As a European I am not used to this heat <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My clothes are wretched but this is unnoticed <\/p>\n\n\n\n
By my fellow passengers bright in their contentment <\/p>\n\n\n\n
About a week ago I was in a Kent charity shop <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was buying a couple of paperbacks for the journey<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was an elderly couple next to me examining the jigsaw puzzles <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Suddenly the woman walked to the counter and spoke to the volunteer<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She wanted to give fifty pounds to the victims of a recent earthquake <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The man who I perceived to be her husband looked at me <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I wouldn’t give them fifty fucking pence <\/p>\n\n\n\n
She is a silly cow but it is her money <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Too many of them and they breed like flies <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their houses are built out of balsa wood <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is God’s way people should listen to God <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The woman returned a little flushed and said little <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was then that I noticed that the man was counting <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Never full no matter what they say the Dun Laoghaire <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Dun Laoghaire was a disaster with five pieces missing <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was going to return it but she said no as it was a charity shop<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The couple then settled on two Sussex puzzles and left the shop <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It did not register with me at first but they had stolen them <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My sister is called Jean Addy-Stephens <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My name is Mark just Mark as I like simplicity <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I asked Jean to make a donation towards to earthquake appeal <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was supposed to make me feel better but it did not as I felt guilty <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My family was wealthy and this was a vanity trip<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was travelling to a graveyard in the middle of Southern India <\/p>\n\n\n\n
To visit the grave of a relative who had died of a fever in the twenties<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the days of Empire thousands of Europeans died in India <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And now rest in overgrown and almost forgotten cemeteries <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was chosen as I was a seasoned traveller and unattached <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My mission was to arrange the upkeep of the grave via a stipend <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I started travelling seriously after watching The Lover at the local cinema <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jean initially travelled with me and we both expected to find Duras at her desk <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Obviously we found none of this but we both returned with a degree of maturity <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I still carry copies of The Lover and The Sea Wall in my backpack as companions <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My eyes are now heavy and I am four hours from my station<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I will take my leave of you<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Till we meet again <\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mark <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As a European I am not used to this heat My clothes are wretched but this is unnoticed By my fellow passengers bright in their contentment About a week ago I was in a Kent charity shop I was buying a couple of paperbacks for the journey There was an elderly couple next to me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12884"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12890,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12884\/revisions\/12890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}