The 80’s. Giris sitting at the kitchen table in our top floor flat in Royal Crescent. He had just parted ways with the Sivananda centre, where, amongst a myriad of other things, he had taught Judith yoga. Now he came to our place for the lesson and afterwards we would have supper together and talk of everything, including how we had passed our day. Being a barrister, I told him of the cross examination I had conducted in court that day. I had barely begun when he interrupted with – “No, you did that wrong. You should have …..” Given that Giris had zero legal training and I had many gruelling and painful years behind me, I was more than a little put out by this. Little did I know that he would still be doing pretty much the same, some 35 + years, down the road.
Giris was fearless. Whereas I respected boundaries and stopped short of trespassing on other’s realms of expertise, Giris would stride straight in and, sooner than you would know, have picked up the jargon and be pretty expert himself. Whereas I, both by temperament and training, was linear and just focused on an end, Giris was discursive, taking the long way round and always on the road less travelled. Slowly I realised, watching him, how much I was missing, not least the sheer fun of the journey and Giris always ended up knowing everything about his projects because he had been around and about so many times. Indeed, his method (hah!) seemed, at times, not even to be a path but more of a series of Rorschach inkblots spreading out amorphously - but he always covered the territory and much more besides. The beautiful buildings he has left us are a palpable testament to the limitless enthusiasm and energy that he had for his chosen passion, construction.
There’s so much to thank Giris for because he was, as the posts on this website make abundantly clear, one of the most generous people who walked the planet. He was a tower of strength to me when Judith died and when he accompanied me to India with her ashes. Also, when he completely re-thought and remodelled my house so handsomely and then, there were all the truffles and the Saturday breakfasts. I think of that wonderful trip to the O2 to see Leonard Cohen, watching Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart performing Godot and seeing Nadal and Federer disappearing into the evening gloom of the Centre Court in that “greatest game” final of 2008.
Mischievous to the end, he took against a coat rack that I had installed by the front door of my new home. Seeing me unimpressed by his comments (I made the mistake of pursing my lips and folding my arms) he unerringly returned to the subject whenever he visited the house. To anyone who called at the front door, he would say – “What do you think of this coat rack?” looking at them with an expression of wide eyed innocence, masking his barely suppressed inner mirth. (The coat rack remains. It has been re-branded - The Giris Rabinovitch Memorial Coat Rack. I must be allowed to win something.)
So …. so long Giris. I shall miss you sorely. Thanks for the journey and the laughter and the wisdom. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

Roger Bull.