It’s not been a quiet week at the Elephant and Castle, except for Monday.
Tuesday Goliath had our Lodge of Instruction. Something that Freemasons have to do regularly is rehearse the ritual. In most Masonic jurisdictions the ritual must be memorised. One particular ceremony can take up to an hour, and may be conducted by one man. So, rehearsal is serious stuff indeed. My friend Nadeem, whom I nominated for the Lodge, picks me up at Northwick Park station on the Metropolitan line and we go to Harrow Masonic Centre and have a beverage in the bar while waiting for the meeting to start. The meeting was very emo as there was a bit of a dispute about some parts of the ritual. I thus proposed to make a leaflet detailing the differences between our Goliath ritual and the standard Taylor’s Working. This I did, and we’ll be publishing it in May after I assume the Mastership of the Lodge. Only problem was: Microsoft Publisher. The final leaflet came to 19 pages plus one blank page, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t get page 18 to flow onto page 19. Whoever invented Microsoft Publisher needs to be corrected somehow. I suggest the cat o’ nine tails, myself.
Wednesday was my swine flu vaccination. The good thing is that it was free. The bad thing was that the nurse was running 1/2 hour behind. I know that I shouldn’t complain, but if I were 1/2 hour late for an appointment I’d get hell in a handbasket. My right arm ached for a couple of days afterward, and I had a very deep hypo on Thursday which I can’t explain with what I was eating or the amount of insulin I was taking. I wonder whether the inoculation did something.
HWMBO was off Wednesday through Friday so on Wednesday afternoon we went to the Turner and the Masters exhibition at Tate Britain on Millbank. It closed today (Sunday January 31) so we thought we’d better go see it. Well, as it was the afternoon and a weekday we thought we’d have an easy time of it, but the exhibition was stuffed. Lots of people who wait until the end of an exhibition to see it were there, and many were elderly and had canes, just like me (I was using mine as my back was killing me…see Thursday for more informaiton on that). I felt that while it was slightly interesting, the Tate often has Turner exhibitions because it has most of the Turners that are extant, as Turner left most of his paintings that he had at his death to the nation and the nation gave most of them to the Tate. As it was kind of a comparison between Turner and other artists, if you weren’t paying attention in Art History class (and I wasn’t) much of the exhibition was not very illuminating.
Thursday I went to the Foot Clinic at Kings to be fitted for orthopedic shoes and insoles. I have been waiting for this for years (but didn’t get on the official waiting list until December). The assessor (fancy name for the shoe fitter) was very nice, perhaps batting for Our Team, and sharing my first name as well. While he was measuring my feet for the shoes, he asked me how my back was faring because of the pressure boot—I told him that my back was killing me. Every time I got up from sitting on the bed while wearing the boot my back felt like someone had stabbed me in the kidney. He said, “Wait a minute!” and took my shoe (not the boot!) away. A minute later he returned with a device that raised the boot by about an inch. This instantly fixed my back problem and my gait is now normal, as both shoes are on a level. I was as delighted as a young kid on Christmas morning who got all the presents he asked for and no coal in his stocking. While measuring he rolled my trouserleg up and said, “It’s like the Masons.” and I replied, “Funny you should say that; I’m a Freemason.” and we discussed that for a while. I shall bring a brochure when I take delivery of the shoes. They’re black wingtips with laces.
Thursday night we went out with our friends Ard, Leslie, Eddie, and Christina to Belgo at Covent Garden. HWMBO tried a couple of Belgian beera, but I stuck to Diet Coke. The wait staff were all dressed in monk’s robes, for some odd reason…perhaps because a lot of Belgian beer is brewed by monks. Lots of mussels were consumed (not by me), and I had a steak and frites, which were excellent. Then off for dessert. We walked from Belgo to Old Compton Street and Chinatown, and finally ended up at C&R Caf