at the brass plaque recording the name of the generous benefactor and send an unspoken word of thanks into the empyrean.
August 6th Henrietta Park
I selected a bench I had never sat on before. I read the plaque:-
The Harley Family. Wendy, Eleanor, Bethan, Trevor. Amicitia et risus, Laeta Tempora. Laetae Memoriae.*
In the course of my 91 years l have met the words Laetitia – Laeta for the first time within less than a week.”

* Friendship and Laughter. Joyful Times. Happy Memories

Before a Prom
I went to the Royal Albert Hall on the 360 bus, wearing a mask of course, and, me being me, early. The bus takes nearly an hour and is almost door to door. At South Ken a woman got on, wearing a mask, and glanced at me as if in recognition. I thought I knew her as well. When we got off the bus at the Royal Albert Hall and took off our masks we realised we didn’t know each other at all. However as we were so early and were both going to the Prom we went into the Hall, had a glass of wine together, and put the world to rights. It was most enjoyable and the concert that followed was wonderful.

At the swimming pool
There’s a young Italian who swims four lengths in the fast lane while I swim one in the slow lane. He’s a swimming teacher, he has told me, and is studying to be a Personal Trainer. He has given me a few tips to help me with my swimming and has suggested I learn to ‘love the water’. On Wednesday when I got out of the pool having swum my 500 meters to his 2000 he beckoned me over and said, ‘I watched you. You’re doing really well!’ That was most encouraging.

On the bus
I walk to the swimming pool. It only takes a little over ten minutes. And I usually take the bus back. As it’s about the same time, most days, there are some of the bus drivers who have become familiar to me and, it seems, me to them. They’re almost all friendly and there’s one, a Muslim woman, who always says good morning with the nicest smile when I get on and waves when I get off. It really lifts my spirits.

Payless
‘Paymore’ would be more apt, I’ve always said. And, at Payless, you do pay £1.20 for the same amount of milk that is 80p at the supermarket. However I needed a ripe mango for a cold sauce to go with cold chicken. The sauce was a friend’s suggestion and I was a bit sceptical but I thought I’d give it a go. There was a very ripe mango, a bit black at one end, on the £1 a bowl fruit and veg stall outside Payless. I took it into the shop showing the bad end of the mango to one of the staff and asked, “How much?” He said, “Take it, it’s yours.” The sauce was delicious.

At Lil’s Funeral
Lil Chaplin was a parishioner at St Agnes for years. Originally from Jamaica she was very much part of the community and I heard how some of the parishioners, now old, had all, including Lil, when young done things together when their children. Lil hadn’t been well for some time and her death was a release for her. At the Requiem Mass a number of Lil’s family spoke about her, quite briefly and very affectionately. When one of them couldn’t continue, because of the tears, two others got up and came and stood with them, close, to give them strength. And it happened with another. Nothing dramatic. Simply calm and strong and together.

City and Guilds
This week has been the Degree Show at the City and Guilds of London Art School Just across the road. I usually go and keep in touch with the school when there’s something on. This year the work seems especially good but then I think that every year. I’ve had a good talk to one of the stone carvers and one of the painters. I especially liked their work and bought a carving which I hope I can put into a wall. I’m thinking about one of the paintings. The place is alive with creativity and the graduates I spoke to were full of enthusiasm and looking forward to the future.

Walking Back
Walking back from City and Guilds as I passed the bus stop there were quite a few people waiting for a bus so the pavement was crowded and someone was walking towards me, wearing a mask. As we tried to pass each other we did one of those strange dances with each of us stepping in opposite directions so that whichever way we moved we were still face to face so neither of us could go ahead. So I stood still, smiling. I realised then that you can tell if someone wearing a mask is smiling because their eyes crinkle up at the corners. He was smiling too, and passed me, and we each went our separate ways.

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.