UK Soon!

I was home by 11:30 this morning after standing in line for an immigration office, and then walking with Russ to see the Marks and Spencer store celebrating 125 years, or some such anniversary. The cookie and biscuit tins were retro, including one looking like an old time radio with a colorful teacup and biscuit in front on tea saucer. I guess all summer some labels or some such things were printed retro as in this beautiful store in the past. I am sure it can all be googled under googles images. I believe that packaging is a lost art, these fabulous foods and treats were like a museum.

So Russ had to finish a deadline at his office,  I walked off to find some shops I loved. A lavish bakery can be seen online at http://www.choccywoccydoodah.com.  I have had some cakes from here and they are amazing. I also visited Druids Head, an old pub and had some tables outside for fish and chips and people watching. The Quaker Center is like a town hall, room for prayer and often on weekends has farmers market or money raising bazaars out front of their lawn. It is a busy place.

Two stores I love because their purses are such great smelling leather and well designed. They didn’t fail me and I loved looking at them as much as ever. So I wove my way to the seafront and the sea was green as sometimes when those flat panes of glass used to be set on a desk so something could be displayed underneath, and the glass edge was green glass. That was how the sea looked. So many people walking and some in Halloween costume and laughing and men with batwings sticking up from their shirts, just the fun and merriment one would see in Rapid City (yeah right). I read a booklet that fell out of my Psychologies magazine that I bought here, you can get them in the states, but the packaging and inserts have been removed.

This booklet was wisdom on successful lives-Isabella Rossellini says true elegance is the manifestation of an independent mind.(just what I saw today with the individuality and fun and people being themselves and all different show that was a wonderful blend of mankind in a big city).

Alanis Morrisette says, and I dedicate this to my brother Bruce who wrote me yesterday,”I wish that I had reached out for more support when I was younger. I thought I just had to suck it all up, and do everything on my own. I really felt that I was alone, and had that class thing of ‘no one understands me’. If I could tell my then self what I know now, I’d tell her that there’s support al around you, you just have to ask”.

I read and reread Ellen Barkins’s words of wisdom,”steer clear of anyone who’s uncomfortable with you being you. I”d take that further and say steer clear of anyone who’s not proud of you, your accomplishments as a human being and the things you have yet to accomplish. They should be excited about seeing all of those things unfold”.

This is a great little insert they suggest carrying about in one’s bag and I can’t put it down. This is a time I need it to be brave and jump the gap to a new life and ask for help.

After the shops and at the green seafront, I put on my stocking hat and listened to the gulls. I even saw a gent standing over a stroller while his wife cleaned the gunk from his hair, probably from the seagulls, but who cares? it was a beautiful day.

Since Russ had gotten a new flat within the past two years, I had gone from his flat to the sea front 2 blocks down, but wasn’t quite remembering how to get into his neighborhood when walking about. All the condos and flats and tall apartment buildings started to look the same, which is still  a good thing, but I kept walking and finally asked for directions from two men painting by the seafront. The angel of the day got out a map and I had seriously shot past my destination but quite a bit, so I doubled back, and he gave me great directions and I was up the road and onto the main road one block away from the flat. A nice long morning walk.

I loved the BBC tv, no computer or phone all day, reading, listening to Brighton station and incredible music, radio refugee show today, and on into the evening.

Should be gale force winds and rain this weekend, I don’t know if we will get the rented car to the country estates on Sunday or not.

After the immigration office attempted visit this am, Russ and I walked uphill when I saw a graveyard. They have begun to put some information on the gravesites of Brighton history and greats involved. This woman died at 108 years, joined the navy with her husband and passed herself off as a man, got a bayonet injury in her arm, her husband was seriously injured so she revealed herself as a woman to take care of him, she was kicked out, he died, She returned and married again, the laminated page on the fence said, ‘she was 80 but she was not done yet”. She sold ginger and apples in the town, went off to some coronations, was honored by one of the kings here, and died at 108 years.” The part about the kings and the honors were pretty impressive, so was she, bless her heart.

we might go up to an older graveyard further up the hill tomorrow for Halloween if it doesn’t rain. We are going to sleep late, or at least Russ and Csaba’s version of it, which is going to the gym at 8 am or Csaba going to work an hour train ride away.

Csaba’s cooking is fantastic, he even presented me with a Guinness tonite at dinner after I saw John’s last night, and forgot how good they were over here.

too late to do spellchecks, so much radio and so little time. There is beauty all around, the sounds off the streets, the people I know, talkative people in shops. I love people here dressing for the weather, so many fun hats and scarves and sweaters, wraps and tops.

We went to JuJu’s in The Lanes. This shop was on Mary Queen of Shops that I watched last week in the states  on BBC TV. The owner  said they had gotten alot of feedback and emails from that airing, even from Australia. He was to decorate the dressing rooms as individual and stylish.he had attempted to put a glass up against the wall and put stones, sand and flip flops behind the glass to signify the nearby beach,but on the show the glass had broken, so by now the dressing rooms had changed a bit. The shop looked good, Mary had been there awhile back, but he said they were even showing it on some plane flights. He said his wife was at the bank so we didn’t get  to say hi to her, she had gotten a remake along with the shop. Battery running out, good nite moon.