Slow days and bees

Having a slow day. Slow because there is something oozingly gentle about English summers. In the back garden of my friends house in Stockwell. I have doused the baby kefir lime and lemon trees in pots. I have carried a watering can through the house to the front garden and watered the beds containing poppies, salvia and hollyhocks. I am an interim gardener. Just the spreader of water. People are sanding and painting the houses on either side and I have heard talk of planned weekends in Whitstable and the horse to back at the 3.30 at Epsom. They have taken proper breaks at lunch and teatime. I have even seen two bees mating on the wall behind me. It was mating or murder, but am assuming the former because they both flew off but not at the same time. It is that slow. I have time and the attention to watch bees mating. Gorgeous really. In my own house , there is always something I have left undone. A pile of papers. An appointment to be made. An appointment to be kept. A bill. Washing to take in or out. Here in someone else’s house, there is nothing. Apart from watering the garden and two mugs of tea to fill my days. And a book I bought yesterday called “ Seats of London.” Yes, I bought a book on the various patterns of London transport seating.

I was traveling on the northern line with my young American friend and she didn’t understand why we didn’t have plastic seats as opposed to these carpet like ones. I have no answer yet, but I will be an expert after my book. I do know they are made now as they were then, by a factory near Huddersfield in West Yorkshire. If you have read any of my little essays over the years, you will know that I love all things bus and train. Coaches and cars leave me yawning. But the glass curve of a train station, the front seat on the top of a double decker bus, the slide of a train as it shifts from stationary, the old subway tiles of the subway….I am agog. I have only been in London a couple of days. It is the summer. So there are ‘crocs’ of school children on planned excursions. There are foreign students all wearing the same sweatshirts. There are a a lot more foreign tourists than I am used to, because I normally come in the spring or winter. They are all very well behaved and happy to see the Crown Jewels at the Tower or see shows like Wicked or Frozen. Which leaves me more chance to see Eddie Izzard play all the parts in Great Expectations, catch the amazing “ Guys and Dolls” for a second time, wallow in the miracle of “ A Little Life” and be informed by Peter Morgan’s new play about the rise of the oligarchs in Russia.

There are people on every piece of green. The Common. The Parks. Having impromptu picnics after work. The pubs are surrounded by groups, with jackets off and ties loosened having a drink in the evening sun

I will go to my favourite museums. Of course I will. And sumptuous gardens designed with long ago brilliance. But also I will watch bees having their way with each other. And drink tea. And eat strawberries that taste of strawberries. Do I dare to eat a peach?Or shall I wear the bottom of my trousers rolled? Someone, much more eloquent got there before me.