FaceTime follies

I was at the coffee shop (yes, again) when my phone began to ring. 

This doesn't happen often; most of my messages come by text or email, so I scrambled to get my phone out of my pocket. It turned out to be a FaceTime call from elder daughter in London. 

Elder daughter doesn't usually phone or FaceTime me unless it's urgent, so I fumbled for the buttons, and succeeded in hanging up on her. 

I called back. It took a couple of tries, but when I got her image, it became evident that we weren't getting a clear signal. I still didn't know what this call was about, and intent upon my phone screen, I took a couple of seconds to register that someone was standing by my table. 

It was an older lady. She didn't look pleased.

"Would you put in earbuds?" she snapped.

I've taken FaceTime calls in the coffee shop with no problems before - after all, people do converse in person and on the phone in coffee shops, but I focussed back on my daughter, keep my voice light and level.

"Darling, I'm getting a complaint about the noise.  Shall I call you?"

Elder daughter quickly retreated, and suggested texts, to keep me out of trouble with "other patrons".

Elder coffeehouse patron had returned to her table, calling out a stiff "Thank you".  I ignored this.

It turned out to not be an emergency at all, but a source of excitement.

If I were looking up a genealogical event online, she asked, would I look it up under "family" or "hobby"?

"Well, neither," I replied, somewhat baffled.  

I don't look up events; I usually get notified about them via blogs I follow, or the social media pertaining to groups to which I belong.

The reason she was asking is because she works in a 410-year-old building in Greenwich called Charlton House, and the archivist is being featured on an upcoming episode of Who Do You Think You Are? - featuring singer/songwriter Pixie Lott.  

I own the seasons of WDYTYA (the original British version, that is) up until 2019, but current episodes won't be available on DVD for several months.  John Reid has been alerting his faithful readers of episodes that appear briefly on YouTube before the BBC yanks them down.  I can only hope.

As I packed up my journals, the elder coffeehouse patron strolled off to the washroom, and to my surprise, the coffeehouse proprietor came swiftly to my table and, putting her arm around my shoulder, asked if I were all right.  

"We always want you to feel welcome here."

I hastily explained that it hadn't been a fight, although I don't see a warm friendship springing up from that quarter.

I was touched and, in an odd way, healed, feeling a bit like I'd been in the right.

Probably not quite. As I explained to the proprietor, it drives me nuts when people watch sports or listen to music without earbuds in cafés, mainly because it fights with the piped-in music, so I wasn't entirely unsympathetic to the elderly coffee-house patron.  

But no, we won't be friends.

Mr Pickleball

He's in a grey tee-shirt, brandishing a paddleboard and roaring. 

"This is pickleball!!!" His eyes gleam indignantly. 

I gaze blankly at him. I don't know what pickleball is -- it looks a bit like badminton without a net. Or table. Or birdie. 

I've been trying to get Demeter's rollator (otherwise known as a walker, here in Canada) adjusted for height, with a cane holder installed for about six months. The shop that sold us both Demeter's walkers has set up a little walker/scooter clinic in the corner of the auditorium where we usually vote in elections, and today, we're apparently impinging on Mr Pickleball's style. He stalks over and tries marshalling the four people waiting for help with their walkers. His pickleball partner looks embarrassed. Demeter ignores him. The guy from the shop is bewildered and exasperated. 

"I've been asked to come in," he remonstrates with Mr Pickleball. "This is for the community!" 

Mr Pickleball counters with something about the door we're using to enter the auditorium. We were directed to this door by the entrance staff carefully checking our vaccination passports. There's an outdoor side entrance with a deep sill, not feasible for scooters and a challenge for rollators, and besides, it's raining. 

 Mr Pickleball resumes his game and ignores us. I guide Demeter out the contested door, and close it firmly. 

 Here's a brief rundown on pickleball. The lady is way more cheery than Mr Pickleball.

The Battersea Poltergeist

November 2nd is All Souls' Day, and in Mexico, it's the final Day of the Dead, so perhaps it's not inappropriate that the Hallowe'en decorations in our neighbourhood have not yet been taken down.

Ghost stories are not limited to the end of October, however.

I follow BBC Four on Facebook, and on Hallowe'en, my attention was caught by a multi-part radio programme entitled The Battersea Poltergeist, which was first broadcast at the beginning of this year.  As it happens, I have familial connections to Battersea, so I tuned in.

The haunting took place over about a dozen years at 63 Wycliffe Road.  The house is long gone, as is the part of the street it occupied, but I brought up Google Maps and entered the address.  I was astonished, and rather alarmed, to be directed to an area about a nine-minute walk from elder daughter's flat --- in South Wimbledon.  

Fortunately, along with the half-hour episodes, there are three "case updates" to accommodate just a few of the listeners' hundreds of questions and comments. One of the discussions involved the proximity of railway lines, so I learned that Clapham Junction Railway Station is about a mile to the west of where the house stood, that part of what was Wycliffe Road is now Ashbury Road, and that Lavender Hill is just to the south.  That narrows the area to somewhere around the Greek Orthodox Church of St Nectarios, about five miles north of elder daughter's flat, and one mile south-east of where one branch of my ancestors were living in the second half of the nineteenth century, near the west edge of Battersea Park.

Nicely oriented, I settled in, listening (in daylight, of course) to nine episodes over Hallowe'en, All Saints' Day, and All Souls' Day.  It's a twisty-turny, rollercoaster sort of tale, veering from inexplicable to explicable, from other-worldly to mundane, and from belief to disbelief-- and back again.  It's a mixture of dramatization - the cast is led by none other than Toby Jones - and interviews, including several with Shirley, the original tormented girl, who is now eighty.  (At least she was in early 2021.)  All in all,  we have a fascinating examination of the paranormal, and our differing perceptions of what is plausible.  Follow the above link, and give it a listen.

I'm a little perplexed by the illustration of the series. 

The image is spooky and arresting, but it shows a green-eyed girl against a very old map of the East End of London.

And not particularly close to South Wimbledon.

Shirley Hitchings was (is) a brown-eyed girl, and Battersea is south of the Thames.

"His hair was perfect."

Hallowe'en may be over, but we've still got All Souls' Day and the Day of the Dead tomorrow. Besides, I just tripped over this gem, which is a 2021 re-imagining of Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London" -- which is not my very favourite Zevon ditty; that would be "Gorilla, You're a Desperado".