Near the Thames

By Teddington Locks

Wild cherry blossom

Crossing the bridge by the Teddington Locks brings us to the Thames Path through the fields to Kingston, the distance on the signposts being marked in miles, not kilometres. Having spent an hour watching our washing go round in circles at the "Bubbles" laundrette, we were glad to be out of doors. The was unusually fine for February in England: we could enjoy the warmth of the sunshine while sitting on a river bank bench, watching the dog-walkers and rowing boats go by. Cherry trees are in bloom. Houseboats are moored by the island, the view not unlike Impressionist paintings of the Seine. Once in the town of Kingston, we found the surroundings less soothing because several of the shopfronts are boarded-up, these businesses abandoned, something I've never before noticed in this prosperous part of the UK. "Economic uncertainty!" comments my son-in-law. 

Impressionist view, looking upstream at Kingston

To return to Teddington we took the local train for a four minute stretch that I'm not including in my tally of train-rides. Our daughter had a dentist's appointment, so our task for the afternoon was to fetch Thomas home, who is in Year 4 at Stanley Primary School and had been told to wait for us by the metal sunflowers near his classroom. About 1000 children attend this school and most of them had an adult picking them up, with other children in tow; we managed to find Thomas all the same and he led us home, knowing the way better than we did.

The house where our family lives is undergoing a kitchen renovation at the moment, with chaotic consequences, cornflakes, oil, cleaning equipment, the old fridge and so on all in the living room, Chris attempting to "debug the hardware" in Thomas' electronics kit that overflows the dining table, Alex (13, lean and tall, these days) wanting to show us his multiple electronic devices and tell us about his recent history lesson about the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Sarajevo in 1914, or his visit to a Spanish restaurant with his school's Spanish teacher, to learn the vocabulary, or his maths exam, or his part in the gangster musical Bugsy Malone.

At the garden centre

It is now Saturday evening. I have been weeding the garden, a real pleasure in February when the snow is knee deep back in Canada and the windchill today -30C. Emma and I spent over an hour at the local garden centre this afternoon while Thomas was at a "Nerf Gun" birthday party with other children from his class. He didn't want to go at all, at first, but changed his mind. I had no idea what a Nerf Gun was, but am now appalled to realise it is a plastic, mass-produced toy, shaped like a sub-machine gun, that fires plastic foam bullets at other boys his age (and a few girls). The children were divided into teams for this game. Emma and I were amused by the insistence of the long-suffering mother who had organised this party that we return to pick up Thomas no later than 4 p.m. She said it three times. When the party came to an end, we saw Thomas do a quick lap of the food table to snatch a last few bites, then come rushing out with chipmunk cheeks and plenty to tell us; he was handed a cone of sweets to carry home as well. Meanwhile, after working with his granddad to write a computer program in Python3, his brother Alex had spent the afternoon fast asleep.

Thomas (right) at the end of the party