Our 5W hosts: Christine and Leigh
Day 1: Jubie and I arrived in London at 11am, after a long flight. We were both amazed to walk out of the airport into a perfectly sunny day. The English, obviously not accustomed to the great, glowing orb in the sky, seemed in a puzzled state of squint. Not one person had sun glasses on, we decided it must be that this kind of bright sun is rare here. Our 5W host Christine Bowman, had given us clear directions as to how to purchase Oyster cards for the underground “tube” system and we managed to negotiate this pretty well. We got on the Picadilly line and followed this to Earls Court then off at East Putney where Christine picked us up. Her home is in a lovely city neighborhood with many houses in a row, built in the same style. She says this is a typical London home, and although people try to make them modern and different from one another, they really do turn out to end up much the same as one another. The “loo” has it’s own room adjacent to the sink and shower room. She lives near the Thames, so we took an afternoon walk down to the park that runs along the river. The park was filled with people, women pushing babies, children playing, people on bikes – as it was a rare sunny day in London, as if spring had paid a brief and unexpected visit amidst what Christine says has been an unusually cold damp winter. On our way back through the neighborhoods we stopped for a beer at two local pubs, wanting to take in the local atmosphere in many ways. The second pub was called the Hop In, which I did as I promptly stumbled over the deep step as you enter. This pub was very Irish, filled with maps of Ireland and fun old posters of Irish beers and such on the walls. Men were drinking Guinness beers and discussing politics and life as they sat at the bar. We distinctly overheard an Irish brogue stammer “they should all die!”.
Christine is Scottish, a German teacher and has lived and when she was in her early twenties she joined many other teachers that went to work in Kenya in the school systems that the English government were setting up there. She taught English for a few years, but was then asked to teach German, which she did for many years. She returned to London and taught here until she retired a few years ago. She has recently returned from a trip back to Kenya with her new partner Leigh, who is from Zimbabwe and has lived in London for two years. Christine talked of visiting one of her former students at the school where she taught German in her twenties and she was surprised to learn that they now have a vital and active German language program with student exchanges to and from Germany as well! What a wonderful legacy!
For dinner Christine cooked a typical Scottish dinner that is one that Scots around the world eat in late January to celebrate their beloved poet Robert Burns. She says it is common to have a Burns night where poetry is recited and people eat haggis, tatties and neeks. It was delicious food and we loved both the food and the dinner conversation, which included talk about Leigh’s life in Zimbabwe and South Africa and his visits to America which included New Orleans and Disney World.
