Palimpsest

Elizabeth, she of the wonderful vocabulary, and I met for a lunchtime sashay. We agreed that ambling around Cambridge reveals no end of memories and flashbacks to conversations on street corners and buildings where we’ve shared a meal with friends. A veritable palimpsest of layers and history.

The same must be true of anyone who’s lived in a place for many years. I only came to Cambridge at the peachy age of 25, but Elizabeth has (ahem...a few days short of 40) years of these memories banked up.

One place we tramped past was Rock Road library, which is a cute place amongst a delightful set of streets in suburban Cambs. I remember frequenting here several times, returning library books when I lived in Ely and commuted into Cambridge. At the moment the thought of being organised enough to return library books on time is a daunting challenge.

Meanwhile, according to a Mozambican news bulletin I read, ‘an indefinite state of calamity remains’. As I’ve mentioned before, use of the word calamity is based on the original Portuguese, but calamitous is a good way of describing the last year.