I'm just a kid at heart
I've got a lot of non-Jakartass writing to do this evening and am a little short of time, unlike
Inspector Sands. He's able to go to meetings with his local councillors. And lo ~ they discuss the decrepit condition of Charlton Lido in
Hornfair Park.
The lido is "Greenwich borough's only open-air pool. It was built in 1939 in the Art Deco style, and is "
perfect for long, hot, summer days." We lived in Shooter's Hill Road before I went to university and Hornfair Park was just up the road. When I were a lad, my father used to rouse my sister and I at 6 o'clock to go for a pre-breakfast dip. It was free at that time and bloody freezing. I think that in those days it was reckoned to be character forming. Certainly I took a masochistic pleasure in those mornings; I had little choice in the matter. You can picture it
here. It was only when I discovered the joys of snorkeling in tropical waters that I began to enjoy totally immersing myself in water.
Of happier memories is
Charlton House which
"ïs the finest and best preserved Jacobean mansion in the London area". I knew it well because it was my local library and was on my route to the Valley. After exiting the grounds, I would walk part way through Charlton Village and then stroll through
Maryon Wilson Park "
a beautifully landscaped park contains both informal open grassland and woodlands - all in a valley setting" with "
a farm with ducks, geese, chickens a pig, and even a deer enclosure".
Unlike the deer at Monas, these weren't stressed out. Which reminds me; the Busway has a stop for the
Monumen Nasional but I can't for the life of me work out how to actually get from there into the recently fenced 'public facility'. Can anyone tell me where the entrance is?
With that neat segué into local affairs, it's worth noting that this evening Megawati Soekarnoputri with Hasyim Muzadi and Amien Rais with Siswono Yudohusodo have participated in a mediated question and answer session live on TV ~ the first ever in this country. It's fascinating to discover that Mega has a voice. She's also offering
free circumcisions in order to garner votes. As the election is next Monday and she's lagging in the opinion polls, I think she's cutting it fine.
Whoops. Sorry.
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