Later that day (Part 2)

My trip to the swimming was uneventful as I cycled along the back way under the cover of trees and behind the back gardens of various houses. Occasionally I'd pass people a business man head down sending a text message, a teenager with a black shirt adorned with flames and a demonic head on the back, couples out walking their dogs, postmen on their bicycles and fellow cyclists.

I bettered my total amount for swimming freestyle lengths but still wondered when I'd get the stamina to do them without so many pauses. I am always amazed at the swimming pool by others who swim length after length of freestyle without pause.

After a brief lunch and a shower I took the train to London with the intention of visiting an exhibition at one of the galleries only to hear the faint sound of my alarm from my chest. I am in possession of a pacemaker with several functions one of which is to detect a build up of fluid in the chest. However this particular model has proven to have various faults with it, the only thing I can compare it to is when the electronic and computer giants rush a new product out and then discover it has a few faults except this is a pacemaker. Surely it would be irresponsible to let a product out before it was perfect but there you have it. So a visit to the hospital replaced my visit to the gallery. The place has become so familiar to me over the past 3 years.

While waiting in the waiting area I discovered that old exhibition catalogues for art exhibitions were now next to the usual old magazines and dog-eared books. I flicked through all of them, there was no pattern to the selection on view but what it did say to me was that there were some bad artists making a living out there getting one person shows. That being the case as long I create then there's probably room enough for one more bad artist in this world.

Then I saw a film called 'Paris', I think one of my great pleasures in life is going to the movies when the cinema is close to being empty. The film was about a dancer who is suddenly diagnosed with a heart problem and for whom a heart transplant may or may not save him. His sister comes to live him with and we watch the lives of those around him unfold as he waits all set in Paris. I did find it interesting and found some parallels to a situation not too dissimilar to one that I had been in.

It had become muggier when I stepped out from the cinema and headed down the street to one of the deadliest places in London for my wallet that is. Fopp is a store that sells Cd's, books and DVD's at prices that can be hard to beat which in turn may be why they found themselves going bust after trying to expand but this first London store still stands. I went in there with the sole intention of seeking an Art Blakely & The Jazz Messengers CD which I did purchase although selecting just one was a little bit tricky. With nothing more than track titles and covers to guide me and a vague knowledge I chose 'A Night in Tunisia'. What little I know of Jazz I do know that I'm going to be in good hands by selecting a Blue Note Rudy Van Gelder Edition. The other purchase which I hadn't gone into the store for was a classic of French cinema by Jean Luc Godard 'A Bout de Souffle' or 'Breathless'.

I wandered up the street stopping to take a quick look in a couple of the big bookstores that stayed open late hoping to find a new release one day early but no such luck. How does that work with books? Do they get delivered the night before for the staff to open on the day of release or do they arrive at the store on the release date? By then my stomach was calling out for food and I stepped back out into the evening that was getting heavier and muggier by the minute. It was the kind of heat that you felt would bring some kind of deluge of rain at some point and it seemed like it might happen sooner than later when a few spots of drizzle started but they were short-lived.

I chose to eat in an American style BBQ restaurant and whilst expensive I did enjoy my meal but realized that I must be getting older since it really seemed like too much food to me. The other thing that bugs me is how expensive beer is when you sit down to eat, restaurants are tripling the price of beer over what you pay in an off license or for my north American readers liquor store.

I tried one more bookstore for the book but they too weren't selling it early. I had started to sweat and went up to the coffee shop and bought a bottle of water. Bookstores are strange places when you don't really have a purchase in mind but also dangerous ones too. I don't know how many paperbacks I own that are still impulse purchases that I mean to read. I left the bookstore and headed on towards the underground station, outside a crowd had gathered to be entertained by a drummer whose drums consisted of upturned plastic containers of various sizes. I passed one hopeful Romeo at the station entrance as a blonde whom he quite obviously had hoped for more from blew him a kiss as she flitted away without a second glance. I felt as if I should tell him that he had no chance and that it wasn't going to happen but thought better of it. The last I saw of him was that he was still standing in the same spot taking a drag on a cigarette watching the space she had inhabited briefly.

I took the train from King Cross and read some more of the current book that I had begun which had sat on my shelf for a very long time and after writing about my day wondered what to do next. Perhaps bed or perhaps another movie on DVD or a little reading of one more chapter.