Only two weeks to go before the first round of presidential elections here in France. The campaign has been going on so long I find it hard to believe it will ever end. The left can seem to agree on at least one thing – they want Sarkozy out!
Meanwhile, London is suffering from pre-Olympic tension. The merest whiff of a strike by fuel tanker drivers and there’s a rush on the pumps, not helped by politicians putting both feet in their mouths… and there seems to be an increased security presence on public transport, or at least more posters about being vigilant.
It was a weekend for odd things happening. First off, I’m walking through the Eurostar waiting room (at the Paris end) when I spot Richard E Grant strolling past, towing his own wheely suitcase. He’s got class, I have to say. Even though I can’t name a single movie he’s done since Withnail and I (one he’d be proud of anyway).
At the other end, I made a pilgrimage up to 221B Baker Street, but didn’t go into the Sherlock Holmes museum. Too many Spanish schoolchildren. Maybe next time. Instead, I sat in the sun in Regent's Park to get in the holiday mood.
I was knitting away, watching the birds on the water, and some locals fooling around in pedalos, when a voice said “Is that for me?” I looked up, and standing silhouetted against the low afternoon sun was an old gentleman. I smiled and said no, sorry. He sat down on the bench next to me, and I thought, oh no, here we go. He’s going to tell me his life story, and all I want is a bit of peace and quiet. Well. “When I was 20”, he started, “I was in the Warsaw Uprising”. Crikey! Now he’s got my attention. “Then I got something that I did not want to get”, dramatic pause, “a bullet”. It went straight through his chest and out the other side. He was in a field hospital (i.e. a basement) for a month, and when he got out, most of his friends were dead. So he was arrested and sent to a prisoner of war camp. There was no food, and he thought he was going to starve to death. He volunteered for work detail clearing rubble from Salzburg, and when no-one was looking, he put down his shovel and was lost inn the crowded streets.
The local police arrested him shortly afterwards though, and he was sent back to the prisoner of war camp, and thrown in solitary confinement for a month. No daylight, and still no food. He volunteered for another work detail and escaped to the countryside this time. He went to a farm and asked for food. The farmer took him in and fed him, and sheltered him in exchange for some help on the farm.
Then one day they heard artillery bombardments. The sound got closer. He went out to investigate and stumbled across some soldiers speaking Polish. He realised they were Polish Americans. They said “What are you?” in German. He told them he was Polish and that a local farmer had saved him. He looked behind him and there was the farmer, shaking in his boots thinking he was going to be shot by the Americans.
After the war he took a bike from a German prisoner and went off, as he said “To find a girlfriend. I was 20 years old and I wanted a girlfriend. But I didn’t find one.” Then he joined the Polish army and went down into Italy – and found an Italian girlfriend. After a few months they were offering to send people to England, so he went.
He’s been in London ever since. One day, he was walking in Regent’s Park and saw a woman on a park bench “like this one you are sitting on now”. He talked to her for a while, and she looked strangely familiar. When he left the park, he saw her photo in a newspaper. It was Jackie Kennedy, taking refuge in England from JFK’s womanizing.
“I sat here for an hour, an hour and a half, and I held her hand. I was happy to talk to her, because I wanted a girlfriend, like I do now”. Whoah, steady on grandpa. The Warsaw Uprising was in 1944, so how old is he now? 88? He looked wizened but bright-eyed – obviously the skirt-chasing was keeping him young. But unfortunately I had to be somewhere else, so I made my excuses and left.
Friday night sing-along screening of the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Prince Charles was almost exactly like it used to be 20 years ago, except that it started two hours earlier (a concession to my age I imagine), and it was packed. But we still stayed up late afterwards snacking and talking.
Saturday morning was veeeery slow to get started, but eventually we headed into town for lunch at The Ivy. It was a belated birthday lunch, and a very good choice of venue. The food is classic dishes, well executed, but what made it an exceptional experience was the service. We were treated like royalty despite not being the slightest bit famous. Everything was impeccable. The woman who took our order was more like a maitre d’ than a waitress, and then she said “are you from New Zealand?” She was Australian but had been in London for nearly 10 years.
They have a big thing about heritage vegetables. I had the heritage beetroot salad for starters, very tasty. We all had the Cornish lamb done three ways: medallion, lamb cutlet and a mini-haggis. Then Emma and I split a Baked Alaska, which was spectacular. The wine was excellent, and the atmosphere was great. The restaurant is circled by stained glass windows with multi-coloured diamond panes. Inbetween the windows are colourful murals. The other tables were full of girls in town for a shopping day, by the looks.
We wandered for a while in the streets of Soho before getting the train back to Surbiton for a very quiet evening. Sunday Emma took me to the Spitalfields market and wandering around the little streets. We found a vintage store with a café where I had a very nice carrot cake, and joy of joys, a flat white!
All too soon it was time to put away the Oyster card and get out the Navigo. Sigh. Weekends in London are always fun, but they always go too fast. On the Eurostar home I sat next to a guy who worked his way through a huge pile of magazines and newspapers, in English and French, turning the pages constantly without seeming to read anything. What a waste. I “rescued” the pile afterwards so as well as my usual Guardian and Sunday Times I have plenty to keep me going for the next three months until my next visit.
