Three days is usually enough in Lunnon in any one spell although it has its strong points:particurarly people, lots of them. Not a feature of Hutton especially with the school closed-you might see two humans at the same time but this is rare and never at a bus stop. London heaves in a way you might replicate in Berwick in the middle two weeks in August-but once the Scottish schools go back and the caravanners follow the swallows the town resorts to its useful peaceful crowd free lassitude.
Lunnon in August has severe drawbacks-the humidity, the heat and the palbable noise. The streetwise here avoid the sunny side of the street-in the Merse you actively seek it out removing the outer fleece as you do so. The only way in Hutton to get the Lunnon experience is to wait for a sunny day, go into the greenhouse, shut the door having had the hose on 'fine Scotch mist' setting for the last 30 minutes and singe along with the tomatoes.
And the noise-every window is open in smart suburbia and slightly less smart Palmers Green and a thousand radios, CD players, TVs blare forth-very occasionally muted by the discreet charm of BBC steam commentary on the current Test Match. Add that on to the traffic and the mating calls of the Big Issue vendors and the Hellish Hubbub of Dante's Inferno is an also ran.
And the light. There is no night in the Big Smoke. Is it a starry sky? What quarter of the Moon? Don't ask, don't know, can't tell. And the youngest daughters Eastern European neighbours keep a fierce security light on all night penetrating, effortlessly, two layers of curtains ensuring that even a burglar with cataracts and forgotten his spectacles can see exactly what she (a cat burglar?) is doing.
And so on. Comparisons are odourous. London is good for seventy two hours, tops.
A bloggee complains that the rants are obviously written in a hurry. You bet. With the wife prowling around like the Hosts of Midian with 27 e-mails unwritten and only one computer with a faster upload speed of 2400 bps functioning time is of the essence. No such problem today with the wife pillaging Brent Cross but new obstacles in the form of a non functioning Spell Checker as this lap top has an aggressive anti pop up device and is one of those non mouse operations which I have never really mastered. But a wonderful Broadband speed which enables the rant to be finished long before I have. And I have. For the moment
