Tuesday, April 22/2014

Last day. We'll miss London, especially our little corner of it, just down the street from the flower sellers

Monday, April 21/2014

Last minute errands. Like 3 metre connector cable for the ipad mini, handy when staying in places where the sockets are few or badly placed - which is almost everywhere we stay. Overpriced, like everything Apple, but no more so than at home. Most but not all shops in Camden Town open, as it's Easter Monday. Funny division. Exit the tube station and turn left and it's all charity shops, supermarkets, discount stored, bakeries, pubs,  places that unlock mobile phones and sell second hand ones. Mothers with small children in tow buying groceries, people getting haircuts, young men handing out leaflets. But exit the tube station and turn right and you're into Camden Market. All counterculture and young energy. Street food, buskers, jewellery, incense, wall hangings, piercing  studios. The sidewalks almost too crowded to move. A division that is becoming more pronounced every year.

Bus from Camden High Street to Kilburn High Road. Past Abbey Road of Beatles fame. Last supper of the season at Roses.

Sunday, April 20/2014

Easter Sunday. First plan is to take the tube but The Circle and District lines aren't running from Bayswater due to a signal failure at Kensington High Street. Much less distressing than when a line is stopped because of a person under a train. But the 148 bus takes us almost door to door. At least from the corner of Queensway to Westminster Cathedral. 

Good thing we're early. By the time morning prayer, which precedes the Easter mass, begins at 10 there are no seats left for the 10:30 pontifical mass. In fact there must be well over a thousand people seated as well as over two hundred who stand for the entire two hours.  Cardinal Vincent Nichols is principal celebrant and there is a full choir, including the beautiful boys' choir, who will also have sung at last night's vigil mass. And we're lucky in the voices of the two men sitting behind us. One in particular has a strong voice and reads music well, a pleasure since much of it is antiphonal.

When we leave the promised rain has arrived. It's pretty light but chilly for the flower seller on the corner, who was probably counting on Easter being a busy day. No paintings along the Hyde Park railings on The Bayswater Road either, though some of the artists were setting up when we went by earlier. The rain gets heavier after we've  gone home and watched the replay of the Chinese Grand Prix, so a good day to stay in with the telly. And truly we've been amazingly lucky in the weather this year, both here and in Cyprus.

Saturday, April 19/2014

First stop The Portrait Gallery. There's a World War I exhibit on. Serious commissioned portraits of generals and kings, and one is reminded again how much Czar Nicholas looked like King George V, his cousin who didn't rescue him from the revolutionaries. Then photographs of young men who signed up, from poets like Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and Rupert Brooke to a smiling underage boy who never came home. There are some early black and white films too, including the restaged one of soldiers going over the top at the Somme. Ironically the photographer risked his life in getting genuine live footage but the cameras of the day were simply not up to zooming and the men looked like ants. A woman watching tells us that her grandfather was at the Somme and at Passchendaele and came home.

There's also an exhibition commemorating Vivian Leigh, born in 1913, a hundred years before the portraits went up last year. Mostly film promos but some biographical info and interesting. Fairly broad repertoire.

Then down to Covent Garden. Full of tourists but there are buskers and street entertainers and a happy mood.

Friday, April 18/2014

By tube to Piccadilly as there are a couple of things we want to check out. Soho as jostlingly cheerful as ever. A couple of shops closed, presumably for Good Friday, but most establishments open. Then up to Oxford Street, which is crowded. A man on a small stand berates the throng for their sinful ways, sounding very angry. The only bit I catch seems to be a chastisement for smoking, but if that meets the category of major misdoing there must be much, much more. Another man has adapted an upside down bicycle with additions that form small steel drums. He's pretty good and has gathered a small circle round him. And outside Selfridge's there's a chap who has a genuine steel drum with a surprisingly pretty tone on which he is playing English Country Garden, sadly with no audience at all.

Selfridge's food hall is either high art or food porn, depending on your point of view. There's a champagne and oyster bar, which is doing happy business, and counters selling everything imaginable, including such luxuries as wild boar prosciutto and buffalo milk camembert. Everything artfully displayed, and nothing accidentally underpriced. Always as good as a gallery visit. Would like to photograph but not sure it would be appreciated.

Thursday. april 17/2014

I to West Harrow to visit with Jean while J spends time in Camden Town and Kilburn. Tea and talk for Jean and me. Then we meet up on Kilburn High Road for supper, made slightly easier by the fact that, briefly, we have UK sims in both mobiles. So incredibly much cheaper than similar in Canada. For £10 (roughly €12, $17.50 CAD) we can keep the cash balance for as long as it lasts, provided it's used at least once every six months. So 3p a text, 2p a minute for phone calls and 1p a mb for data. Meaning that 30 texts and 30 minutes on UK calls runs to  £1.50. At that rate the £10 investment lasts for years. 

Wednesday, April 16/2014

Another Turkish section of London. Actually, it's much more multicultural than that. We take the overground to Dalston Junction on Kingsland High Street and then walk past Turkish restaurants and shops up to Ridley Road Market. Fruit, vegetables, fish, clothing, handbags, trinkets, electrical goods. All at highly competitive prices and the food, at least, of good quality.  And the customers know it. It's happily crowded with people of every imaginable ethnic background, with a great variety of languages and dress styles. In many ways Petticoat Lane as it must have been decades ago before it existed largely to overcharge tourists. A feast for all the senses. 

Tuesday, April 15/2014

To south London and one of the oldest parts of the city. Ironically then we emerge from the tube at London Bridge station more or less underneath the pyramid shaped Shard - new, modern, and supposed to be the tallest building in Western Europe (does this mean that there is, improbably, a taller building in Eastern Europe?). At 310 metres it's tall enough that you really have to get a couple of blocks away to be able to see it properly. It is possible to go up to the top but at £29.50 we decide to give it a miss. There's a champagne bar, presumably to help one forget the entry fee. But by the time we get a couple of blocks away, by Guy's Hospital, the view of the Shard itself is quite good.

And then for the something old. We're not far from the Thames, and pass the Maze, once a pool by the Thames. Now drained, but the site where the remains of a Romano-British ship was discovered. And we're only a few blocks away from the George, an old coaching inn that's been on our list of pubs to visit for years. The George dates back to the 16th century, and was frequented by Shakespeare, but it was destroyed by fire and rebuilt  in 1677. The current building was visited by Dickens, who drank in a great many London establishments. As a coaching inn it provided accommodation for both people and horses and was a stopping point for those coming up from points south, like Kent, for business in London. An old sign hangs inside, its surface crazed with the cracks of time, giving the tariff for horses - shod at two shillings a hoof, stabling one and six. We stop for a drink and then admire the galleries. It's easy to see how Elizabethan theatre made use of the natural stage provided by inns with galleried courtyards.  

Monday, April 14/2014

To the Saatchi Gallery. Always interesting. Giant insects counterpoint to one of my all time favourites, also seen at the Saatchi, Tessa Farmer. Less intriguing than Farmer's work but still fun. Rafael Gomezbarros has giant insects congregating on a wall. Come close to disgracing myself by commenting on Ibrahim Mahama's untitled work involving an entire room covered with jute sacks. Not really, but there is a moment of wondering if one is about to comment on the work only to be told that one is viewing the sacking that is screening an unveiled installation.

Sunday, April 13/2014

Lovely sunny afternoon, with Hyde Park full of families with children and dogs, young couples, elderly people, and cyclists. There are rental bikes all over London, recognisable by their blue Barclay's logo. Return to any other set of rental bike stands.

To Roses for supper. On Kilburn High Road a hired double decker bus passes us, full of flag and banner waving protestors of Sisi's coup in Egypt. Give them the thumbs up. There are still Canadian journalists imprisoned there.

Saturday, April 12/2014

We have matinée tickets for Handbagged, at the Vaudeville. It's a transfer from The Tricycle, where it was sold out when we tried in November. A witty play imagining conversations, and the relationship, between Maggie Thatcher as prime minister and the queen, with whom she has weekly meetings. Two actors playing the queen and two Mrs Thatcher, enabling each character to have internal debates, reminiscences and asides on a minimalist stage. Two male actors play all the other parts - George Bush, Ronald Reagan (and Nancy!), Dennis Thatcher, Neil Kinnock, a butler, Michael Portillo, and more. Cleverly done, and with asides to the audience along the lines of I've a lot of parts to play but work is in short supply and you take the roles you can get. A real pleasure. And a bargain as well. To begin with we found £25 tickets on the Telegraph web site for £16. Then we arrive at the theatre to find that we've been upgraded to the stalls (and yes we do realise that's because it hasn't sold out). So excellent seats about ten rows back and in the centre.

Would like to say that the day concludes in the same vein, but it doesn't quite. We decide to picnic in, in front of the telly, rather than eat out, in the interests of which we go for Marks and Spencer's "two can dine for £10" deal. You get to choose a main dish - normally meat or fish - a side vegetable or salad, a dessert, and a bottle of wine for £10. The difficulty from the picnic point of view is that some of the choices are clearly designed to be eaten hot. No problem with the wine or some of the desserts, and the side can be a salad. Of the mains this leaves two chicken and leek pies, which would be good hot but should be fine cold and a rotisserie chicken, whose only problem seems to be that there will be too much of it - but then we needn't finish it. Well, that's its only problem until we get home and realise that it's uncooked, and of course uncookable. So we offer it to the kind couple who own the hotel (small, family run). And collect a couple of burgers which go fine with the salad, dessert and wine.

Friday, April 11/2014

London Overground again, this time from Whitechapel to Haggerston to see Alexander and Flora, for our postponed visit. They are fortunate enough to have - for the next two weeks anyway, as the house has been sold - a huge old fashioned basement kitchen (and three storeys above it), so they have moved a double bed into it, which still leaves room for two tables, one of them a long scrubbed wood one that would seat a dozen easily, and the aga. So Flora can recuperate in the heart of the house. She looks tired but seems in good spirits. Roddy, Alexander's brother, comes over. We saw him a year ago performing with his experimental group Quorn. And A goes out to pick up fish and chips round the corner on Kingsland. Our last visit before they move to Newton, just south of Cambridge.

Thursday, April 10/2014

Bit of exploring. London Overground to Surrey Quays. We've never gone before but fair size mall there, with large Tesco and a Poundland. Well short of fascinating but handy to know about. Then to Greenwich for our seasonal visit to Goddard's eel and pie shop. We're actually not going for the meat pies (steak and ale, steak and kidney, chicken and mushroom, etc) mainly because we remember them as they used to be - the pie shop has been in the same family for over a hundred years - and they've shrunk with time. Period decor is a pleasure though. 

Wednesday, April 9/2014

J asks what we're going to do today, and I don't know either. But as we're having morning coffee at Starbucks Laura Clarke messages to say that she and the children, off school for their Easter break are going to Southbank. Are we interested? It's a lovely shirtsleeves day and we meet up with Laura, her cousin Olivia, Jenny's au pair Jonathan, and seven assorted children at the little park underneath (almost literally) the London Eye. Lovely holiday feeling with tons of children, ice cream and candy floss, street performers, and the Thames full of boats of sightseers.

Cross on the Hungerford footbridge and pick up bits for a picnic. Minor complaints from the oldest of the kids re distance walked, so we stop ay Somerset House - royal palace if you go back 500 years or so but now civil service offices mostly - to picnic. Spot well chosen, Sam and Kai, as there's filming going on for a period TV program. J asks: Suspicions of Mr Pritchard. The building is good period background, though they're clearly avoiding including the arch that gives onto the Strand and passing red buses. A fair number of short takes with horses and carriages, crinolined women, top-hatted men and fetching children. And in between the sight of 19th century characters drinking from polystyrene cups and checking their cell phones.

Tuesday. April 8/2014

Ipad mini only half charged when we go to Starbucks, so I take the plug in for it. And, plugging it in at an awkward angle under the seat, create a small fireball and blow the circuit, although not, fortunately, the plug. Scarred, slightly blackened, and missing a tiny bit of metal on one prong - but it's a big, sturdy UK plug and still works fine. Which is good because ipad charger plugs cost £15, or equivalent elsewhere.

Out to West Harrow to see Jean. Four weeks since she had the cataract operation on the first eye and she's quite pleased with all the extra light and hoping for the second op soon. Good talk looking out at her little back garden and the blackbirds, and we go with her a couple of streets over to pick up some Chinese take away for supper - although as usual she has fed us enough starters that we could have managed without supper. But glad we didn't as it was very good.

Monday, April 7/2014

Back to the 3 store on Kilburn High Road. We bought a sim card (for £1) and a £10 top up voucher on Saturday because our Asda sim needs replacing at the end of the month and 3 has the best pay as you go deal going. With 3-2-1 you pay 3p a minute for phone calls, 2p a text, and 1p a mb for data. As long as it's used at least once in six months, even to send a text, the remaining money on it never expires. Compares pretty favourably with other UK plans, to say nothing of Canadian extortion.

The difficulty is that the sim isn't working - no reception. The first young man we speak to just shrugs his shoulders and says we need a new mobile, but his equally young manager solves the problem by changing the phone's internal settings from 2G to 3G and all is well. It's the mobile we bought in Damascus at the duty free last visit. So, oddly enough, both our phones have Arabic as well as English letters, the other one having been bought on a Qatar flight. 

Sunday, April 6/2014

The plan is that we will go to Alexander and Flora's and order in supper. F is recuperating from a "sudden overwhelming chest infection" which very nearly killed her. Not that there is a convenient time for such an illness, but this has been particularly inconvenient as well as scary as they have sold the house and have to be out by the end of the month. Worse, possession of their new house is not until the end of June, so there is a gap of two months which might have included travel but certainly won't now.

We're at the tube station and a loud train is arriving when A phones to say that son Dominic has been taken to hospital with tachycardia so our arrangements are postponed. A thinks he's ok but they're keeping D in, so he's on his way to the hospital. Fortunately A is a man of enormous energy, but it's been a horrific month.

So we go for a walk, but the mist turns to light rain, so end up having fish and chips at Roses. Always perfectly cooked - not easy as fillets are of uneven thickness. Plate is 14 inches - fillet longer.

Saturday, April 5/2014

We have tickets for The Kilburn Passion, last day of a three day engagement at The Tricycle Theatre. It's part of the youth "takeover" of the theatre. A commissioned play which we assume is Set in Kilburn - and it is - but it could be young adults interacting anywhere, at least in any urban setting. Well written, well acted. No looking at the watch midway. As engaging as any west end play. A pleasure. Small, intimate, alternate theatre - but could play in a larger one happily.

Friday, April 4/2014

Stroll down Charing Cross Road and bit of a wander in Soho, always alive day and night. Visit Gerry's Wines and Spirits in Old Compton Street. A fascinating collection, reasonably competitive with importing from France. Samples of rum from a very knowledgeable Asian girl. Then the more mundane purchases along Camden High Street. Home along Queensway. There's an oldish busker sitting on the pavement playing a long instrument that looks rather like a straight Alpine horn. Not perhaps the ideal solo instrument for attracting donations, but needs must.

Thursday, April 3/2014

Explore the Turkish community along Green Lanes Road, a little Istanbul of Turkish restaurants, food shops, hairdressers, jewellers, travel agents and such. Fast food like pide (pizza), and basins of aubergine stew in the windows that look exactly like what we would eat in Turkey or North Cyprus. The signs are in Turkish as well as (or instead of) English. There's also a (North) Cypriot community centre. We stop at a wholesale and retail shop and buy pul beber (J's favourite soft flaked red pepper), sundried olives, figs, dried apricots, and sundried tomatoes, all at impressively good prices. The olives and pepper are hard to find outside the middle east at any price.

Then back to Kilburn High Road, our old haunt.  Dinner at Roses, where the Thursday night special is, as always, the best lamb kleftiko we have had anywhere, including Cyprus. Totally melt in the mouth. And always astonishing prices and quiet local clientele. 

Wednesday, April 2/2014

Amazingly warm weather (low twenties) but with a haze in the air that, astonishingly, is in part dust from the Sahara. This is the part David Cameron refers to cheerfully as natural. The other parts are European and domestic pollution. They're not natural, and Cameron doesn't mention them, especially as London's is unacceptably high.

Tuesday, April 1/2014

April fool's day. BBC recalls a hoax of the fifties when Panorama presented a documentary in high seriousness purporting to show Swiss workers harvesting spaghetti from trees. Up to Kilburn in lovely twentyish shirt-sleeve weather. Wine, chocolate, bananas, cherry tomatoes. Hyde Park in the afternoon is bursting with life - budding trees, small children with scooters, dogs enjoying their freedom, elderly people with newspapers, cyclists, mothers and au pairs pushing prams, young lovers. We estimate that about 10% of the people who pass us are speaking English - a very multi-ethnic lot.

Monday, March 31/2014

Home to London. Make much better time than on Friday, probably largely because it's not Friday. Doug and Jenny to pack for Cyprus and J and I back through Wimbledon to Bayswater. Back to our regular room - feels like home. Picnic supper in the room and early night. 

Sunday, March 30/2014

Wake in time for the Malaysian Grand Prix, good race duly won by Lewis Hamilton. Then brunch and we're off to explore the Brimham Rocks. A National Trust site with a large number of striking rock formations, the work of glaciers and wind and water. They're  grist-stone, basically compressed fragments of quartz glued together with sandstone. The grist-stone is so named because it's hard enough for grist stones, and there are a couple on display. When the sandstone parts erode, some fascinating rock sculptures are left. The area is several acres and full today of families and dogs enjoying themselves.

Our farewell dinner is a Sunday roast special, with homegrown vegetables and a choice of apple pie or rice pudding. Or both, as Elaine offers - but sadly no one can hold both. If they hoped we'd all leave tomorrow they're doing everything wrong.  But there's not much choice about leaving, as Jenny and Doug are off to Cyprus and a Mediterranean cruise on Tuesday.