Funk. Off.

To paraphrase one of the 21st Century’s greatest philosophers, Ms T. Swift:
“Haters are going to hate, hate, hate. So I shake them off.”
Oh heck, where’s he going with this I can almost hear you being bothered to ask yourself.
A truism in marketing is “love me, hate me, but don’t ignore me.”
But what if the act of ignoring you is construed as hating, and what if you weren’t ignoring them in the first place, but had to deal with one crisis after another and you just needed support, which wasn’t forthcoming.
Which leads me, with a giant tangential leap, to my latest day out.
The Dancing Queen had a course in London last week. Rather than leaving me at home in a funk of my mind’s own making, rather than in the company of James Brown and Stevie Wonder, she suggested I went for a wander around that there London.
We started in a cloud of glitter at Polegate station with hundreds of people off to Brighton Pride, my funk was lifting already, people of every description and label if you are so inclined to label people (be wary of labelling people unless you want to be labelled too), dressed in every colour of the rainbow all out to have fun.
Southern Trains were their usual overcrowded, overheated, over noisy self, but you know that, I won’t burden you.
We arrived at Blackfriars and had an appalling meal at Joe’s Kitchen, frozen chips, a burger prepared without any apparent care and The Dancing Queen’s dinner due to arrive 10 minutes after her course started. To be fair they did reduce the bill, but received an old fashioned look when they asked if I would like to add a tip.
I watched a bit of filming of Men In Black which seemed to involve a green painted car made out of polystyrene on a crane. I’m sure it will look better with St Paul’s Cathedral in the background and after the special effects are added.
I strolled down to the Thames with the intention of crossing The Millennium Bridge, but there were too many people, so decided to take a right and visit The Knight’s Templar Church and have a sit in Middle Temple Gardens, but it closes at the weekend. A church, closed, at the weekend.
The funk had descended well and truly, so I made my way down Fleet Street and popped into St Bride’s church, the journalist’s church and had a mooch around and looked at the spire which was the inspiration for the multi-tiered wedding cake.
I found myself back at St Paul’s Cathedral and sat under the Ginko biloba tree and read my book. I dozed off in the shade with my book in the lap and awoke with something of a start when a pigeon defecated on my shirt. Some language ensued and I knocked the book off my lap to discover someone had mistaken me for a vagrant whilst I was asleep and put a pound coin on my book. Which was lucky.
It was time to meet The Dancing Queen and dash over to Soho to go to the Monmouth Kitchen to meet pals for dinner. It is an Italian / Peruvian fusion place, which filled me with a sense of incredulity, but it was amazing, lovely staff, particularly Hannah on the front desk and Goncalo who served us and made brilliant recommendations.
The Dancing Queen regaled the restaurant with the tale of my shirt’s coming together with a poo, but for some reason said it was a bear. Which added a whole new dimension to my day.
Then we went to see Motown at The Shaftesbury Theatre, so we got some funkiness after all.
So basically, kindness comes in the most unexpected ways:
The lady who sat and listened to the old lady on the train telling her about her 8th annual trip to the same hotel in Guernsey with rapt attention.
The lady leading a tour of London’s parks who almost unnoticed slipped a fiver to a homeless man in one of the parks.
The girl on reception who sorted out a misunderstanding about the number of guests who had booked with no fuss.
And the person who put a pound coin on my book.
The lady who tells me I’m a good writer and encourages me when I’m doubting myself. This blog might prove her wrong though.
But mostly to The Dancing Queen who puts up with the down days and the perceived slights I suffer and buys me a piece of cake.
All in all, a very successful day.

No photos, this time, what do you expect, a bear pooing??