Bromley, Kent
This will be a day traveling by bus since our destination is also in the south east of London. The weather was not particularly good so we took our umbrella and waterproof top just to make sure. It became too windy to use the umbrella without doing a Mary Poppins. 
The Interchange between buses and trams is three or four stops away from the bus stop right out side the end of our road. To the Interchange and we took a 415 bus with a journey time of about 25 minutes.
My sister had told me that the quality of shopping in Bromley was currently better than Croydon. I concurred with her because as we had seen that so many shops have closed apart from fast food outlets, the inevitable Wetherspoons, hair salons for men and women, phone repair shops and nail saloons. This cohort does not make for a beautiful High Street but as I say Bromley is totally another matter. A very far-sighted investor put a lot of money on huge shopping centres and this seems to have paid off. There are very few charity shops compared with a number of ordinary functioning shops.
We had the privilege of waiting in line at Primark to buy a set of five socks made in China for £5. Pile them high, sell ’em cheap.
In the main shopping centre which must have about 100 units we found a pop-up run gallery by the Bromley artist Collective or some such title. We spoke to the manager of the day, a very nice lady from Kosovo, to find that the artworks rotated every couple of weeks so they were really making the most of the space.
I got talking with an artist called Jules Pew who was looking forward to a complete change of life by moving up to Newcastle to be nearer her son. She is very well traveled and has been in many countries and it was a privilege to meet with her. I loved her image of Prince along with others. (see image below). She really has caught him in a reflective mood that most people would not see. Her website is here.
I would have bought one of her works but our place at home is full of stuff. May I should rotate my art works as well.
A general view of the pop-up exhibition
Works by the fore-mentioned Jules Pew.
After much pontificating and mumbling into my beard I came across a cafe not unrelated in name to the area from which I come, Somerset. I decided that that was enough reason to have a meal and we both had a spanakopita which is the Greek name for the filo spinach and ricotta pie.
I spotted another poor innocent person as a possible victim of my humor. I saw that the male partner was very tidy about clearing up after his meal. He left with a used plate of remnants. I teased the mother of the child that he was very conscientious and asked if he was like this all the time. She agreed but semi apologetically as if being tidy is some sort of crime. She was Polish and Polish people definitely have different senses of humour. Ah well I can but try.
Today has been characterized by seeing a lot of happy nuclear family units and it is a definite counter valency to all the gloomy news we read in the main stream media’ MSM’ about people misbehaving.
We walked down the high street and had to wait a whole nine minutes for a bus which took us pleasantly through the countryside to the intersection point near my sisters house. The whole journey took about 40 minutes. We cooked supper and watched much TV. I did not sleep well at all because my fourth toe which had been stubbed was giving me enough pain to stop me sleeping. I do not like to move around at night when I am a guest in someone else’s place but we managed.
Short cuts to other pages of the London visit
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7
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