Holy moley, you pack up the basket with

an Ikea tablecloth-picnic-blanket;

a bottle of water;

a handful of squirrel snacks (where the squirrel, really, is you, and you are the sort of squirrel who eats not only handfuls of walnuts and dried apricots, but also squares of Green and Black’s orange-spiced bittersweet chocolate);

the Observer; and

a pullover, because for many years you were a Brownie and you like to be prepared;

you pack up the basket and you head to the park, and what you really don’t expect, coming in from Trafalgar Square, is horses!, horses! all in a row, and their riders in brilliant red and shining silver.

We were gathered around watching the horses do not very much at all, and I think I may have muttered under my breath something like, “Well...this is fun and all...”, when a suited gent ambled up and explained that they were going to be shooting a film in a bit.

“It’s called ‘Children of Men’,” he said, “and it’s starring Clive Owen—” and here a group of English ladies said: “Ooh!”

“I’m glad someone’s heard of him,” he said. “They’re filming at Scotland Yard right now, and they should be here at one—” and here he looked at his watch, (mine said 12:54), and said, “—but I don’t believe it.”

Me, I like my celebrity sightings to come to me. Like that time when Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke and their kid came, in happier times, and sat down to lunch across from us at the Coffee Shop in Union Square. Or when Ryan and I were walking through the Met and Kofi Annan was hanging out, too. Though I’ll say, that time, I didn’t know whom Ryan was pointing out. He may have said, all quiet-like: “Look, look,” and chances are good I looked and said: “Yuh-huh?”

In any case.

So I wasn’t about to wait around for Clive Owen, especially as it’s not till right now writing this that I realise this whole time in my mind I’ve been picturing Colin Firth.

Oh.

Clive Owen.

Yuh.

I left the horses and found myself a sunny spot and spread out my blanket and set about updating myself with all sorts of current affairs, which is to say, I kept an eye on the paper while I needled CC via SMS till she rang me. (Look, I was reading. It was somewhere between the story on the crack-addicted squirrels of Hoxton and the article on Saddam Hussein’s upcoming trial that she bit.)

We talked, a daytime sister and a nighttime sister, and a small boy skipped by singing, to the tune of nothing, “Hey-hey-hey, hey-hey-hey.” He wore a sweater the colour of the sky.

I remember looking around, at one point, and seeing a flash of red and gold—and if you know anything about anything, you know that a flash of red and gold means square shoulders and smart epaulettes; means, Gather ’round, moppets, the band is come to town.

And then it was one thing after another: more horses, and a zebra, and a sheik leading a camel. I don’t know which Volkswagen they were all tumbling out from, but, man, this is a Sunday in the park. A lady in a veil rode by, side-saddle. Another one, in a magenta concoction on her head, sat in a horse carriage. There was a very manicured poodle, too, who could only have been named Lord Nigel Bigglesworth.

Clive Owen, what movie is this?!

In between takes, the fancy ladies in their capes and parasols sat on the lawn, while the nobleman dipped into his tweed jacket for his cellphone. “Action!” they called, and the band was brassy and jaunty like a Sunday afternoon.