Sunday, March 09, 2008

Small gifts, top deck and roofscape.

1. The kindness of strangers. The lady at the station ticket office is very sharp with a man who pushes in front of me in the queue; and then she checks the map to see if there is any way I can avoid a replacement bus service. Later, the coffee shop cashier says: 'I'll give you one of my crisp fivers' as she hands me my change.

2. Sitting in the front seat on the top deck of a bus.

3. The cliff road curls back on itself so steeply that you can look down the chimney pots of the houses and shops on the sea front. And what a roofscape -- there's a green copper and red brick dome; flowered clay chimney pots and a garden of vines.

Escape, tulips and samosa.

1. This morning, I'm piling into a car with friends to escape into the Weald, where we will visit a garden planted with 45,000 tulips. 2...