Bet Lehem in Tuican hom

From the ancient to the authentic

I was in Tuican hom in modern-day Twickenham, the place between two rivers, the Thames and the Crane, or so it was written of a place first recorded in 704 AD and that was a long time ago, just as I was with a friend I had known from way back when my innocence was losing its virtue.

From the many things we did and the memories we shared and then brunch at an authentic Italian restaurant, for many of the patrons, Italian did speak, we made for the station of carriages drawn not by horses and my last bit of hand tissues was left in the hands of a man who by trying to avoid the crowds, slipped and fell into the road, drawing blood from his nose bridge. We worried, but he was fine.

Loafing towards a seat

Passing through the ticket gates and down to the platform where my electric-powered carriage was to arrive in just under 10 minutes, I could almost gambol towards a vacant seat, but there was none as strewn across three seats were what I thought were bags of shopping, but the lady on seeing me made to remove the bags for me to take a seat.

Strangely, the bags were full of loaves of bread, different kinds and shapes, but before I landed a quip to feed my curiosity, she said she had all this bread leftover from tending a Celtic Bakers store at the Twickenham Farmers' Market, all variants of sourdough bread that she could not throw away and she offered us some, for free.

Breaking the bread of blessing

For a moment, we were in a moment of spiritual transfiguration to Bet Leḥem (“House of Bread”) in Hebrew, or Bethlehem as we now know it, the lady a priest with knowledge, wisdom, and revelation of breads like a sommelier, showing us the scriptures of bread afresh and winning us over to a new experience of bread so different and unique.

Even I was caught in the spirit of bread so divine, I was given a loaf and offered more, but there may be others just in need of this sustenance. Another party, a lady too got involved in the conversation between the three of us, she also took a loaf before she asked about a Jewish sweet loaf, and there was one on offer, too big for one to take and so we broke the bread and shared the blessing of life.

Her carriage arrived to take her swiftly off to Windsor where she might even find herself the welcome audience in the court of Elizabeth II, before our own carriage arrived, wherein I bid the priestess farewell not to be taken to taken to my Waterloo, but to emerge at the pleasure gardens of vokzal (Russian) or Vauxhall railway station, today. [BBC: Waterloo and Vauxhall]

We shared bread and broke bread.