Echoes of Flavio's Ghost Dreaming

First picnic of the year last Saturday was a resounding success. Quite a few people, lots of fun and catching up with some peeps I hadn't seen for a long, long time. Thanks again londonjon for organising this!





The event page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/782682585178362/?ref=1

My pictures of the day:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10153365644909919.1073741995.544159918&type=1

A few things happening today, including triple-booking myself for tonight (amongst these, tar0r's birthday, Gliteratti and another birthday). Not sure whether I'll be going to any of those; bit low in energy still. I am, OTOH, going to a friend's birthday dinner at Arepa & Co., the only Venezuelan restaurant in London (actually, not entirely true as there also is Mi Cocina Es Tuya, in Crystal Palace but that is more of a local café, although still very good). Haven't been and have known the owner for many years, so it will be interesting to check the place out.

Apart from this, lessons, with some of the pupils (or, in this case, the parents) making me jump through hoops with changes of days and times. If I can, I will comply -I need the work; but I do feel that they sometimes don't realise how much inconvenience they can put you through.

Tomorrow, bibliogoth meeting and more lessons....

It's good to be rid of the bug. Feeling almost alive -except when I watch the news and I get that sense of impending doom....

Lovely afternoon spent with lovelybug around Crystal Palace, first at the Venezuelan coffee shop/restaurant, most likely the only one in this country. Then we went to a lovely, quite hidden, lovely little jumble market with lots of little stalls selling all sort of junk -a bit like I remember Camden Market being in the olden times, in the 80s. A stroll round Crystal Palace park and then rush back to Camden to pick up guitar, computer and car to set off for a lesson... tonight, Ethiopian dinner with the macheads of uk.comp.sys.mac.

Walking in Hampstead on side-streets covered in yellow leaves, shiny wet pavement slabs, dew in the air (better than calling it rain), on my way to a lesson. I like this weather -at least I do when it's not actually raining on me. Is that weird? I like autumn, at least when it's not too rainy. Even the white sky (for now, at least) and the red leaves, so beautiful and so brief.

Had a couple of hours free after maxvon_d's lesson, so I could a) go to the gym or b) stay in the centre of town, wander around the backstreets of Mayfair, emerge in Regent St and browse the Apple Shop and John Lewis and coffee shops and deceive myself into believing that the walk was equivalent, more or less, to the work out. Need not explain which option won.

Absolutely horrid morning out there today; somewhat scary drive up the M1 with people doing all sorts of stupid and dangerous things in the rain and heavy traffic. Clearly a lot of people out there still believe in eternal life, after-life and all that, given how they risk their current one.

Some pics of a lovely afternoon in Streatham with lovelybug, 
https://plus.google.com/photos/117849905623183662416/albums/5716008834861659361?authkey=COzUlry355x_  (Picasa album)

What a grey gloomy day out there. Fixing macbook,listening to Women's Hour and making a very late breakfast for the last Wednesday for quite a while. And seeing the drizzly grey world outside my window. Meeting a friend later, doing some guitar lessons much later. Today feels like some very old, grainy black and white photograph....

 All quiet  in Kentish Town tonight, apart from the frequent sirens of police cars, this time going northwards towards Highgate. And several fire engines just left the fire station next door. Apart from that, luckily nothing to report in these parts.

Had a stroll around Camden Town earlier in the day; it wasn't quite as bad as I'd feared, although of course it's not good -half a dozen shops, possibly including the Electric Ballroom, with their glass front smashed. We do seem to have been spared a Croydon situation, at least. There goes yet another police car northbound... 

Increasing the police numbers in the way London did today seems to have worked, but it cannot be a permanent measure. 

Worrying situation, one that has to move to reflection -why does a society like this, still one of the richest in the  world,  produce children that set out to destroy their environment like that?  And some of the simplistic answers and solutions that people come up for what is undoubtably a very complex situation that has been brewing for a long time are themselves worrying. 

No quoting The Clash, btw.