I love London, even though I sometimes find just existing here stressful. There are so many people, especially in Bloomsbury where I work. My giving directions quota is way over. All these hordes of aimless tourists, needy language students and assorted randoms, it gets a bit much. So I decided a little breather was in order. Yesterday we got the train to Chingford for a tidy fiver, and roamed around Epping Forest. But first, a drink. I sat in a pub garden under a fine English drizzle and listened to a real Essexy grandad engage in eerily elaborate imagination play with his four-year-old grandson. Overlooking the plain which is best viewed from the top floor of Queen Elizabeth's hunting lodge next door, the man started spinning plots: "Watch out, here comes a highwayman!" "See the dogs, they're not after us are they?" "Look at the horses, they're coming back from the hunt!" The boys eyes widened, seeming to leap back and forth between belief and relief. When kids play with kids, there's an unspoken agreement that it's all make-believe. But grown-ups are the ones who define the real world. I kept listening, kept wondering if maybe gramps was going too far and scaring the kid, and then decided that he was probably one of the best granddads I'd ever seen.
Then the weekend was over. What else? I gave directions to two old ladies to the British Museum on my way to work today. I guess I didn't really mind.
