FRANZ KAFKA WITH LOVE FROM FENNIE

Country bumpkin that I am I had never until a week ago visited Canary Wharf. In the days when I lived in London that part of the East End was left blank on the map and carried the legend 'There Be Dragons' or so people told you. Kids sidled up to you with an evil look and a demand to 'look after yer car;' one journeyed there at one's peril they said - though I suspect on reflection this 'keep out' persona may have been something invented by East Enders to hold the snotty West End folks at bay and house prices within reach.

Anyway there I was, summoned by a UNESCO meeting, emerging out of the new Jubilee Line tube, into this fetching imitation of New York. Skyscrapers on every side and designer labelled people rushing hither and thither looking terribly serious. As the sky was as grey as the concrete architecture I have to say I found it all rather soul-less.

In one of these buildings was my meeting. I clacked across acres of marble to the reception desk with a lone uniformed man behind it. Had he sported a touch of gold braid I could have mistaken him for a species of despot half-hidden by his elephantine marble desk. Apart from me the place seemed to be empty. I wondered if I had fallen into some Kafquesque novel from which there was no escape.

However, I was directed out of my reverie to an escalator and to another reception desk on a higher floor behind which this time sat four young women speaking language school English in a variety of accents. Everyone was polite and helpful. I smiled, they smiled. One gave me a pass, I said thank you. From the cinemascope window I noticed I was looking down on the Millennium Dome - it looked quite small - and sand dredgers on the river. This too was faintly bizarre.

I had travelled up from Wimbledon where I had stayed with some lifelong friends in their beautiful house which they have inhabited for more than twenty years, steadily extending upwards and outwards and which conveniently is a quick ten minute walk from the station.

The morning journey into town had been almost normal journey except that the public address system on the train seemed to have no idea of where the train actually was.

A woman with an elegant voice, who sounded as if she might in former times have done voice-overs for the Wombles, kept telling us that we were about to arrive at the station we had only just left. When we were about to enter Waterloo she announced that this was the train for Guildford. My collection of Kafquaesque experiences grows longer each day.

After the UNESCO meeting I had to rush home again as our local drama group were holding their Christmas party. My contribution to these proceedings involved stumbling through AA Milne's poem about King John's Christmas, which is all about...er...King John and his wish for a big red india rubber ball. It contains the couplet '...when by the window, big and red, there whistled by the royal head and bounced and fell upon the bed, an india rubber ball.'

Obviously my bizarre experiences were not an end for on a walk the next day, head down against the gale, there came bouncing towards me (and almost whistling past my head).....a red ball. 'Apt,' I thought, if a day too late. Anyway I couldn't resist picking it up while looking around for the likely lass or lad to whom it might have belonged, for I discounted the possibility that it might have been dropped by a passing Royal. It was not made of india rubber, but of a light plastic, though there is not a lot of difference in the gathering dusk of a winter afternoon.

As no wailing child hove into view and as I felt a bit silly dropping the ball back on the pavement (I could have got myself arrested for littering) I placed it in my right pocket and continued on my way. Imagine my surprise then when a little further on I found a pink ball lying at my feet. Had someone been playing snooker in the heavens? Was there now a whole frame of balls dotted around these streets? I picked up the second orphan ball and put it in my left pocket.

Ah well, Christmas is coming. I shall put the two balls in someone's stocking. Perhaps I shall hang one up specially and put a tag on it that says 'Franz Kafka with love from Fennie.'