My alarm woke me up at 6AM. I had a very sore right hip so I didnt feel like getting up. Stayed in bed til 7.15. I have to get more disciplined about this. I will be be waking up in the middle of the night because I have slept too much in the morning.
Another clear fine warm day. Only clouds in the sky are the trails made by jet planes. When the hell is it going to rain? Blood Pressure 126/68 Pulse 71 We left home at around 10.30 to make our way to meet Shelley Williams or to give him his real name Graptus Henderson. He has an Australian passport but he has a descendants visa. Runs for 5 years. We went via train and bus to Shoreditch Station which is near where he lives. We didn't have to get the bus because we were only on it for 2 stops from Liverpool Street but we didn't know this when we got on. Shoreditch has a lot of street art. We explored it a bit waiting for Shelley. We walked around for a little while catching up. He works in a bar mostly during the day. He had today off. I wanted him to take us to Brick Road. But we said we would take him to lunch and he could pick whatever restaurant he liked. I would have preferred some of the street food. Lebanese. Spanish. He picked a restaurant that could have been in Carlton. Clientele included. Food as well. The lunch had very small portions. Even so Jenny and Shelley liked what they had. Me not so much. It did turn out to be very expensive when the bill came. I always want to have street food. Its much less expensive and more tasty. Shelley had to leave to see his girlfriend so walked from the Algate area into the City. We first went to Old Spitalfields Market which unfortunately had lots of yummy looking street food but because we had already eaten we could not take advantage. We then walked to Leadenhall Market. Chalk and cheese as far as markets go. Spitalfields is for the lower classes. Leadenhall is for your Banker type. Seriously banker types everywhere and it had banker prices. We walked along the Petticoat Lane Market through the East End area. Looked at the outside of a Synagogue. Had a beer in a very small Pub and whilst doing so had a conversation with an English person who has been to Australia a few times. Very small atmospheric Pub. My English friend commented on the 3 stage windscreen wipers in Australian cars. Seems it might be unique to Australia. Super fast anyway. Said he had experienced very heavy rain on a trip from Sydney to Canberra some years ago when the road was not a freeway. We then walked back through the city to London Wall and then went to The London Museum. Not many changes since we were here 18 months ago. We had a cup of tea. We then walked through Barbican and looked at the brutalist concrete architecture of the early 50's. During the war the area was bombed badly. After the war the Labour Government built what they hoped would be a model suburb for the working classes. It is all concrete. High Rise Commission Flats. Some not so high commission flats. A small amount of public gardens. Was never approved of by the liberal middle class critics. It is always referred to as one of the failures of the Atlee Labour Government. By this we had done a good deal of walking and we were both tired. So we got the train to Preston Road. Watched a very good documentary about Muslim attitudes in Britain. Much work is needed to change a small but determined minority. No doubt some Muslims want to fight any change. On the train coming home a Muslim woman in full gear sat opposite us. Black covering from head to toe. Mask covering the full face except for a slit for the eyes and she even had spectacles covering her eyes. Would not look at me. I did see her shoes and they were not all that glamorous. I wondered if she would ever read a newspaper? Surely she must watch TV? Maybe she is not allowed to? Why are there no feisty Arab/Muslim women? Surely there must be one in a hundred who says this is not sensible or enjoyable. Why do they continue with it?
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