Awoken by the doorbell, I run downstairs only to greet a Jehovah’s Witness brandishing a magazine with a candle on the cover. Next month: a different candle.<\/p>\n
‘Not interested, sorry.’<\/p>\n
‘Ah.’ She turns to go. ‘Still, lovely day, isn’t it?’<\/p>\n
And it is. Sunshine has finally hit London, with something of a solar vengeance. I stop sneezing from my on-off cold, only to start sneezing from hay fever.<\/p>\n
Outside, everyone’s in shorts and sandals (though not me), where only a few weeks ago it was winter coats, torrential rain, hail and even snow.<\/p>\n
Later, I saunter through Trafalgar Square, which now looks like the postcards: pristine fountains, blue sky, happy crowds in sunglasses. I fully expect a musical number to break out at any moment.<\/p>\n
I don’t always give to beggars but when I do, I slightly overdo the pleasantries, pleased to find myself in a good mood.<\/p>\n
Today, a forlorn-looking fifty-something man standing near Tottenham Court Road asks me for spare change.<\/p>\n
‘But of course! Certainly! There you go!’<\/p>\n
‘Thanks,’ he says, taken aback. And then: ‘If only more people were like you.’<\/p>\n
Which in turn takes me aback.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Awoken by the doorbell, I run downstairs only to greet a Jehovah’s Witness brandishing a magazine with a candle on the cover. Next month: a different candle. ‘Not interested, sorry.’ ‘Ah.’ She turns to go. ‘Still, lovely day, isn’t it?’ And it is. Sunshine has finally hit London, with something of a solar vengeance. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}