Is public transport worth having?

Is public transport worth having? Yes because it can change your life. I'll tell you three stories.

A couple of years ago, I was in Miami on my own for three days. Three days - that far away in frightening Miami on my own till I met up with my family. The first day, I got on a local bus to go down town and explore. Watching the people on the bus, I noticed s an old man who was chatting with someone else on the other side of the bus, and when she got off he came and sat next to me, which was a bit scary. But he told me all about himself, how he'd come years earlier to the States, and he told me where to visit in Miami, recommending buses to take that would take me all round seeing the best bits. So I followed his advice and for the next two days I saw lots of Miami.
Another story is of when I was at teacher training college in London and would go home on the coach to see my parents in Manchester, sometimes the overnight coach. Sitting sleepily on the coach, the man next to me wanted to talk, but I didn't - I didn't know him and I didn't see a reason to talk with a stranger, and I was happy reading. He moved to the seat behind me. Then he spat at me. I didn't believe it until he'd spat at least twice, and even then it was unbelievable. It wasn't until I changed on to a Manchester bus and he followed me, still spitting, when I exploded, "stop spitting at me!"
The third story is on that coach another time. I was doodling and the young man next to me I sensed was watching, but then he started to write. He got off the coach before me, leaving a post card on his seat. I picked it up and read: he told all his contact details and a little bit about himself, asking me to write. We were both too shy to talk. We might have changed our lives.

Holiday with "strangers"

 This Easter I spent sharing with 20 other people, three three-generation families and an old friend I've known since 1976. She and her husband had been joining this annual Easter meet for decades, he being one of the orginal chaps from uni who would arrange to go on walking holidays staying in youth hostels.  Two years ago they suggested that we join, realising that my husband and I had so much in common with their friends of fifty years. We could not go two years ago, but I joined them last year, a year after my husband had died. 

They're a splendid sociable lot with intelligent conversation that my husband would have enjoyed as much as I do. There's not as much walking as they must have done originally, but they'd do outings that suited the youngest generation, who ranged from five to 19. 

One day we went with kids to The Corris Centre where we could see all the craft shops, Arthur's Labyrinth, or spend three hour down a mine, accessing parts with climbing ropes, and a maze (I liked the best)

Another day, the eldest generation visited the Red Kite centre with some enthusiastic photographers snapping the best pictures. 

 I enjoy people's company, getting to know their lives and interests and worries. I liked all of them from youngest to oldest. What hit me was how much I've moved on from when I joined them last year, cold and lonely and still mourning. This year I'm more settled and happy and warmer - probably helps that I've fitted a new gas fire in our kitchen!

C's not v well. She came banging on the church door at choir rehearsal, to say that she wasn't well and couldn't rehearse. Why did she come out? Someone told me that she got lost the other day and wandered around for a couple of hours, that she's going through a bad patch. Her husband isn't too well either and he's her carer. These are smashing people that I've known and done things with for years. 

C used to do so much and had so much responsibility. She used to run modern dance classes. I'm not interested in modern dance, don't understand it, but I'd do it for fun. Like the first time she taught us a piece for a flash mob. Husband and I and step daughter #1,who likes modern dance all joined in and danced in a very quiet square one Sunday morning years ago. C persuaded us to learn more dancing and we joined in several classes and performances. One was the "March of the Montague and Capulets, which we performed in the dark, carrying candles. I video'd that one. Here is a link to the video on vimeo to see it: Lanterns. Another time, s daughter #1's husband, who's a painter, painted a class rehearsing and you can see s daughter #1 and husband and another student, Hazel - all very recognisable from their body positions.

It's good that we have some records of the fun we had then.

Vintage clothes

 The joys of grandparenting mean I get invited to school nativity plays, ballet performances, concerts and plays. This month was a new one: a vintage & recycled fashion show. It was inspiring. The girls paraded confidently - even my shy g'daughter - displaying their creativity and sewing skills. Several used newspapers - and one had origamied a tutu of a skirt that wrapped round her like a big black and white ball. Another girl had used natural dyes to reuse and old dress, and another had beautiful flowers made of recycled material sewn down the split seam. 

One outfit brought back memories when they announced that it was patch work. Yet it was patchwork of a metallic material and I remember patchworks of cotton fabrics. Natural fabrics mattered.   We used to use cheese cloth and lots of lace and bought kaftans in Petticoat Lane, London. I've dug out my suitcase from the attic with my favourite 1970 dresses that I couldn't bear to give away or throw out and I shall share them with this grand daughter. 

And there's the beautiful blue velvet cocktail dresses with swinging side panels that I inherited from my own aunty who'd worn it in the late 1940s-1950s.                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Practical support

 A couple of months ago, I posted about this group of old people what meet at a coffee cafe every morning. The oldest in the group fell over his pegs just before Christmas and broke his hip. He was in hospital for a week then discharged home and has carers coming once a day for six weeks. 

Observe what the group is doing: bringing him coffee every morning, collecting his newspaper voucher from him and collecting his paper, bring his vegetable delivery upstairs to his kitchen for him, checking his bathrrom wall for metal before they put a gripper bar in. And we just chat with him. It's good.

Canadian Christmas

Canada is supposed to be the snowy frozen north, but in fact, where I am is around 900 kilometrees south of home. And it's wet and rainy, only a bit cold at between 2 and 6 degrees Centigrade most of the time I've been here. Unlike my house, theirs is very well insulated and you can strip down to bare arms, not huddle on the sofa in a fleece with an extra blanket. Here's a morning view. 

We've done a few trips out. One meant going cross country for the interesting route. But Ontario is flat with long straight roads and all the farms are huge and look the same with a farmhouse, outbuildings and some silos. Not surprising then that we got a bit lost on our way to London. But when we got to the London museum, it was worth it for the current exhibition of photos and stories of Londoners today. 

Being as I'm flying carry-on luggage only, they've been careful about giving me Christmas presents that I can take back. One present was a massage, something I'd like even if I weren't flying. We drove into Woodstock to MendMassageTherapy and Stephanie W looked after me. Normally I massage my body by moving it and this made up for the lack of exercise. We've ehad a couple of evenings of karate, which was fun but that's closed for Christmas and the best exercise I'm getting atm is walking, walking to the golf club, or to the gas station or round the new estate - SiL called it a sub-division.

It's rained and rained and rained again so we've not been for walks in what would be muddy treks. However, when the rain held off, we went to see the Simcoe lights. This is a several acre park of Christmas lights, lights in the trees, lights on trucks and vans and mobile stalls, reflecting in the light of the adjacent lake, many sponsored by local businesses.  Families were walking around with small and larger children, stalls offered hot drinks, chocolate, cider. My photo doesn't do it justice - go and look at the Simcoe lights web site. 

For Christmas, SiL has got daughter an aquarium, and various bits of equipment to fit it up. We went over to Woodstock fish and admired the mollies and platties. Now she's checking their water chemistry and temperature. They've put it in her work office and it might give her an option for meditation and contemplation. 

And at last it is snowing. This new year's evening, we'll go out in the snow and burn the spare cardboard that's too much to fit in the garbage. We're goiing to burn the Christmas tree too, although it's too early to take it down, just because it'll burn well. 

Not on their perches any more

 It's not that all my friends are falling off their perches - thank god that most of my girlfriends are still around; it's that the two best friends in my life, R & A, have already fallen off. It's bit lonely sometimes without someone to laugh with, share with, chat with, someone to support and care for and who supports and cares for me.

And so this Christmas, I'm spending it happily three and a half thousand miles from home with my family. Luck comes with those who've had best friends. Best friends breed more friends.