First*, just a little poignant thought: how many of you – the twenty-odd readers of (or stumblers into, so to speak) this notebook – did notice how late it was when I was setting out for that southernmost rock of Cymru? How many were concerned for me? How many thought of posting a warning in the comments section? .... Ha...., it's just a blog to you, isn't it?
Anyway, there was no way I could reach that extreme bit of Wales leaving more or less central Caridff at 3 p.m, unless I was prepared to walk in the middle of the night - and I wasn't. So I reached Penarth instead (where a surprising number of my over-ambitious trips end) and rather than risk my life clinging to crumbling cliffs overlooking the cold and uninviting waters of the Bristol Channel, I ended up doing an urbane stroll down Penarth's more elegant sectors, full of late-19th and early 20th century architecture.
This architecture never fails to put my imagination into overdrive, but at the same time I find it reassuring - just like the seething but seemingly umovable Victorians that lived in it (the architecture), and like the Empire they'd built. Another thought, very bracing, that Penarth always triggers in me is how a mixed band of business-orientated aristocrats and some breath-takingly entrepreneaurial locals of lower classes wonderfully transformed the area into one of the world's most dynamic industrial and mining hubs. And don't we all love places that are going places?
So I was winding my way down the dark streets of P., when a house attracted my attention. It was a relatively new structure, but it was making conspicuous** nods towards older styles and conventions. I stopped and began to wonder whether I liked that approach or not (in a simar way that I always wonder whether or not I like Jabłonowski Palace in Warsaw
Suddenly, and without a clear reason, I remembered standing outside another house, in Sydenham in South London . I was there with a friend of mine. Our medium-sized unlisted company (which is how I presented our venture to unsuspecting customers; in fact I was the Chairman of the Board, the Marketing Executive, the P.A. to the Marketing Executive and part-time labourer; he was all the others) had just bagged our first building job in London. We had been talking there for a few minutes, glancing from time to time up and down the impressive turn-of-the-century edifice on the outskirts of the Crystal Palace Park
“You’re not …?”, asked one of them when they passed us on their way to the house’s main door. The question included a phrase I didn’t know, so I asked her the meaning. I got it and greeted it with laughter. (I can’t remember all the details, but knowing myself I may well have asked the woman to repeat the phrase a few times to help me memorise it and give me further examples of its typical usage). Then I reassured her that “we weren’t****”
“You’re not …?”, asked one of them when they passed us on their way to the house’s main door. The question included a phrase I didn’t know, so I asked her the meaning. I got it and greeted it with laughter. (I can’t remember all the details, but knowing myself I may well have asked the woman to repeat the phrase a few times to help me memorise it and give me further examples of its typical usage). Then I reassured her that “we weren’t****”
So now, standing outside that house in Penarth the situation and the phrase came back to me. I smiled and repeated the expression aloud a few times, an old learning habit of mine, just to make sure it’s available should a need arise to use it.
As luck would have, just then a small car pulled over across the street. A friendly, (foolishly) tax-paying, middle-class family got out and must have noticed me immediately: standing outside their neighbour’s house, in dodgy trainers, a pair of jeans showing a lot of wear-and-tear, with my Cockney kind of cap on, unshaven, intensively looking at one of the windows (if fact at the ornamental bits around it, but how could they have known?) and saying to myself:
“Casing the joint… casing the joint...”
*Possibly inventing a new stylistic device – let’s call it past-edit - I decided to un-post some stuff I’ve already posted in order to achieve consistency and an unobstructed transition for this text (that was if fact written before the removed posts, which I’ll re-publish soon).
**a silly adjective to use when discussing architecture, I guess.
**a silly adjective to use when discussing architecture, I guess.
*** which was simply rebuild, but with the modern interior and modern materials used it does feel like a a through and through modern building pretending to be like old one - and not just a reconstruction).
**** but in a way, we were.
**** but in a way, we were.
