When I was first an elector, I voted Labour, we were in Ed Heath country!, and I used to fight with my best mate, Brie, whose birthday it would have been today, but she died recently, we used to fight as I was left and she was right. So it never would have occured to me that I would be grateful for a Tory, but this week as the Tories mostly kept Reform out of my Borough, it was thank goodness for the Tories. I came third again. Thank you kind voters. And on the whole the Green Party did much better than before.
The other reason for being grateful to a Tory is the wonderful railway journeys done by Michael Portillo, it was because of him that I suddenly realised I could visit the south of France in spring because that was how it was originally done and because of him I have become aware of all sorts of routes. But recently I have been ahead of him. He has just done a series on Japan, which enabled me to reminisce about the places I went to you and learn about the many places I did not get to and now he is in Uzebekistan, but I visited there whilst studying to be a journlist so during my 20s.
It is so long ago I cannot remember the full details - my sister, Dad and I had visited Moscow and Leningrad over Christmas the year I divorced and I must have gone back to the Soviet Union in the March of that year , or the year after, as I was so taken with it. We visited Moscow again, and then I think flew down to Samarkand and onto Bukara and back via Taskkent. I remember our flight was delayed, so we missed quite a lot of Samarkand, but in the evening I went up to see what I could see. I was frightened by some dogs, fear of rabies, and a man called the dogs and I somehow gestured to him I was trying to look at probably the Registan Square. Well he took me inside the building and showed me some of it, before I perhaps stupidly took fright and thought I had better get back to the hotel. It was suprisingly cold in Samarkand, they had snow, which was unusual at that time. It might have been in Bukara that we saw women celebrating International Women's Day, the first time I had heard of the festival. The country now, based on TV shows, is now very modern in places, but Samarkand and Bukara are timeless and wonderful. I bought the black hat, you can see in the picture, at a factory we were taken to, and even though it was a man's hat, everyone liked that I was wearing it. I got lots of thumbs up. My coat came from Laurence Corner, which was once a famous shop for all sorts of eccentric items. Amazingly I still have the skirt that is in the picture. Very green.
Such a long time ago, but shows I was interested in travel even then, this year what with the war in Iran and everything most of my trips will be very local, but there is still so much to learn. For example I went on a Rogation Pilgramage on Sunday in Hampstead and on Hampstead Heath. It was quite painful in many ways as it took me back to living in the area, but that was also why I wanted to do it. I learned so much about a place I had lived near to for a long time. For example we started with the graves of Constable and Harrison, the clock maker, then to a French church, where Graham Greene was married and where De Gaulle worshipped during the war. It was built by a French refugee and allowed to be built as it was specifically for the Frnech community in the local area, despite Britain being at war with France at the time. On past the Quakers to a more modern gothic church, at almost the highest point in London and from there onto the heath, and the boundary way markers between St Pancras and Highgate Vestry. I was distracted a bit much of the time by one of the other participants. Was he, or was he not, but then blown away to discover one of the other pilgrims had gone to school in Broxbourne with my son! Rogation is to do with community and agriculture, so I figured I can do that, but the most sacred space we touched was the beech tree cathedral. Heavenly. I need to return.
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| St Mary's with x in the background? |
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