Sunday Best

Lovely Sunday afternoon in Camden Town. Even though I call myself a Londoner, I have never been to Camden Town. It was interesting. Well in fact a complete eye-opener...

More conversations that made me realise, once again, that humans and relationships are so complex and multi-layered.

However...the food was good. I ate an Argentian Steak sandwich from Real Good Argentine Food and managed to eat a Churro - really nice. Listened to a bit of music in Pround Camden - the most interesting was Will Udall, some nice tunes. Bought some earings and generally had a nice time.

But definitely that bubble has burst...

Just what the doctor ordered...

Well, clearly not the healthiest item on the menu but the most delicious.

It was dessert that came after a lovely evening with the Scottish Mancunian. Again one of those thought provoking conversations - mostly in that it uncovered what I did not really know, about many things. So now I know why the thistle is the national symbol for Scotland - encroaching soliders step barefoot on a thistle and thus wake up the sleeping Scotsmen, who subsequently win the battle. And when the time came for me to relate and equally interesting historical tale from my Nigerian heritage, I was sorely lacking! I felt rather knowledgeless...But Nigeria got independence in 1960 as it stands now, it is a fairly young country. There was the Biafra war in 1967 and now the muslims in the North and Christians in the South are not the best of friends...Nigeria has three main tribes - Yoruba (mine), Igbo and Hausa. And my understanding is that Nigeria is really three countries brought together by colonisation. I am vaguely aware of Yoruba mythology - Olorun is the creator of the earth and Ife is the birthplace of the world. All good - Ile-Ife is where my parents grew up. But I felt that perhaps I should have known more about - well - everything!

Anyhow all is not lost, still plenty of time to read in my spare time and speak a little more to my parents.



O di aarọ!  

Maikäfer

Dinner with the multinationals. Delightful. So lovely to be in such a normal house with normal people.

This is a little swiss chocolate from Basal which is meant to represent the maybug (Maikafer). Apparently a European beetle that is almost extinct. Learnt about Max and Moritz two little mischievious German characters.

The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe

Excellent play...

Loved it

Cake in a cup on the Kings Road

The doctor will see you now...


So I finally met up with the Norman descendant from Devon. As usual a pleasant afternoon of chat and me talking at a hundred words a minute! What happens now ? It remains to be seen. I got to eat lemon cake in a cup! Never quite know how to negotiate these waters;  however seem to be getting adept at skipping over those moment of awkwardness.


However I find that I find out as much about myself as I do the other person. For instance, I now have the idea for the book that I want to write but never had a idea for, up until the moment I was put on the spot about it.  I have a couple of books on my book list to read, which I will reserve from the library. So it's all good.

Talk talk

So I have just returned from 3 days of study leave in Bedford. Have been learning how to use the ADI-R Interview (Autism Diagnostic Interview - Revised). Absolutely fascinating, so many things still to learn about the subtleties in human nature. I look forward to more reading.

I spent the two evenings - mostly asleep so did not go out and explore St Neots. So before I got onto the A1 I drove down to Riverside Park and took  a few pictures of swans. Very nice.

Food for thought

I had dinner with a friend on Friday evening. Very nice company and very nice food. I ate risotto with pumpkin and walnut, followed by three scoops of ice cream - chocolate, vanilla and pistachio - very tasty.

Rambling conversation and it did make me wonder about many things, many of which I did not have an answer for.  Many things that I had not even considered i.e. the sticky question of how two people of differing religions make a life together and bring up children.  I did not know the answer to that question. Which in a way disappointed me, because as a Christian I thought perhaps that I had the answers to that stored away somewhere - ready to read out at a moments notice. But when I looked in the cupboard it was bare! The thing that got me was when my friend (incidently of another faith) said "But don't you want your children to have a personal relationship with God, like you?" That stumped me. It stumped me because I do not even know how to describe, quantify that. It's not something that I talk about and it is intensely personal. I am not even sure really what it even looks like. I know that it changes/evolves everyday and is just part of me. I am not really sure how it came about it just is. And most pertantly, I am not sure that it was something that I modelled from my own parents. My understanding of God/Jesus/Christianity is something that has taken years to cultivate but really only took off in my late twenties and early thirties. At the time the decision to become a Christian appeared to be a considered one after a lot of thinking and reading, it just seemed to make absolute sense. And now, now I do not know.

Drought...?

This was Ealing Common on Wednesday morning. A little pond behind the bench. There were two ducks paddling about in it and one duck watching at the side. It was cute.