Sunday 11 November 2012

"And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine"

I'm sorry, I'm in mourning and feeling sad, so this is all I've got: I just this second came in from planting out some hollyhocks to find this in my Feedjit list of arrivals on my blog -
Auckland arrived from google.co.nz on "TravelSkite: July 2011" by searching for growing hollyhocks in nz.

But I did get a random email yesterday from Lynne, an old friend suggesting that as it was looking like rain, perhaps we should have a drink instead of a game. I replied saying that I would like nothing better, but as she's living in northern Spain and I'm here in New Zealand, perhaps she was meaning another Pam of her acquaintance. Nothing particularly remarkable there, you're thinking - but when other friends came to dinner last night, they asked if we knew Stratford. "Upon Avon?" I enquired, about to expand on seeing The Merchant of Venice there (from which the above deathless line is taken, of course. What, you didn't know? Philistine). And where, in an antique jewellery shop, the gold chain was purchased that, 20 years later, was untimely ripp'd (once you get into the Shakespearean quotes, it's hard to stop) from my neck in Santiago, Chile. Also where, now I come to think of it, I last year bought the very shoes I'm wearing right now.

No, they said. Stratford here, under the mountain. Well no, said the OH, unprompted, but we had some friends in England who lived there when they came to NZ before we met them, haven't seen them for about 30 years or so, what was her name again? "Lynne," I said.

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