Today I met up with Becky and Andrew Webb, two very dear friends who left Zimbabwe another lifetime ago - 12 years. We met up at Edgware Station and didn't really have anything planned, so decided just to have a walk around and see if any coffee shop looked appealing. First we went into Patisserie Valerie, but it was full, and so we decided to go to Hyde Park instead.
The first thing we spotted was the cafe near the entrance, and we quickly navigated our way there, through the seething mass of Londoners and their dogs (mad dogs and Englishmen, anyone?) out enjoying the sunshine. Thank you Jules and Brian for the cappuccino and ice-cream! For once in my life, I made the right ice-cream choice, choosing a safe, solid, splendid blueberry-and-clotted-cream. I really dislike the sound of the word "clotted", and I wish they didn't apply it to cream with every yummy meal! Apparently the traditional British High Tea is "scones and clotted cream with strawberry jam" - why not simply cream? Or if there is a specific scientific phenomenon where the cream "clots", then can't they invent a better name?
I am glad I was able to overcome my prejudice against the word "clotted", and choose and eat my marvelous ice-cream. Andrew was not so lucky, as he ended up with what he thinks was marmalade ice-cream! The lady wasn't paying much attention to him, so when he was actually just asking what flavour the "yellow and orange one" was, she thought he was choosing it! I would have been sad, but he seemed to rally and enjoy it!
We marched forth to find somewhere to sit, ice-cream and hot drink in hand, (well, except for Becky, who had a coke). Fortunately we were able to find our own spot of shade, relatively far away from people. The first spot we chose had some sort of fluorescent blue chewing gum nearby, so we moved to a different one, just in case the chewing gum was really some radioactive weapon of mass destruction. Then we sat and talked for two hours, catching up on 12 years' worth of information.
It was getting hot, so we decided to go back to my flat, so that we could pseudo-cool off, (since the flat really wasn't much cooler,) and so that they could see my humble abode. They were very impressed, main reason being that it is apparently very big for London standards! Thank you Yale in London for organising "very big for London standards" housing! We had lunch, briefly, and then went to the Station, because they had to be somewhere at three for an event. It was terribly sad saying good bye, because I don't know when I'll see them again. Hopefully it will be relatively soon!
Seeing old family friends is a strange event, because even though you haven't heard their voices in over a decade, and haven't been around them, or learnt about their minds and how they think, there is still somehow some sort of connection, which is actually, in retrospect, practically unbreakable. I wrote about this a little bit on my tube ride back to Hyde Park, about how the friendships that form in your formative years are the ones that never leave you because they are the ones that made you you. The first friends you make are the first evidence of how you'll be making friends for the rest of your life. Like your first steps, which are necessary and a first expression of your ability to stand up on your own, to move on your own, so first friends are a first expression of your character, your ability to make friends. In fact, then, your ability to make friends, or to form a human connection by choice, is a way of expressing your own humanity, and so your first friends will always be with you, because they are an extension of your human existence, linked inextricably in your mind - or mine, at least - with a dawning understanding of what it means to be friends.
Needless to say, I had a lovely time.
Afterwards, in Hyde Park, I found an inviting tree and sat next to him. We talked for a while and then went back to our own business, he to dappling me with shade, and shining a spotlight onto my laptop by making way for the sun with his leaves, and me to reading about William Henry Fox Talbot, and Lacock Abbey, and the British Empire. We're visiting Lacock Abbey on Monday, and I am seriously SO excited. And then we have two days in Bristol, looking at the docks and whatever else our professors want us to! I wonder how many churches I'll find there?
Lastly, I have learnt an important thing from wandering around so much: always take a snack. I did this afternoon, and I felt so superior taking out my food. Superior to who? No one really. Probably just the version of me who would have forgotten, and would have been hungry!
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