I woke this morning dreaming of a hedgehog with red rubber boots holding a yellow umbrella. I do think it was the influence of going to a talk by Janet Bolton last night. Just getting there was an adventure in itself. We had a bus ride through busy 5.00 traffic and then a train ride. In fact we got off the bus at the end and walked the rest of the way because the traffic was so bad….We almost ended up on the wrong train but a young man put us on the right track…(so to speak). He watched us run, bags flying and coats dragging as we wound our way through the throng… then gave us the thumbs up as we turned in the correct direction…. “Which carriage”? for petes sake… they were falling out of the doors… finally we squeezed on, hanging on for dear life to the handles of the seats….. but talk about sardines…. Not for me, I can’t ever imagine doing that every day. It was a strange situation… the train is very quiet. People watcher, I observed that everyone wore black, grey or tan… the train is quiet enough to hear the buzz of ipods and the occasional mobile phone conversation… “Hi, just waiting to see if you are still on for tonight? Oh great, see you then. giggle” I was the only middle age gal with no ipod and a red suit on….!!!! Glad I’m different….It was pitch dark when we arrived at Beckingham but we found our way to the Methodist Church Hall and as we were early we located an Italian Restaurant to have a coffee and bowl of soup. Janet spoke with the quiet dignity of an English Lady…. She has a shock of very curly grey hair that cascades over her face… no she doesn’t look like an ipod train gal…. We journeyed through her life story of creativity and saw slides of how her work evolved…. It was a super, but a rather quiet and sober evening after the night before. There was a supper of coffee and a dozen or more cakes to choose from....
Our trip home was chilly and a little scary… I sure wouldn’t have done it alone….we were freezing when we arrived back at the hotel… but full of self admiration at being so brave on the London Trains…. !!!!
