November 1: I’m the USA, full of fear and loathing at election prospects, and already missing the friends and family I saw in Vermont. Another five days to go till I go home. Back in England, November 1 means that all the stately homes and gardens have shut down, the remaining roses in our back garden are forlorn, and even the brightest sky takes on a dusky hue at 2:30 PM.
On the best days, puffy clouds and sheep rule the countryside. But can the gloom of Remembrance Day – November 11 -- be many days ahead? The day the guns fell silent in 1918. Sure, we have that day too, but Yanks have our Memorial Day of flowers and picnics, and who wants to decorate graves in the sleet?
November 7: I’ve been back a day, recovered from jet lag, and am happy to be in a land that feels like home. At very least, feeling slimed with USA electoral politics, I reflect on the need civil discourse and integrity. Here, the courts just ejected a Labour MP from The House for lying about his opponent in the spring elections. Back in the Wild West(ern hemisphere), a woman who vies for a leadership role in her party baldly repeats “facts” about her President (and mine) that are unsubstantiated and “wildly exaggerated.” Let’s just call them lies, shall we? But we don’t do that in the US, and we certainly don’t have courts helping to keep politicians to some standards of truthfulness. She can lie all she wants, and you can vote for her if you want (and live in her district). But in which society would I rather live?
This afternoon Ellie and I walk The Long Walk©, from the gates of the Castle at Windsor out nearly three miles to the top of the hill. The way is marked by ancient oaks and at least one majestic buck, grazing safely in Her Majesty's Deer Park.
King George III’s equestrian monument is at the top, brazen and huge, for all to see. We hurry back in the gathering gloom, stop quickly for a vivifying cup of hot tea, and make it to the palace gate, standing in a thin queue, awaiting entry to the Evensong service in St. George’s Chapel, in the lower ward of the Castle.
Voices of men, boys, and a booming organ fill the 14th century vault, and we look from the carved quire stalls down on the tombs of kings. George III is under my feet, and I wonder what he’d think of his lost colonies.
This weekend in London I took the evening airs wandering back across Hyde Park, enjoying all the early evening baby strollers and joggers. On my way to catch the train, I walked the working class neighborhoods off the Edgeware Road, home to many falafel joints, hookah parlours, and travel agents with Arabic signage. I stopped in a traditional pub for a half-pint rest before catching my train. I asked a gent if I could put down my bag and share his table. He looked up from his racing form and said, “You’re not a Muslim, are you?” I laughed nervously, and headed for the loo.
When I came back with my beer, I learned that John had spent nearly sixty of his years in this part of London, was a long-time union man working on the trains, and had seen the neighborhoods fill over the years with Indians, Jamaicans and Pakistanis, all jostling for shops, jobs, and schools. I didn’t question his sarcastic snap of prejudice, but instead heard an intelligent, hard-working guy talk about how blokes like him couldn’t find work anymore, and no one he knew could possibly afford to buy his flat in 15 months when he and the missus retire and move out, and about his bitterness that his taxes have to support Tony Blair’s war instead of going to better social housing and schools and training for young guys. He paused to offer me another beer, but I had to be getting to the station.
I guess “the Muslims” represent the things he can point to that make him know it’s a different city and a different world than fit his comfort level. Like nearly every Englishman I meet, he thought I was Canadian, seemed surprised I’d been here for coming on two years, and asked if I like it here and if I thought the people were nice.
Yes. And yes.
© Photos Copyright Peter Trimming and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
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