Saturday, August 25

 

 

I woke up at about 8:30 after waking twice in the night with frustration dreams. In one I sat on the floor trying to pack my rucksack for some camping trip. The rest of the class had their’s packed, but people kept hiding or moving my things before I could pack them. I couldn’t work out if I should blame myself or other people.

When we got up we started packing in real life. Nobody hid any of my stuff.

Irma had already done much of the packing yesterday evening, so I also vacuum-cleaned and did various other Saturday morning housekeeping tasks.

At 10:30 Irma places what she calls a buddha bowl on the table with some fruit juice and invites me to eat it. This, I think, will get me through most of the day.

At 11:30 we will pack the door and head for the airport. Sunshine has gone to sleep and Naa will come soon to stay with him. On the way Irma will point out a huge spider that has started living in the right-hand rear-view mirror. It has built a web between the mirror and the door.

As we drive it will peep out from behind the mirror glass and then scuttle back. At one point it will come right out and start repairing, or adding to, its net, while we zoom down Ringroad 1 at 100 km per hour. To my surprise it will survive this, and it will peep out again as we leave the car at the airport.

As we pass through Terminal 2 to our gate I will look at a menu. The deli bar will offer four kinds of sandwiches at prices ranging from 18.50 to 21.50. Right next door Burger King will offer a Whopper or vegetable burger and a large beer for 10€. I will make a mental note: if I ever have to eat at Helsinki airport I will eat at Burger King.

The plane will turn out to have free internet access. Finnair has promised onboard wifi to combat Norwegian and now it has started testing it. Lucky us.

Irma will express her consternation at the underground, and I will see her point of view. Compared to the Helsinki metro it will seem like a three quarter sized scale model. We will just about manage to fit ourselves in.

The Peckham Rooms will also appear like a scale model of a hotel: especially our tiny room.

We will walk to the Kentish Drovers, a Wetherspoons pub, to eat. Irma will have a chicken burger and I will have a baked potato with five bean chilli.

On the way home we will stop at The Prince of Peckham, an altogether trendier place that loudly proclaims white men can’t jerk. We will eventually succumb and order a small plate of jerked chicken wings. Delicious? Absolutely!

Just before arriving at the hotel we will decide to look into the pub next door: the Copper Pot. Our arrival will double the number of customers. The landlord will explain that he comes from Bangladesh and we will sit at the bar and talk about the flooding in Kerala.

Finally we will return to our miniature hotel room and sleep.