Chere voyageuse

1 I have no doubt. Eastbourne it is not. Even Brighton it is not. Indeed, as the thoughts begin to come to mind I sense an affinity with what people understood went on in dim places in Limehouse. Confessions of an opium-eater, that sort of thing. Watson would take a revolver, and a police whistle.

1.1 We are accustomed to eating the flesh (and other parts) of some animals but not of others. We recoil from the prospect of eating some other animals. Eating dogs. Uggh. There has been a correspondence in The Times about the eating of squirrels. I can imagine that I would approach the task slowly, carefully. It is not just the taste of the cooked flesh; no, it is more the image of the animal. Yet we do tuck in to dead cows and to dead lambs. Eating lambs? Uggh.

2 And those who mind us. They mind us and they constrain us. They guide and protect us; they bar us from what we would see. I can imagine that the minder has signed for you both, as it were. He is responsible for your welfare, that welfare being extended to ensure that you see what is proper, however understood, for you to see. Whose tour is it? Indeed.

3 You have been away for a week; there are two weeks remaining. I take it that you are lost somewhere in China. (Well, I know that you are lost within reach of a keyboard now and then.) The world is China? Indeed, the world may be that part of China which you presently inhabit. Beyond the locality lies the rest of the region, beyond the region lies Peking and the rest of China. And beyond China, so you must tell yourself, the rest of the world. Horizons, perspectives.

3.1 How will we keep you down on the farm now that you have seen the dog market. The variety of the human experience, the human condition. The comparisons with the faraway places which you have seen in the past two or three years. I wonder, as I key, how you will be able to bring your experience to bear on the running of the East Grinstead and District Credit Union. As you listen to a discussion about the dividend which is to be paid to junior savers perhaps you will think of the dog-market and of the Great Wall.

4 Here, at the bottom of the Close in East Grinstead, I have just circulated the scores for the opening session of the 2008/09 season at the Maypole Bridge Club. Seven tables; 28 players. A long way from the nearest part of China; an even longer way from the part beyond the nearest boundary where you are exploring, in the tradition of those robust women who have gone to such places before you. And who have kept journals.

5 It's time for fresh tea, for a spot of training (as it is dull and overcast, and as the bulk of the bikers are likely to have gone to London to watch the opening of the Tour of Britain).

6 A wide circle of people in the Unity Room at Worth. James, in a long, long introduction, was recalling his primary interest at the age of 17 years. Pulling birds. In the interstice between the end of one sentence and the beginning of another came a voice 'What's new'. Spot on. A shaft. A moment of truth. Loud laughter. Speaker seeks to recover his scattered thoughts.

Great stuff, lady.


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