Remembrance Day. Canadian commemorative poppiesare different from British ones - brilliant red felt covering over plastic rather than a faded red paper poppy with green plastic leaf and stem. The British ones are much closer to the colour of real poppies, so it's hard to decide whether the Canadian ones are more vibrant or simply vulgar.
The queen is laying a wreath at the official ceremonies, but eleven o'clock finds us at the Paddington Library for our two minutes of silence - and some internet access. The second time in two days that our path and her majesty's don't quite cross.
In the afternoon we walk along the Bayswater Road to the Tyburn convent and shrine. The chapel is serene, with ivory coloured walls and ceiling and clean lines. The cloistered Benedictine nuns sing an office and then file silently out of the other half of the chapel - behind the grille. The convent itself is early 20th century, but close to the site of the Tyburn gallows where Catholic martyrs, amongst others, were executed. If memory serves, the actual gallows were in what is now a nearby traffic intersection. But which one? More googling required.
Back along Edgware Road and Praed Street from Marble Arch. Edgware Road has become very middle eastern, with almost as many Arabic signs as English ones on shops. There are bakeries with plates heaped with pastries like the ones we buy in Damascus and Beirut in the windows. And there are many cafés and restaurants, customers smoking water pipes much in evidence at the outside tables.
Supper at a pub at the top end of Queensway. Nice chicken, ham and leek pie and good bitter. A German family are seated next to us, with no food or drink for some time until it occurs to us that they probably don't know they have to go to the bar to order. So J explains. There are quite a lot of tourists about in Bayswater. Not entirely happily, for us, as it's a large part of what keeps pub and restaurants higher here than, say, in Kilburn.
The queen is laying a wreath at the official ceremonies, but eleven o'clock finds us at the Paddington Library for our two minutes of silence - and some internet access. The second time in two days that our path and her majesty's don't quite cross.
In the afternoon we walk along the Bayswater Road to the Tyburn convent and shrine. The chapel is serene, with ivory coloured walls and ceiling and clean lines. The cloistered Benedictine nuns sing an office and then file silently out of the other half of the chapel - behind the grille. The convent itself is early 20th century, but close to the site of the Tyburn gallows where Catholic martyrs, amongst others, were executed. If memory serves, the actual gallows were in what is now a nearby traffic intersection. But which one? More googling required.
Back along Edgware Road and Praed Street from Marble Arch. Edgware Road has become very middle eastern, with almost as many Arabic signs as English ones on shops. There are bakeries with plates heaped with pastries like the ones we buy in Damascus and Beirut in the windows. And there are many cafés and restaurants, customers smoking water pipes much in evidence at the outside tables.
Supper at a pub at the top end of Queensway. Nice chicken, ham and leek pie and good bitter. A German family are seated next to us, with no food or drink for some time until it occurs to us that they probably don't know they have to go to the bar to order. So J explains. There are quite a lot of tourists about in Bayswater. Not entirely happily, for us, as it's a large part of what keeps pub and restaurants higher here than, say, in Kilburn.