The Open Road

In the morning I read Proust for my book group tomorrow, got an emergency hair trim, then we piled into the car for a quick trip to London for my friend Una's memorial party in West Ealing, London.

The roads were clear on the way there. We took the A40 via Oxford, and enjoyed the spring colours. The satnav got us to the venue without delay, and only fell off the dashboard once.

There was Irish music, (Una was second-generation London-Irish) including 'Carrickfergus', https://youtu.be/4JMRYTtuMaE speeches, food, a bar, and I even had a wee dance with Dee, Una's mother, to.Dexy' s Midnight Runners! I also had a long chat with some old friends I hadn't seen for decades. Everyone had so much good to say about Una. I have said much about her here on blipfoto, since I heard about her untimely death at the age of 53, which I only heard about on 25th February.

I managed to make a little speech myself without cracking up. It seemed to go down well. I was glad to have done it, because there wouldn't have been another chance to celebrate the commonplace things we did together in London, Mexico, Corfu, Crete, the Gambia and the Forest of Dean before Una joined the United Nations and became a revered leader.

We left at eleven, as it started to rain. This soon grew torrential, and lightning crackled overhead as well as appearing in yellow flashes along the horizon, making me feel as if we were in a war zone, and the flashes were the bursts of distant gunfire. To take my mind off the danger, I exchanged texts with my sister TMLHereandThere in NZ, about the lyrics of 'Galveston' and the role of Texas in the US civil war! Song lyrics are a massive distraction, I always find.

We reached home at 1.06 am, and I was asleep by 2. Thanks, Steve for being such a safe driver. More about Una's party on CleanSteve's blip, here
https://www.blipfoto.com/entry/2434730032145368060