There are always mixed feelings on such occasions. We are going to go along to stand up for what we believe; on the other hand the police have become more brutal and we may well get attacked. From last Saturday’s event I noted that the police charged those who had provoked them. I hope that people have learned from this and will be less aggressive though I have to say that most of the aggression came from the police themselves. Towards the end, another type of police people came along dressed in riot gear and they were the ones who were the real thugs.
As for my mental preparation, I plan as much as I can but I do not over planned because I know that time will fill itself in the way it is meant to be filled. I know I will meet the people I am meant to meet and have conversations that I am meant to have. They say ‘expect the best but plan for the worst’ so there is always plan B in the background. Thank goodness I’m not flying anywhere. The endless filling in of stupid forms would do my head in.
I am going to take great pride in not wearing a mask. I shall be wearing a lanyard with a notice saying that I am exempt and that should get me by. when I go into the local high street shops, Sainsbury’s or the chemists, and I don’t have a mask, people don’t give me a second glance. I wonder what it will be like on the London Tube system; I shall look at the proportion of people who are masked compared with those who are not masked.
This time I am going to travel light. I always take more clothes than I need and end up by carrying unused stuff to and fro. We have no formal activities this time so I can dress as I please so it will be more appropriate to have an overnight bag. I am having 1000 leaflets delivered to the hotel where I’m staying. I hope to meet one or two people afterwards and have a social time but this time I’m really going to engage with people and find out what is going on in their minds and see what I can learn. There are times when I wonder whether my views on Covid in my website make any difference at all but I feel that anything is better than doing nothing and let’s face it the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Today the sun shines but the wind blows from the North and it looks like were going to have temperatures in the low teens so I must dress accordingly. The bus fare for the two of us cost £48 as opposed to £21 last time. Maybe National Express decided that they were charging too little for a return but in any event it is quite a chunk. On the other hand as I mentioned before I’m paying £168 for four nights in London Premier Inn which is about a 60% reduction on what I would have paid, so overall I’m not complaining.
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