Day 188 ~ Meeting old friends and relies in London.
After a good long lie in we caught the 267 to Hammersmith and then the 9 to Kensington Gardens to Côte, a nice restaurant chain Tina and Jan like. They have very good gluten-free options. I had spicy tomato soup starter, sea bass mains and cheese board for afters. Leb had salad, baked ratatouille and cherry pancakes. Yum.
It was so kind that they came all the way from Stroud just to see us and we had a good five hours catching up about all that had happened since we last saw them at The Birches at the England/Wales border, where Elaine Morgan started her writing career.
After dinner we had a lovely walk through Kensington Gardens. I was embarrassed again that I was taking a close look at Kensington Palace and the Albert Memorial for the first time. It's amazing how you take so much for granted when you live somewhere. We'd lived around London for 20 years but there's so much I missed. Of course, the Diana, Princess of Wales memorial fountain didn't exist back then so at least I have an excuse there. I have to admit, though, I wasn't very impressed with it. It seemed a bit empty and hollow to me. Anyway after a long chatty coffee at the Lido Cafe we headed off on our separate ways.
Kensington Park is quite close to the Ukrainian club so I persuaded Leb that we should go to Bayswater Road and catch a bus past the "Russian" Embassy (another opportunity to stick two fingers up at Putin's kleptofascists) and down to their sweet club on Holland Park Avenue. When we arrived it appeared closed but the doors soon opened and we were able to go in have a quick Piana Vyshnia (cherry liqueur) and say "дякую! Слава Україні!" and then head off to our next rendezvous in the East End.
The Central line train from Holland Park to Bethnall Green (pronounced "Befnəw Gween") took about half an hour so we arrived about ten minutes early. We emerged in the East End and tried to find some WiFi to check messages. I popped into the old Salmon & Ball but was quickly told "no WiFi here, sorry" so we hovered next door outside Starbucks where there was a signal. "Meet downstairs in the tube station by the ticket office" was the latest message.
As we read this, some poor woman, sat on the side of the pavement next to the wall near us was having a right ol barney with someone.
"Don't look at me like that, you c@nt!" She yelled. And "Oh yeah, call the cops then."
We quickly headed back underground to wait.
Five minutes later, stood by the ticket desk, we saw a strangely familiar-looking figure walking towards us. Could it be? Does that face look like... Yes! It was Romas Kinka, a Lithuanian friend we had not seen in over 30 years.
Romas is the guru of all things Lithuanian in the UK. I first met him at Lietuvių Sodyba, in Hampshire, back in 1982 when I had just become a born-again Lithuanian. I'll never forget sitting down to eat silkės, a Lithuanian herring delicacy, with him, his wife Gailutė, and other 'elites' of the Lithuanian community. I didn't know who these people were at the time but I was still very nervous. I had made my own Lithuanian flag badge and wore it proudly on my jumper but goofed by getting the tricolour the wrong way round. (Left to right, instead of top to bottom). It was Romas who gently and sensitively pointed out my error. Oops! He asked me about my background and when I told him I had a Romanian mother he asked "why did you decide to come here and not support Romania?" I nervously suggested that I thought Lithuania needed the help more as it was, at the time, a captive nation in the USSR. At least Romania had their independence.
This seems to have impressed Romas as he reminded us about it later.
Romas was a very important part of Leb and my wedding plans. He gave us lots of advice about how to weave in as many traditions as we could for that lovely day back in 1987.
During the late 1980s/early 1990s Romas was often on UK television commenting on the dramatic events going on as Lithuania took Gorbachov's ground breaking initiatives at their word. "Glasnost? - OK how about this for openness... we never wanted to join the USSR we only did so because you had a gun at our heads." And "Perestroika? - OK how about this for restructuring... we're reclaiming our Independence back ... bye!"
Lithuania were the first to break free from the Soviet empire and thus help the collapse of Communism.
Once, during those times, I even had the excruciatingly nervous responsibility of filling in for Romas on Sky news as he couldn't make it. I looked like a 16 year old.
When Lithuania regained its Independence, Romas acted as an embasador for a well oiled team run by
Paul Markevicius to make arrangements for and greet the new leaders on their first visits to the UK. I was very proud to do a tiny bit there too.
Anyway... although we'd written to each other many times since all these amazing events happened, it had been over 30 years since we'd actually met.
Romas is basically an intellectual giant (he's quite big physically too) and within seconds he was teaching us stuff. It's as if his brain has absorbed so much knowledge he just has to try to release as much of it as possible to anyone and everyone he meets. Those who know Charles Oxnard will know the type of person I mean. Romas is a proud East Ender and although he was born in Šiauliai, Lithuania (same as Leb's dad) and lived in Chicago for a few years, he was brought up and spent the vast majority of his 84 years in Bethnall Green. He was desperate to give us a glimpse of this to us and for an hour or so, gave us a personalised tour of the buidings surrounding the tube station.
The information effortlessly rattled off, the numerous complex anecdotes and his memory for detail, left us spinning and belied his 84 years. The home of Daniel Mendoza, the pioneering boxer, the importance of his image to Peter Sellers, was just one of many.
To hear Romas speak sounds like a university professor, but as a linguist, he can flip to any accent. He told us once, for a laugh, he had a long taxi drive and had the cab driver thinking he was a proper cockney.
The subject of how to pronounce "Klaipėda" came up. I'd always thought it started "kla" (as in claxon) but in Lithuania Paul had told us it started "clay" (as in 'clay pigeon') as he now lived there with his partner. Leb also thought this, as a woman on a Lthuanian language podcast said the same thing.
I must say I was very pleased when Romas said it should be "kla" and I was proud and embarrassed at the same time when Leb tried to argue against him. No!!! You don't argue with Romas about the Lithuanian language!
Anyway, after a few more tales about the Russian baths, boxing ring and swimming pool of York Hall, it was starting to get cold and Romas noticed Leb shivering. "So, should we eat?" "YES!"
Romas then led us to the No 8 bus stop where we caught the next one to Brick Lane and its famous rows of curry houses.
City Spice gave Romas a great deal which included a free drink and 20% off. We sat down to three delicious thalis between us and a couple of glasses of red wine for me.
We spoke about many subjects from me trying to explain to Romas why I was planning to go to Brentford's stadium tomorrow (I can't describe how cringy that was!) to the Trump phenomenon and how it compares to Hitler's rise to power in Germany 1933.
It could easily have gone on all night but at about 11pm Leb noticed the time and, worried we'd get back to Hammersmith in time to catch the last 267 bus, we decided to call the evening to an end.
Romas was adamant that he would walk us to the now nearest tube station, Aldgate East, which proved more challenging than we thought as two entrances were locked and bolted and one corner of a street was closed off. We got there eventually but rather than just see us off and catch his bus home, he was determined to come down to the platform and wave us off as the train left. What a sweetie.
As Romas might have said to a cab driver..."Cor blimey, what a ruby! We're cream-crackered, but we ain't 'alf 'ad a right old rabbit. Ta very much, guv'nor, that was a proper corker!"
The drama hadn't finished though. Murphy's Law intervened and after the train stopped at some station or other, there was 15 minute delay before we were told to get off the District Line and wait for another... another 15 minutes passed by and we started to get worried.
When the train did finally arrive at Hammersmith it was midnight. We found the bus station and there were just two more 267s to run otherwise it would have been an hour and a half to walk back. Thankfully the bus came and we got back here to a nice warm bed.
Thanks Tina and Jan!!
Ačiū labai Romas!
