Gay Pride in Brighton

Waking up ar six-thirty as I always seem to do now, which is great, I decide to quit the BnB and forget   breakfast as I peaked through and saw my hostess Lesley asleep on the couch in the living room. I am obviously in her bedroom so I feel I will let her sleep in. So I write a note, have a quick shave, pack and am on Church St Hove to find a nice breakfast nook. As it is seven-thirty there are not too many open but a nice Palestinian engineer-turned cafe proprietor makes me a large Americano, insisting it is what I want. I go with the flow, but he does give me an excellent croissant to go with it.

Today is Gay Pride Day in Brighton and I will have time to witness it - how lucky was I to choose this day to come to this beautifull seaside town - really I feel I could easily live here, the vibes are great and the climate also seems excellent.

Last night's visit to Chartreuse to find out how ill she was turned out to be just that, very short but sweet. She offere me some excellent Coconut water and we chatted about times gone by, me showing her my present photos, and she showing me our photos of Barcelona in the seventies, where she is obviously living at the moment.

The home was as always, a Sheik's Harem, and she was certainly not well, having headaches and feeling very weak. However she has two weeks to prepare for her big Seventieth Birthday Party which she loves to organise. None of her friends realise how beautiful she was when younger, so she has published a series of her early model shots to prove it. The girlfriends might be a bit jealous!

On my way home last night after a long walk  Brighton to discover how buzzy it was, I discovered an artisan chocolate shop, so that is where I will today buy some chockies for Piddington. John Bell will love them I am sure.

My bed at BnB, or Lesley's bed!

View from bedroom window...

Breakfast with  Ra'ed at Hove

Trucks piled up to demonstrate...

Helen Mirren by three at Mme Tussaud's

Am reading the Guardian and the big news is the illegal immigration from Calais of 200 refugees. France is being blamed for letting them get through at Calais, but the fact remains, everyone is trying to get into the UK. I wonder if England beating Australia in the cricket Test has anything to do with it??

Poor Aussies, if they lose the Ashes they will be totally mortified as they went in hot favourites. England will never stop bleating.

View from my Cafe 'Dates and Coffee'

The cafe opposite has just put up two rainbow flags to attract their clientele today. Apparently the trains will be standing-room-only coming from London to celebrate this big day out in the southern gay capital of England.

Gay friendly cafe...

Twenty-five years since first Gay Prideand they expect, wait for it, 160,00 people here in Brighton for the celebration.

I am in Preston Street where the concert is happening this arvo, but I will be travelling to Bicester.

There is a great feeling of love in the air!

Brighton - Hove

A quick train from Richmond to Clapham Junction where I had a short wait for the very crowded direct line to Brighton. It is Friday arvo after all, and school holidays, so I felt I was lucky to even get a seat.

Not much more than an hour down to the lovely historic Brighton, quite the gayest city in the UK I hear, and I did see a few Rainbow flags fluttering in the breeze on my arrival.

A short walk down the hill to the beachside where quite a few die-hards were sunning themselves, but very few in the water..the pebbly beach was not so attractive to this spoiled Aussie, so I sat on high at the edge of  the overlooking terrace and breathed in the air from the English Channel, or La Manche, as the French call it, meaning The Sleeve.

The afternoon is warm and sunny so I take off my London sweater and bask for an hour before I repair to my BnB where Lesley my host will be there to welcome me around 4 pm she has told me. Whether  Chartreuse also will welcome me is not at all sure, she may even he in hospital from her last email.

She sounded in bad form so I may be doing a visitation to the sick! So be it, I am still happy to be here and know what is happening to this lost woman who I know is trying so hard to find out why she is here.  I wonder if she will in this lifetime?

The refreshments of choice here are chips, more chips, and soft ice cream, none of which I dare to try so I am more than happy I had already eaten some Lebanese food  at Richmond before I left. No temptation here for me. Perhaps later I'll try something. Having told Chartreuse I will ring her at four we'll just play it by ear.

Tomorrow at Bicester is all arranged as Meg rang this morning, I just need to find a nice box of chockies to take up to Piddington for tomorrow. All is well and the warm sun is nourishing my  body. Brighton is a nice place to be in summer, even if it ain't a real summer!

Sunbathers at Brighton

..the sunnies are out....

It's time for ice cream....

...or lots of chippies

More strolling sees more rainbow flags, very gay. After contacting Chartreuse who is croaky, but willing to see me at 6.30 I make my way towards Lesley's which is not far away.  She is a lovely girl and we get on well, especially after I say clearly I am a gay man and she says immediately 'Ooh, you're here for Gay Pride weekend!'  Oops, I didn't know! 

Where will I go tonight?

En route to Brighton

Sunny day in Richmond and am having lesiurely coffee with Anna before my train to Brighton later in the morning. The few days here have been lovely. Last night we had drinks with Byron and Kim and Kim's Mum. They were visiting from Toronto Canada and we all chatted over a few glases of red wine. Emma, the Mum, was German, but spoke North American English sans accent, and she was quite an  exceptional 83 y.o., constantly on the go and a vitality of a fifty year old.

Flower pot in garden

Paining of Aussie flowers by Marianne North

My 'crushed' coffee cup!

Anna expostulating....and not wanting to be photographed!

Anna's vacant seat in the salon

We are planning to make the train trip as simple as possible as tomorrow is Saturday and the weekend crowds will fill the trains.

Lebanese cafe for quick nourishment before trip

The London-Richmond scene...

Kew Gardens - Magnificence

Well we made it to Kew Gardens and it was worth the wait...fantastic and a great walk with lovely surprises along the way. Anna, who know it well, took me along the many walkways to show me the extent of this hugely popular and valuable public garden

There is  no way this historic park is not in the pantheon of botanical masterpieces and the Gallery built by Marianne North, botantist, artist and traveller extraordinaire, was an experience in itself! What an amazing woman she was, and also was the namesake of my good friend Mari North in Wellington.

King George III country house

Majestic waterways...

Outside the Conservatory..

Anna posing...

...in front of Conservatory

Marianne North Gallery...magnificent!

Sunny in Richmond

Today although still fresh, the sun is shining and I'm still glad I brought my warm sweater from OZ as this is no summer weather for me, more like cool Springtime.

Anna's back yard...

Still smiling...although I have had some sad news from Oz, Tassie to be precise, my good friend Monnie  has had a serious stroke and is in hospital. I have written to her grand-daughter and I am hoping she will recover for my imminent trip in August to see her. Her time is coming nearer I know that one, and she may well wait till I arrive in Hobart.

Also strangely, Chartreuse, my Brighton friend, has emailed me with information she too is in Accident - Emergency and may not be available for Friday dinner. I tell her 'No worries', I am coming to see her, not to have dinner. I think she may well recover by Friday night although she is such a drama queen and maybe just a tad hypochondriac.

For today it is written a visit to Kew Gardens, but as always with dear friend Anna, she may decide to do something else at the last moment as she too is as changeable as the wind. And they say Geminis are fickle!  I'll just go with the flow, although a look at the fabled gardens would be a delight on this sunny cool day.

Tom has just come to join me...on the bench.

It is doubtless the year of Transgender

Richmond - first day in England

Today I am in Richmond, a picturesque part of southeast London, former home to the King, situated on the lovely Thames River, and this morning is saturated with summer sun. 

My very dear friend Anna lives here and has many times offered me hospitality which I have gratefully accpted. She lives alone with her elderly cat Tom, and works part-time for an esteemed London composer, who like many of his ilk, boasts an eccentric lifestyle. Anna, although a former member of the jet-setting Rolling Stones' entourage, (Mick Jagger is her only son's step-father), is quite conservative these days, more by necessity, in this hugely expensive city of London. However she manages to survive well and is a very kind hostess to her many and varied friends, of whom I am a but tiny insignificant part. 

We met initially through the French side of the family, her father being the uncle of another old Parisian friend of mine Jean Louis, who remains a staunch friend in spite of having become a châtelain in Normandy, that is, he and his partner own an enormous 17th Century castle and survive by renting it out. Their lifestyle, is needless to say, a bit out of my price range, but our friendship remains there at a distance, fuelled in some way by my ongoing amitié with his dearest cousin Anna, where I am at the moment.

Tom asleep on the chair in the salon.

Anna, ma belle hôtesse....in her beautiful home.

Her books, her ancestors...

The macarons from France, délicieuses!

Anna's very functional and spotless kitchen,I must take note!

I have had just had an excellent amd sustaining breakfast and Anna is preparing to go to her job, leaving me to my own devices, which is lovely. She has also gifted to me this excellent small book about Francis Bacon whose works I know but do not really appreciate so it will help me as he is  arguably the greatest English Artist of the last century, and certainly someone I would like to know better.

New book to read on my travels...

So today on to discover some of Richmond, perhaps the Kew Gardens, and also just relax after a vey hectic two days of air and train travel. The bookings from Wellington did work out very well with my Virgin train from Manchester being an absolute dream, fast and comfy and the landscape we whizzed by was a delight. I would love one day to discover rural England by doing the canals which snake up and down this wonderful country.

Chez Paul..I can't escape from it..

Down the High Street in Richmond on a coolish morn but not too bad. Am tempted to have pain au chocolat and coffee at my eponymous Paul's Patisserie so asked the Bulgarian serveuse to make me a real coffee which she does, after some more instruction. It is nice, like my coffee at Memphis, which serves to make me nostalgic. 

For the rest of this quiet day I am strolling down to the Thames and then to the Curzon Cinema which is showing 'Amy', the movie I wanted to see, so at three I will catch that and then home to see Anna and her other house guest tonight, a friend named Veronica. May be an interesting evening...

The Paul's franchise, all over the world now, is rustic bread and good coffee and pastries, so my name is at least synonymous with some of my favourite indulgences, although I really should be curtailing them a little. But I am on holiday and Richmond is a very nice place to do a coffee and cake!

On rolls this famous river

Great buildings beside the Thames

At the local Curzon Cinema near the Thames

Am sitting on a Thames riverside bench and the breeze is fresh, summer has gone. They say it was here for a while, but not for me. Lucky I brought my rain coat too!

 At 3.30 this afternoon the acclaimed 'Amy' is showing at the Curzon and I will attend. It has all the trademarks of a winning documentary and I will enjoy it on this chilly afternoon on Richmond Park. Going into a bookstore to buy some postcards, the assistant gave me a short history of the White Lodge, aka Pembroke Hall, which happens to be the name of my ancestors. As it is not far from here and certainly worth a visit, I may go perhaps tomorrow. I wonder if any of my very early family on my mother's side were resident there once, many, many moons ago, who knows, they may have (just joking!)

Curzon Cinema foyer at Richmond

This was indeed an excellent if harrowing doco of Amy Winehouse, showing a superb voice as good as Billie Holliday, who was prematurely ruined by bulimia, alcohol and drugs, who had a very selfish and greedy father who was never there for her until she became rich and famous.  It is very sad life story of today's drug culture and general dysfunctional parent relations.

This little cinema in Richmond by the way, is a gem!

Arrival at Manchester Airport

Raining in Manchester.. But what can you expect in summer, it is northern England!

However my arrival at the very new airport was hassle-free and I was accepted no-fuss as an Aussie, got my Sim card for fifteen pounds and some cash from the atm. Then I decided to have a cuppa at the kiosk at the station, which was a large luke-warm cup of English breakfast tea, and a BLT sandwich, both totally forgettable at a cost of £7, about sixteen NZ dollars. I will never again question the cost of food in New Zealand. Also I very simply picked up my five prepaid tickets I booked in Wellington many moons ago. The website Trainline.com is very useful and I got some good deals, saving about one hundred dollars at least,  by booking well in advance on the internet.

Cafe looked nice, with books, a bit like Wellingtonbut I was told in no uncertain terms when I took this iPad photo..'No photos please!'

This is terrorist England I must remember, be careful.

The rain outside at twelve degrees celsius..lucky I brought my one sweater and scarf!

Warm tea in gigantic up..never to complain again in   NZ.

Buffet waiting room at Station at ManchesterAirport.

I had carefully made a booking for the 12.55 pm train to Richmond and now have a two hour wait at this quite insalubrious waiting room where I have had yet another hot drink, this time a large hot chocolate for three pounds -  really, the cost of living here is too much and I wonder how people survive. No doubt Anna will fill me in on this one when I see her later today.

However it is interesting looking at all the various people patiently waiting for their public transport. The English are famous for their queues and patience, and I, of course, am not. So another lesson for me, but I will try to get to the next Piccadilly train, although my ticket, very kindly printed out by the Indian cashier, says not valid till 12.29pm. I fear the worst - they will not not break a rule, or even bend it, although the trip to Manchester Piccadilly is only twenty minutes, and the trains are half empty. But a ticket is a ticket, and I am already blowing my nose and feeling a little unhealthy in this smoggy city.

Well, I was wrong -  he did bend the rules and I caught the earlier train into a much more interesting Piccadilly Station in downtown Manchester, although I didn't get the real Manchurian vibe as yet, all too modern and Marks and Sparks. But I walked around and spent thirty pence to go to the toilet, they still have some quaint ways here, with their tiny coins and small styles to penetrate the Public Toilets with very inefficient hand-driers to boot. But it is a friendly place with good feeling and it's very busy. 

I bought some food in M and S to take home tonight as Anna is not a keen cook although she is good when she gets going. Not an improviser like me however, so some chilled pizza is easy to cook for ten minutes in a hot oven. I hope she won't be insulted, I doubt it!

All is well with my room-mate Graham for the Seminar - he has sent me his mobile and is now staying with his Mum's sister not far from here. He sounds in good form and will be a nice person to share with for three nights at the ECK Seminar, the real reason I am here. The rest is social and fun. Also have confirmed with Brighton BnB Lesley for a later arrival on Friday, all good there!

Sitting at Piccadilly Station waiting for the train..

Am in the Virgin train I booked on Trainline.com to Euston, then on to Richmond. I am looking, and feeling, a bit peaked, which is understandable after twenty-seven hours travelling and not much sleep, but I have no jet-lag, so my theory that it happens only one way, that it is, West to East, against the clock, which creates the problem. The answer being, of course, to always circumnavigate the globe in the other direction. Simple, but expensive! 

All About Eve - before a München fuel-stop

Well the classic movie from 1950 had to be Bette Davis in 'All About Eve', the fourth or fifth time I have seen it but there is always something permanent about the enjoyment of a movie which was as well directed, written and acted as this one. And what a star-studded cast - Bette Davis, George Sanders, Celeste Holm, Anne Baxter, and even Marilyn Monroe in a cameo to which she did more than justice. In this unusually long 138 minute classic, director Joseph L Mankiewicz in a beautifully shot black and white movie, show-cases Bette Davis in one of her most memorable roles and introduces Anne Baxter in her first, but not last, starring role - perfect casting.

In the vein of Hollywood movies it was pure gold.  Set in Manhattan and telling the story of theatre life in all its insecurities and dishonesty, with the rampant exesses of ego and the falseness of the casting world. Having experienced a little of the casting-couch myself, I know exactly how true this system is, and it is not to be trusted. Broadway, and Hollywood, are the realms of the moneymakers and the power-mongers and have little to do with Art although it takes of lot of talented artists to make a movie like this one, which did achieve a few Oscars I believe.

Celeste Holm as Karen with herwriter husband Lloyd

Bette Davis as Margo, in full flightin a great restaurant scene

Margo and her younger man..

Anne Baxter as Eve, passing the poisoned chalice to the next ingénue...final scenes of a great movie.

My two neighbours on this leg are a couple headed for Munich, and real Germans they are too. Both immersed in their large hard-covered novels, they are sturdy and sufficent in their travel skills not once getting up for a pee until just an hour ago when they had to, and I followed them quick smart as I had been eight hours sitting without my accustomed aisle-walk which I think is esential for a healthy long air trip. Still my bladder held well and it is sure that you must think ahead if you take the window seat as I chose to do this time. The aisle seat is always the freer one and that is where I plan to sit on my return, with many aisle walks to keep the blood flowing and the bladder empty.

Now just time for another movie, this time Italian...

It was an Italian youth road moviemade by students of film at Pisa Universitá. Translated as 'So far so good' it was a three day excerpt from the lives of five close friends, acting and film students in today's unemployed and somewhat destitite Europe. 

An overriding theme was the suicide one of their brothers who had thrown himself under car to simulate an accident. However it wasn't as bleak as it sounded, as it was filmed with Italian panache and the young people were all visually appealing. But the truth is, where ARE they going, in an Italy which is fast becoming bankrupt like its neighbouring Greece and whose young people feel they have no future in their once beloved country?

So many young Europeans are now discovering the superior way of life in Australia and New Zealand that they are keen to leave the country of their heritage and try life in the Southern Hemisphere. However this movie was a good example of the classy talent existing in the Italian film industy but like all Indie road movies, it will make no money for anyone, let alone the actors and crew.

Such is life in modern day Europe, tough, and a little sad if you care to scratch the surface a little.

La ultima pellicula...The Latin Loverstarring  the legendary Virna Lisi, amongst  others.

You couldn't get a more latin movie than one about an Italian lothario, who had six different daughters by six of of his wives, or lovers I'm not sure, but who actually was gay and in love with his stand-in. Reminds me of the great love affair of Randolph Scott and Alan Ladd in Hollywood.

 But it was on sure ground that this film was made and it worked, perfectly. A classic small movie the Italians do so well, using the backdrop of village streets and traditions, with Spain and France added for extra spice. All actors were seasoned and it was a veritable romp in the hay. Addictive, like smoking as the film said. A rom-com to end all rom-coms, à l'italienne,