Tuesday 16 May 2017

Brockwood Park ...

May is a fine time to visit Brockwood ... the Grove in full flower, nearby woods carpeted with bluebells ... monoculture crops on chalk down land fields around offering a rather sinister contrast ... looking pretty but weed free fields infer chemical assistance ...

Thursday's trip was fun ... early bus from Stanhope, onward from Crook by bus to Durham ... 40 minutes to spare and a visit to Ciao Ciao to say hello to Andreas, envious of the retreat and clear in his intention to change direction after his forthcoming break in Crete ...

The reserved seat on the train produced three different victims for my attention ... the first declined the invitation and spent the time to York reading the Daily Mail ... no reflection on readers of that particular propaganda, my mum was a regular reader and she was very compassionate, whilst an old friend, Dave, was a red, yet read it every day ...

Pauline, from York to Derby, was happy to talk and listen, after adjusting her expectations about random train companions ... and seemed to enjoy the experience ... asked how she might describe the philosophy to her husband, which was not easy, since there is not a convenient label for it ... indeed any label is resisted as counter productive ...

Sapphire, from Derby to Winchester was on her way to a girl's weekend with a best friend found on the internet ... a young mother having a break from the attentions of two small children and starting early with the three for a tenner offer on red wine ... though she only drank one small bottle along the way ...

And so to Winchester. .. ten minutes to wait for the double decker bus along improbably narrow lanes past very affluent properties sporting two varieties of political posters ... big blue ones, announcing "We have lots of money and we are keeping it", and smaller orange ones suggesting " We have lots of money and we feel a bit guilty about it" ... reds, greens and purples noticeably absent ... looks like there is an election coming up ...

Brockwood feels like home again ... soon settled into the simple room looking out on the trees ... a walk before supper and conversation with Jeanne and Laurent from Paris, relieved that Macron has seen off Le Pen in the French pantomime ... a subsequent chat with other French folks suggested that the lesser of two evils was not really a choice ...

Friday free until tea, when other folks gather for the Friends of Brockwood ... meaning a long morning wander with Rob from Brighton, formerly from Australia and a student of K for 30 years ... a late afternoon walk with Keith, a gardener at Kensington Palace, and Peter, retired physics teacher, determined to find out what's going on in the quantum world before he dies ...

The Friends gather for introductions, then a video of a dialogue between K and New York psychiatrist David Shainberg ...

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