‘Excuse me ma’am a voice above me spoke, as I sat on the step in front of an entrance to some flats
‘Sloane Square’?
‘Straight up’ – I replied after orientating where I actually was, and pointing up the road..
I’d popped out for a coffee at Matcha beyond, not far from my flat…
Just up the road
The rain had started in small spits while I was sitting on a bench enjoying my extra hot, extra strong flat white, with a matcha almond croissant – my second breakfast ( I’d like really to eat breakfast for every meal)
The rain got harder, and so I moved to sit on the ground on my rucksack handbag under a little ( closed) newspaper stand.
A man was sheltering there with me… The rain, a torrent now, was accompanied by claps of thunder, loud resounding powerful
Beautiful
The leaves dripped, shiny green, the park emptied of people and my companion drank his beer, smoked a cigarette and then began a phone conversation… Some in English… ‘ F***ing British summer weather’ metaphorically shaking his fist at the storm – magnificent in her creativity and energy…
Mainly though, he spoke in his mother tongue, (unrecognisable to me) and then after he had ended his conversation, he started to sing, loudly on and on
I got used to it.
I started to read Jonathan Livingston seagull in Spanish
He kept singing
The rain kept pouring.
I had to stand up, the ground under my bottom was becoming wet…
I watched the taxis go by and by
Perhaps I would take a ride…
Suddenly the space around me felt empty, different – I looked up and all was quiet and my companion was disappearing across the park.
I felt his absence
Entangled together for fifteen minutes under a little news-stand shelter in a storm.
The rain lessened and so I crossed the road, and sat down with my book in the entrance to the flats…. A young woman came back and let herself in to her home while I sat there…. She invited me in, to sit on a sofa in the entrance hall…
Another connection, strangers entangled for a moment
I thanked her for her kindness – but declined, I was enjoying my coffee break on a step in the rain…
It reminded me of my life always
Wandering about
Sitting
Watching the world go by….
With our dog Candy when I was eight, maybe ten years old… I would walk with him across the common land, three or four miles to Grayshott, then buy a drink ( often lucozade!) and some chocolate…
And sit on a bench
Watching the world go by
My perfect life to sit and watch.
As William Wordsworth said
‘What is this life is full of care we have no time to stop and stare
No time to stand beneath the boughs,. And stare as long as sheep or cows’