After a few days of anxious slaving, I sent off the report I was working on and then had a couple of days free before leaving. So of course other obligations cropped up, most importantly, collecting all the presents I need to take with me to Lahore. Today, first, we went to see a flat that the GF’s mother was tempted by. House hunting has been the theme of this trip to London – the old house is being sold, being large and unwieldy, but it has been a beloved home for over four decades so replacing it is proving hard. There is also the dilemma of the sensible vs that which gives pleasure. In the first category is a flat that is on the ground floor, level and ready for the installation of things like accessible showers. In the second is the flat we saw today, which is on the top floor of a building set on a steep hillside and has true character and spectacular views over London – St Paul’s, the Shard, the BT Tower, all clearly visible from the balcony, and below the balcony are allotments and gardens rather than houses, so that is also very beautiful. Another impracticality is the difficulty of heating or cooling the living room, which has several tall glass windows for those views and sunlight and is not at all insulated. Nevertheless, I thought it was a stunning flat and would have loved to live there if I had the money and wanted to live in London. There were three bedrooms on the floor below the lounge, and all three were spacious, comfortable and well proportioned. Most unusual for London, where invariably there is one poky little room and, usually, all of them are a bit small and uncomfortable, fit only to squeeze a bed in.
I went on to run my errands. It was cold and rainy so I took a lot more buses than I normally would have. I collected my new glasses (which look exactly like my old glasses from the front but have rather startling gold arms) and bought a bunch of gifts including two lengths of Liberty fabric which was more than I had planned to spend but I wanted to get something nice for some people.
Then to the Waterstones on Gower Street where I spent many an hour and many a pound when I lived and worked in the area. Here I picked out some books for nephews and then sat in a chair and read for an hour or so. I overshot the hour, so was late to my next stop, which was an early dinner in the new Kings Cross development. Which is quite startling, both to see the changes every time I go there, and to recall what this area looked like once. On my first visit by myself to the UK, back in around 2000, I had a couple of hours to kill in the area and didn’t know what to do so walked around the streets which were very grimy indeed. It’s much nicer now, but it does make me uneasy as well, and wonder who is excluded.
Over the meal I learned that the GF’s mother has put in an offer on the flat.
My flight is tomorrow. We watched the end of the first season of Fleabag, which turned out to be much quieter and sadder than I had expected, but was unusually adept in that it felt like a natural ending, rather than a forced or contrived one. A very good show.