Nuff said!

Yesterday I asked my daughter if she had remembered to put the clocks back. No, she said, as we do not have any clocks. The mobiles and computers all do it automatically.

I have six clocks, a mobile and an iMac.

Nuff said!

A foot-tapping triumph!

Last evening we had something new for St. Peter’s - a Jazz Evening with Keith Nichols. A pianist of extraordinary talent who has played with all the greats and gave us an evening of entertainment the like of which we have not seen in Aldborough Hatch for many a year - if ever! If you missed it, you would have enjoyed a great evening. Well done St. Peter's Social and Fund-raising Sub-Committee - a foot-tapping triumph.

A bit of nostalgia

Today I had a bit of nostalgia. Alighting at the Bank Station, I walked up Cornhill - as I did every weekday and some Saturday mornings from 1956 to 1968 when working at the Cornhill Insurance Company. The words above the Royal Exchange stood out every day - "The Earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof". The Lloyds Bank where I started banking is no more - now it houses a shop selling soaps. And the Cornhill Insurance sign is still above the carved door - but the offices are occupied by nondescript companies and the Insurance has disappeared. I called into the church of St. Peter to admire the stained glass - something I did not do when I worked nearby! On to Leadenhall Market, which no longer seems to sell meat and vegetables but caters for the bankers with loads of money to spend on eating.

I had booked at the Sky Garden and was whisked up 35 floors in a lift that did not seem to move at all. The view was stupendous - and all for free! The photographs speak for themselves. Home on the Number 15 bus and the Docklands Light Railway - where I sat in the front from Tower Gateway and pretended I was driving. Magic!

Ere the winter storms begin!

Today a small team worked in the Community Memorial Garden at St Peter's Aldborough Hatch, preparing for the winter and a glorious spring. Bulbs were planted, weeds removed, lavender cut, polyanthus dug in, grass cut, leaves swept . . .

Trees

Trees given to me to pot up by Shirley Rudge - for planting in the Community Memorial Garden at St Peter's Aldborough Hatch - when they are a bit bigger!

"When wil they ever learn?"

This week is National Hate Crime Awareness Week. I have passed by a small park near Aldgate East Station on the Whitechapel Road on numerous occasions by car, byNumber 25 bus and even on a bike (the later many years ago during a rail strike when I worked in the City off London!). But it was not until last Sunday evening's Service at St. Paul's Cathedral that I learned that it is now called to Altab Ali Park, to mark the racist murder of a young man 40 years ago.

So I went there yesterday afternoon. It was wet with that rain that seems excessively wet - if you know what I mean. A few young men were in the park - chatting and laughing. Two police officers ambled through. A man ate his lunch standing up for the seats were wet.

A few yards away in 1936 Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists - Blackshirts - were halted by more than 300,000 protesters. I recall my father telling me about it - I was nearly four, but the recollection is crystal clear and it is probably my earliest memory.

In 1978 Mr Ali's murder sparked protests again. The park - the site of a church that was bombed in the blitz in World War Two - was named after him. Today memorial and information boards remind us that ten days after Mr Ali's death 7,000 marched to 10 Downing Street chanting: "Black and white, unite and fight".

Last week a 23-year-old young black man was stabbed to death a mile or so from where I live, and on the doorstep of my daughter and son-in-law's home.

As the song 'Where have all the flowers gone', so rightly speaks: "When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?"

A mobile adventure

Yesterday I went to Westfield Stratford City in the late afternoon. It was heaving! Why did I do so, you may well ask?

On Thursday my mobile stopped sending and receivng calls. I spoke to my eldest son, who knows about those things (as do the other two!). He tried various options on the telephone but all to no avail. So he booked an appointment with Apple at Westfield - the earliest they could do was Friday at 5.30pm.

That evening Graham FACETIMED me. Had I switched the mobile off and on again, he asked? I have never ever done such a thing, I told him! Do it now he suggested and told me which button to press and for how long. And lo! It reset and I could make calls again! I gather that Danielle was smirking when all this happened for the lovely lady had said to Graham that this would be the answer - and Danielle was right (as Ladies always are, of course).

Graham suggested I keep the appointment to ask the man to do some sort of digital check (he did tell me the name but I have forgotten what it was called).

I found Apple and wandered off to have a look in Foyles. That was the first mistake forI bought a book for myself and another as a Christmas present! Back at Apple at 5.15., the place was packed solid. There must have been 200 folk in there with about 40 staff. It was manic. I reported in. Come back in 15 minutes the man said. I hung about outside like some sort of potential shoplifter.

Back at 5.30 I was told to sit down at a desk and wait to be called. After a few minutes a kindly Irishman of about 40 years or so appeared by my side.

I decided to tell him that I am a bit thick when it comes to mobile phones. I told him my age and he said that he has a grandmother of 86 in Ireland so he knows what its happening in my brain, which was a comfort. I explained that having turned it off and on all was well - but he said he needed to do a digital thingy, which he did for the next 15 minutes. He chatted all the time this was going on - about his grandmother, mainly.

Your mobile, he told me, is in perfect working order - so off I went, thanking him profusely and rejoicing in the fact that I had got away without having pay a penny piece!

And this was when I made the next mistake for I found myself wandering into the M & S shirt department. Here I can only think I was in some sort of post-Apple trance for I selected a non-iron shirt of considerable brightness together with a dark red tie (why the latter I do not know for I have drawers full of ties of every hue under the sun!) and also a pack of coloured handkerchiefs!

Having paid the lady behind the cash desk (who told me she was 62 and was having Saturday off), I made hastily for the rail station and home. Tired but happy (as they say) I rang Radio Cars at Ilford Station to take me home for my old legs would not have got me up Aldborough Road North unaided after such adventures. Is your mobile working again, asked the man at Radio Cars - for earlier this week we had about ten calls from you before you spoke to us? I assured him it was! And the man at Radio Cars was happy again. So that was a blessing.

London

Yesterday I spent the day in London - it was the day four years ago when Yvonne passed away. I went on the Docklands Light Railway to Greenwich (I have never been that way before - often coming home from there - so I did not realise that I needed to alight at the Cutty Sark Station and NOT Greenwich!). Then a salad lunch in the indoor market, a boat to the Tower, a bus to Trafalgar Square and then back to St. Paul’s for Sung Eucharist. Lots of walking in between of course. I have not been to the Eucharist at St. Paul's before at mid-week - most evenings at 5pm they have Sung Evensong. So I was surprised when the incense came out and was blown all over those of us in the front row under the Dome! We have incense at St. Paul’s at one or two of the Christmastide services - unsure which ones now (and I ought to know!).

It has been a difficult week. On Wednesday - the day four years ago when Yvonne came home from hospital for the last time - I went to Suffolk for the funeral of Stella Fletcher - a friend for over 60 years. I spoke the Eulogy.

Greenwich indoor market found me with the camera out - and again at the Tower of London.

Life goes on and I count my blessings every day - a warm home, a loving family, good friends and my health. And Socks is always pleased to see me on my return.