Round The Ball: Lent – 2009

We are having a bit of a renaissance in our experience of summer here in London, of all places.  The sun is still going down at 10 p.m.  The afternoons are breezy, warm and full of light.  We keep the back door and the windows open.  We pull out the lawn chairs and sit in the front, or the back.

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Today after church we did a spontaneous picnic on the grassy public area back behind our house, just off the street.  Spreading out a blanket underneath the shade tree: cheese, crackers, veggies, cuts of meat.  Berries and cream for dessert.  We savored our meal with the kids, took it slow, and spent the afternoon on the grass.

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It may be hard to believe, but we didn’t actually get to experience this much in San Francisco.  Mark Twain’s famous quote, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco” proved true for us — fog, cold, clouds . . . good but not great.  These London summers seems luxurious in comparison.  We’re loving it.  More people are out and about in the neighborhood.  People seem more willing to engage.  A group of young guys regularly hang out near the entrance to our flat.  Summer time blessings!

One of the things I like best about life in London is the leisurely way our church friends spend their Sunday afternoons together.  I don’t know if this is a British thing or not (some say London is NOT really England), but we’ve noticed that when people invite you over for lunch after church on Sunday, they are really not in a hurry.

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Seems like in the States, after-church invites either a) didn’t happen at all, b) were invites to lunch at a restaurant, or c) happened in an hour or so and then we were on our way.  Here, we get out of church at 12ish, don’t start eating until 2ish, do desserts and tea at 4 and are still hanging out at 4:30!  I like the leisurely pace and the open-handedness of the hospitality — and our kids are really into being at other people’s places too.

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Yesterday we spend the afternoon in Waterloo, just south of the Thames with a great couple from church and a number of other folks.  These unhurried, pleasant Sunday afternoon meals seem to be the way the church was intended to be: worshiping, and feasting together in one anothers’ homes.

When the new Mayor of London was elected on May 1, he immediately announced a ban on drinking alcohol on all public transit, to take effect June 1.  If that’s hard for you to understand, it’s because prior to this ban you could have an open container — a veritable cocktail party if you wanted to — on any bus or Underground train.  We’ve been witness to some of the drunken carryings on that can happen with no open container law.  But nothing like last night . . .

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With the ban soon to go in effect (at the stroke of midnight), Londoners from everywhere decided it would be a great idea to have one last drink on the Tube.  Through the weekend and late into Saturday this evolved into a full-on mardi gras like revelry all over London’s public transit.  I was en route to the showing of a friend’s band on the other side of town — and witnessed train cars and station platforms swarming with costumed people drinking and carrying on. The whole thing seemed entirely un-policed and out of control.

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By 11 p.m. when I headed home from the show,  several Undergound lines and stations had been entirely shut-down due to unruly behavior and vandalism on trains.  I hopped on a bus and was one of the last people to make it on before the buses stopped picking the partyers up too.  As the bus proceeded, I witnessed swarms of young people crowding the sidewalks everywhere — holding beer cans, wine bottles and plastic cups.  Drunk people stumbling across the roads in front of the bus.  Closed off train stations that looked as though they had been trashed in riots.  Police cars and sirens going off in all directions.  All for that last night of drinking on the train.