Yesterday's outing to the big city, at the invitation of daughters, meant an early direct bus, which quickly filled up, meaning an adjacent passenger for conversation ... Kay, from Frosterley, though not originally, and a deep discussion, sparked by the book chosen for the trip, The Power of Now ... cited by many as the spark for their spiritual journey ...
In town, time for a browse in the Amnesty bookshop and a good harvest of Watts and K, Witter Bynner's classic translation of the Tao Te Ching, plus an old edition of Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell ... the library expands ...
The rendezvous is Heaton, 25 minutes walk East of the city centre, and time for some reminiscences, since this was the family home for their childhood, which I was lucky enough to share for seven years ... the junior school, still housed in the imposing Victorian building ( maybe Edwardian, anyway one of those built to last edifices of the last century )... the shopping street, with different shops, mostly independent, but Tesco Express and Sainsbury Local creeping in ... a warm greeting from the girls and a civilised one from their mother, then the wonderful Sky Apple Cafe on Heaton Road, well worth a free ad on here for readers looking for good vegetarian and vegan food ... a growing trend ...
A walk in the Dene, then back to town for a three bus adventure, hoping to be home before the later departing direct service ... a one minute switch in Durham was close and an interesting chat on the way to Crook, with a young man arriving even later, with a suitcase and only one operational arm, causing a ruckus with the driver, keen to get moving ... lurching upstairs, minus the case, he looked around for someone to sympathise with him, since he had decided discretion was wiser than confronting the driver and had some pent up energy to dispel ... sympathy shared and an enquiry about the spare arm revealed the bottle he was hiding from the driver ... he was keen to tell me his betting story and I was keen to learn about it, having previously noted the bookies on the Chillingham Road and wondered what people did there. .. so the time passed amusingly enough, learning about accumulators and the life of my inebriated fellow traveller ...
Well, that was plenty of excitement for one day, so today is back to the quieter routine ... K study, a longish walk, some writing, washing on the line and soup for lunch ... simple pleasures ...
No comments:
Post a Comment