Saturday, November 6/2010

Take the netbook over to Swiss Cottage Library, which is meant to be free. Fifteen minutes' confusion as the password of the day fails to work. Turns out that someone has misspelled the password card on the library desk - misinforming the public in letters six inches high.

We go down to St. Katharine's Dock to see the launch of a full-sized boat made of heavy paper. The giant origami exercise is to begin at 12:30, with launch time set for 3. We're there a couple of minutes after 3, in time to see a white boat close to 20 feet long but not much more sophisticated than a child's paper boat, a little lopsided and dented but strong enough to hold a man who is risking not death - he has a lifejacket - but a pretty cold dunking. The paper boat is towed slowly past the dock by a small motorboat, to the clapping of a few dozen spectators.

Down to Queensway by tube. A little sad, as we remember it - scene of our first meal together - as a quite different road. It was gritty and alive - full of tiny shops spilling out onto the pavement and aromatic little family owned restaurants. A street that didn't sleep until the early hours of the morning. It's still busy but now there are fast food chain restaurants and much less sense of village where people live.

Dark by five and the staccato of fireworks left over from last night.