Walking and sitting

My friend, with whom I have become distant recently, because of a serious disagreement about the war on Gaza, came on the train from London to have lunch with me. We went to a nice Italian restaurant called the Olive Branch which seemed auspicious. Then we walked and talked for a few hours. We did get somewhere, and everything was courteous and considerate. 
On the left is an avenue of limes in Temple gardens, near the restaurant. It has lots of benches and we sat on a few. The Temple church, on the right in the distance, was bombed in the Bristol Blitz in November 1940 - and has a roof missing, though the walls remain, and the tower is still there, leaning just as much as the tower in Pisa:)
On the right is a narrow segment of the Physic garden, part of Castle Park, which I’ve shown before. Here is another roofless church, St Peter’s, bombed at the same time. The gardens are absolutely full of beautiful flowers at present. We sat talking on that bench for ages. An interesting mixture of locals and tourists enjoying the sunshine, and over the other side, apparently,  drug dealers with bully dogs playing loud grime music. I don’t know whether they thought that would put us off, but I was enjoying their music. It was quite weird though. I suppose the police are more interested in those higher up the chain. Everything I know about the drugs business comes from watching ‘the Wire’ :-) In the interests of avoiding stereotyping I should say that the dealer was white. 
I walked back to the station and my friend went back to London.  In the evening I went to see Bad Boyz 4,  which was silly twaddle, with Tom and Jerry violence, and quite fun to watch. 
Today was important as the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings, which was brave, tragic and one of the factors that helped turn the war.  For me the significant landings were in and around Salerno a year earlier, because that’s where my father was. This too started to change the war in Italy. It coincided with Italy agreeing a ceasefire with the allies. There were terrible battles with the German army in Italy over subsequent months, which my father never spoke about.  I only know because of the history I’ve read.