Tuesday, April 21/2015

Last day. Begin at the Starbucks office. Then a visit to the Saatchi Gallery to see the Wanderland exhibit which opened after our last visit. It's a kind of multimedia combination of traditional 19th century Paris café culture and some straightforward classic Hermès products, from gold and enamel watches to shoes and somehow it seems to escape being commercial and remain nostalgia with a touch of magic - and just sheer fun. Gentlemen's canes with witty minds of their own, cups that seem to float above the table, café scenes, music, 3D comic art and mysterious doors to the next stages. Hard to be for simple enjoyment,

Too hot for jackets as we visit Camden High Street and only starting to cool off when we're back in Bayswater about 5.

Monday, April 20/2015

Out to visit Alexander and Flora, now moved to a village just south of Cambridge. Haven't seen them for a year now. Train from Liverpool St Station. Just across the road from where we saw Tony Benn a year and a half ago in what turned out to be his last but one public appearance. So lucky. 

The train takes a little over an hour, but off peak is only £6 each way, and its quite pleasant scenery, including a recreational area with canal boats. Alexander picks us up and takes us back to their new house - happily typical of Alexander to acquire a country cottage that is also high tech, with a skylight that closes by sensor when it rains and a robot that cuts the grass. Beautiful garden and a light, airy interior. Happy to see Flora, though her health is clearly pretty fragile. Walking with a cane and blood transfusions every three weeks, which doesn't seem to be quite often enough. They say the nearest hospitable is truly excellent though.

 

A makes us very good cappuccinos and then we're off to the Queen's Head, their excellent local. Seventeenth century, in part at least, and they make their own bread and soup. Nice brown ale as well. A drops us at the station before taking F to the hospital for blood tests. There's an announcement that our train isn't stopping here (Whittlesford Parkway) but fortunately it's wrong. So many stations now have no live staff that it must be very difficult to resolve problems. So home via Central Line by supper.

  

Sunday, April 19/2015

Gallery day along Bayswater Road from Queensway down to Marble Arch. Artists come every Sunday morning and hang their works along the fence bordering Hyde Park. Mostly paintings, but a wide variety of styles, although more than a random chance percentage are designed to appeal to tourists, with double decker buses and Big Ben. We're taken with a small watercolour of the Bayswater Road exhibit itself, done on a page of a sketch pad. And acquire it. Another memory in paint.

Saturday, April 18/2015

Up Kilburn High Road and then last  fish and chips at Roses. Actually best fish fry we get anywhere, including home. Very impressive job of cooking a tapered fillet (slightly longer than the long dinner plate) perfectly. Crust thin and crisp but not hard and fish moist and flaky. Until next year.

Friday, April 17/2015

Stop in to look at the finally renovated Canadian consulate. Lots of security and not much open to the public. There is, after the x-ray detection, a photography exhibition. It consists of five very large photographs by Jeff Wall. QActually, we rather like them. But the five totally fill the renovated and reduced gallery space. Would really like to know how and by whom the artists are chosen. And curious about the rest of the building. Presumably housing the services once performed in the Grosvenor Square building, which rumour has it was sold for too little money.

So to the National Portrait Gallery, where there are a number of new portraits, including a large full length portrait of Judy Dench, which we actually have seen before and a painting Of the Duchess of Cambridge. Two interesting exhibitions. One is of the Duke of  Wellington in honour of the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. Portraits and battle scenes and one very early photograph. Also snippets of info, including the rumour that Wellington had affairs with two of Napoleon's mistresses. There's also an exhibition of some of the photographs of Lord Snowden, Anthony Armstrong Jones, former husband of the late Princess Margaret. The most interesting photo is one of Anthony Blunt, former curator of the Queen's picture gallery and Soviet spy, holding up a slide of a painting. Blunt is focused on the slide, but a reflection of the slide, a photograph of a painting, appears on his face, covering his right eye. Very striking and clever.

Then a stop at a highly unusual pub. Ye Olde Mitre, established 1546. Significant renovation from 1782. Entered through a little door in a wall in Hatton Gardens, which opens onto a tiny alley, leading to the old pub, surrounded on all sides by tall, modern city buildings. Claims to have a bit of cherry tree that Elizabeth I danced round. Not impossible. The pub is next to St Ethelreda's, England's second oldest and London's only medieval RC Church. Historically, and still, attached to Ely Diocese in Cambridgeshire. The property was once the London establishment of the Bishop of Ely who had the pub built for the refreshment of his staff. Very civilised.

Thursday, April 16/2015

Pick up train tickets at Liverpool Street Station. There is so much construction going on around the station that it's hard to identify the old landmarks, made somewhat worse by the fact that I'm no longer carrying "real" maps and the ipad doesn't do well with sunlight. Actually much worse than the Playbook. Between them Apple and Blackberry could have made a hell of a good tablet, had it been in either of their interests to co-operate.

Second election debate on tv tonight, this time with only opposition leaders. Milliband unhappy at being attacked from the left and avoiding any suspicion that his strings would be pulled by Sturgeon. Farage isolated on the right and voicing almost certainly unworthy suspicions about the demographics of the independently balanced audience. Nicola Sturgeon bluntly telling Milliband, who can't afford to be seen listening, that he needs her co-operation to shut out Cameron. And then there are those who are conspicuous by their absence - Cameron, who may have made a mistake in opting out, and Clegg, who must be pretty unhappy about being classed as government and not opposition for the purpose.

Wednesday, April 15/2015

Another summery day, so this time to Blackheath. Have wanted to go for familial historic reasons. The Palatine ancestors arrived in London in 1909 and spent part of the winter of 1709-1710 in a huge refugee camp, probably in or near Blackheath. Lovely fields now, adjacent to Greenwich Park but farther inland. But with between 13 and 32 thousand Palatine Germans spending the winter in tents, depending on the dates, it must have been hell. One can only imagine the provisions for water and sanitation - or lack of same. The ancestor involved was fleeing after a vicious winter on the Rhine, which had killed the grape vines. There had also been religious persecution and and French invasions to contend with. The Londoners were sympathetic to the refugees at first, but as thousands more arrived they, like many voters of today, felt that there were too many immigrants and that they were competing for food and jobs as well as living in conditions that bred disease. They were sped on their way, my lot ending up in New York (pre revolution of course) on the Hudson River, their descendants eventually moving up the river and over the border and becoming Canadian Loyalists.

We take a look at the heath, which is pretty well empty field now and try to imagine it as a refugee camp, with thousands of tents. Canvas? And, of course, no facilities to speak of. Walk on to a church whose spire we've spotted. Very friendly people but it must be 19th century. Not a landmark in the time of the Palatine Germans. We welcome the chance to use the loo, though. As no doubt they would have done. Bus back to Lewisham dockland light railway station to take a train to Bank and then tube home.

Tuesday, April 14/2015

Sunny and much too warm to be inside. So we follow the canal from Little Venice, near Paddington Station, up to Camden Town. There are dozens of brightly painted canal boats, some of them permanent homes. Flower boxes and bicycles abound and pets are in residence. The canal disappears underground at times, or so it seems from the towpath. The boats, of course are passing through tunnels. The canal goes along the north side of Regent's Park and past the London Zoo, with some animals visible across the canal on the right. On our side there is an enormous aviary filled with exotic birds, with one small domestic bird attempting to get through the wire mesh and join them, as its mate seems already to have succeeded in doing. Plenty of others enjoying the lovely weather, walking or cycling or sitting on benches. One girl is joined by friends who have brought treats and sing happy birthday. In the shade of a short tunnel a man we'd guess is homeless sits with his dog and eats his lunch. A beautiful spot now, but less kind in winter. We emerge at Camden Lock, up past pubs and cafés and into the bustle of Camden Market. It's been about three and a half leisurely miles, and we take a bus back.

Monday, April 13/2015

Make an effort to find a Conservative campaign HQ, largely because son #1 would like to see a Tory poster and political signs of all kinds are in remarkably short supply. A Labour campaign worker on Kilburn High Road put it down to strict spending limits but there must be a cultural/traditional factor as well. Not a single sign on a lawn or a lamp post. Well, actually lawns are in rather short supply in central London, but all I've actually seen were two small signs in the window of a flat, one with the single word Labour and the other with the name of the local candidate. Nothing else.

Having duly googled, we pick a constituency with an office near a tube station, in this case Sloane Square. We find the address all right, but no sign, literally, of political occupancy. No answer to the bell, either. J inquires of a little old man walking past (well, all right, he's probably no older than we are and he's no shorter than I am). He looks at the anonymous flat and says that if it is the Conservatives they're very discreet. Right. Second try is up north of Angel tube station. This time the googling has worked a little better. The office is there and it's clearly Conservative - can spot Boris Johnson's mug from across the street. Yes, that's the problem- it's a leftover office from a previous mayoral election. And of course it's closed.

So back to Angel and our favourite vegetarian restaurant, Indian Veg. A couple of little airline style plastic bottles of wine handily in pocket and an excellent buffet as always.

Sunday, April 12/2015

Another warm and sunny day, with a pleasant breeze, so over to Greenwich to browse the antique markets. We're not alone - there are crowds that make it almost impossible to move in the covered and outdoor markets. A little less congested farther up the hill at the fascinating but aptly named Junk Shop. Everything from sheet music and old medicine bottles to £5 pieces of wood claiming, probably accurately, to be bits of the original Cutty Sark taken during reconstruction after the fire. Prices not bad, but the real interest is in the sheer semi-sorted quantity and in the archaeological layering

Then our semi-annual visit to Goddard's pie and eel shop. Established 125 years ago and still in the hands of the same family. Black currant and apple crumble - J's with ice cream and mine with custard.

Sign on the wall at Goddard's pie and eel shop, established 1890

Saturday, April 11/2015

Visits with Jenny and Doug and various family members. Train from Wimbledon to Rayne's Park where Jenny picks us up and takes us to visit her Aunt Vera. Short visit but nice, with Vera reminiscing about her childhood with extended family in Haifa. Her father went to Palestine with Allenby and when he left the forces married a Christian Palestinian woman. Vera's sons and their families still live in the Middle East, though one son is about to retire to Scotland.

Next visit is to Jenny's daughter Emma, with us first stopping to pick up Jenny's mum on the way. Emma makes tea and the girls are busy, with Jasmine, now six demonstrating her really quite impressive reading skills and Leila, not quite four, showing her ability with computer games. Giles is busy too, a little less happily, landscaping the back garden, which involves quite a lot of excavation, but he joins us for tea.

Then back to Doug and Jenny's, where we're duly impressed that they invited us at all, as they're in the midst of a highly ambitious redecoration project, involving a great deal of paper stripping and painting of their very large house. We stay for drinks and a meal. Jenny's had a chicken in the oven and it's a good visit and catch up. Have now known them ten years, we calculate. The Nile cruise  on which we met was in 2005. Laura also over briefly with stepdaughter Phoenix.

Friday, April 10/2015

Much too nice a day to go down Oxford Street, but there are things to check out so we do anyway. Very busy. No overwhelming bargains given the present state of the Canadian dollar.

Thursday, April 9/2015

Camden Town. It's becoming, sadly, more and more generic. The distinctive aspects are disappearing. Camden Market is still thriving but Inverness Street Market is no more, or at least the fruit and vegetable aspect of it, and the man who weighed your tomatoes and called you luv. You can still buy t-shirts and souvenirs there if you want to. The supermarkets are there, though we can remember the Waitrose in its previous incarnations as Morrison's and Co-op. They've been joined by Lidl and a 99p store, the latter doing noticeably less business as the queues at Lidl lengthen. Gone too are the little stands on corners of Camden High Street selling oranges and apples and strawberries and grapes - often at better prices and of better quality than the nearby supermarkets. Lots of charity shops and still a few bakeries and a couple of pubs. But increasingly it could be a high street in any part of London with similar demographics.

Wednesday, April 8/2015

To West Harrow by tube. A lovely Sri Lankan curry like the "old days" as Jean has recently been visited by sisters in law, one of whom brought additional curry. And apple crumble with custard. Very nice. We're joined by Shanthi, busy as ever - tomorrow her day as magistrate. With the coming election lots to talk about.

Tuesday, April 7/2015

Sunny and warm, although those in tank tops do seem to be on the optimistic side, unless they're jogging. Bus along Bayswater Road and over Westminster Bridge to the Southbank. Almost impossibly crowded near the London Eye, but thins out a bit after we pass it. Families with children, people on holiday, tourists, buskers, people eating ice cream and drinking at riverside pubs and cafés. Kiddies swarming over the climbing structure.  It's shirtsleeve weather in the sun. We pick up the brochure at the National Theatre and then cross back over the Millennium Foot Bridge and take the tube back from Blackfriars.

Hit Marks and Spencer just after the afternoon price mark down and decide to try the salads for supper:   

Layered prawn and pasta salad

Borlotti. Flageolet and black bean salad with mint vinaigrette

Potato salad with sugar snap peas, edamame soybeans and wasabi mayonnaise

Edamame soybean salad with sesame seeds and lime and chilli 

All of them prove to be delicious, with a fair bit of heat in the last two. Speculate on the odds of a Canadian supermarket selling same in the coolers without marketing them as gourmet specialties.

Monday, April 6/2015

Bus down to Piccadilly, and wander through Soho and China Town. Still holiday busy, and in fact a public holiday, although almost everything open. Enormous crowds, especially at Leicester Square, where there is a long queue of families winding into a building labelled Cinderella. Leicester Square sadly pretty well built over now, and sitting on the tiny remaining bit of grass pretty sharply discouraged. Covent Garden in usual festive mode with the people dressed as silver and gold statues posing for photographs, though heaven knows how they make any money as the costume set up is pretty elaborate and many of the photographers don't seem to feel compelled to reward the subject with a donation.  There's an interesting collection of the antique, the merely old and kitschy and the frankly second hand and not all that old in the exhibition hall, which gives us a happy half hour of browsing. Then pick up a bus on the Strand and home.

Sunday, April 5/2015

First time up Kilburn High Road this spring. Election making itself felt here as well. We pass the local Labour headquarters and a young man comes out to chat for a few minutes. Graffiti on a red phone box sums up political confusion.

 Our Easter dinner at Roses, which, as usual, is almost entirely local customers. Maximum seating 58. We take a window table and both order lamb kleftiko with roast potatoes and mushrooms and swedes. Succulent lamb's legs and very full plates.

Saturday, April 4/2015

It's school holidays, so we decide on the Saatchi Gallery, as usually not overfull of children. There's an upscale Saturday food market on outside the Saatchi, with discouragingly pristine samples of unsweetened natural organic chocolate. Can't help feeling Easter will justify a little more decadence. 

Enjoy the gallery, especially the wall of giant insects and Jorge Mayet's suspended sculpture of tree and extensive roots.

Buy a bunch of daffodils from the flower seller on the corner. My longtime favourite flower and irresistible. At 50p a bunch we would have bought many more if it weren't for a shortage of space and containers.

Friday, April 3/2015

Camden High Street. Medium busy, with most but not all shops and the supermarkets open at the beginning of a four day weekend, so a few basics and some wine. Hot cross buns everywhere, appropriately.

Home via Trafalgar Square where there is a live Good Friday drama taking place, complete with disciples and soldiers and a large screen for those without a good view.

Thursday, April 2/2015

Room 23 for the first three nights. We arrived close to one but Nick had waited up and doesn't seem at all put out. The room has its charms, especially the ceiling light fixture, and it's actually a little bigger than our usual. It's two longish flights up (old high ceilinged storeys) but the suitcases are now up. But we'll probably opt for our ground floor usual with its well known pros and cons.

The much anticipated election debate with seven candidates, including the obvious Cameron and Miliband, Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage, as well as SNP's Nicola Sturgeon and the women leading the Green and Welsh Nationalist parties. We're expecting seven candidates to make for a pretty confused presentation but it's better than predicted. Sturgeon is particularly impressive and the Plaid Cymru leader wins rare applause by telling Farage he should be ashamed of expressing such unpleasant views of immigrants. All of the men look slightly as if they're aware of having more to lose than gain, except for Clegg, who probably genuinely has spent all his political capital. Two hours goes quite quickly though. 

Wednesday, April 1/2015

D day. Sound of distant parade drums reminds us it's a holiday. Finish up. Boxes to the storage area on the mezzanine, already full of the cases and crates left by the long stay Norwegians. Cab to the airport, unexpectedly supplied by Mr Andreas. Usually we take the bus.

Plane is nearly an hour late leaving and doesn't make it up en route. Have calculated that it will take an hour to get from landing to tube, more with any bad luck at all. So when we land at 23:10 knowing that the last underground train to central London will leave at 23:42, the assumption is that it is hopeless. Time to deplane and time to reach the immigration queue. And we're not EU citizens, so no favours in the general queue. But there is no queue, no one ahead of us at all. So we're through immediately and down to the baggage claims, where there is almost no wait at the carousel. So, with ten minutes left we head for the tube station. Lifts don't seem to be functioning so it's escalators. As we reach the bottom an underground employee says last train to central London and we're holding it. And indeed as we get on the man blows the whistle and we're off. Forty-five minutes to South Kensington station. Long flight of stairs to the Circle platform and a young man very kindly takes my suitcase the last few steps, enabling us to catch the train just arriving - the last train to Bayswater. As we exit Bayswater Station the doors are closed behind us. It's twenty to one but we've done it with nearly impossible luck in timing. Ten minutes later we're at the Baron and Nick lets us in. We're home.

Tuesday, March 31/2015

Excess plastic bags to the animal shelter charity shop, as well as donating some clothing and books. Nice to know that the plastic bags go to a good cause. There are several charity shops in Larnaca, though not keeping pace with increasing numbers of pawn shops. Then on to get haircuts. Incredibly busy, as tomorrow is a national holiday and haircutting establishments in Cyprus are always closed on Thursdays. Also last visit with Natalie at her jewellery shop and last coffee at Harry's by St Lazarus.

Then home to serious packing. Some things stay and everything else has to fit in the suitcases. Seems like it shouldn't take as long as it does, but when we leave the flat after three and a half months, it's empty except for the furniture and dishes that belong to it. 

Monday, March 30/2015

Last dinner out, with Ailsa and Harry and Jane and Bill, at a café a couple of blocks away. Walk through the dusk with the warm breeze full of the heady scent of orange blossoms. Very good and far too filling. 

Sunday, March 29/2015

Sunday lunch at Jane and Bill's. Joined by their friends David and Susan, former yachters retired in Larnaca. We eat outside - as they eat all their meals when the weather is decent. Bill's cooked a duck with orange sauce and there are two desserts, both very nice. Happy relaxed meal in the sun, as our winter is coming to an end.

Saturday, March 28/2015

Happy that we went on our northern trip yesterday, as today is mostly rainy - as predicted. 

Friday, March 27/2015

With Jane and Bill on a trip up the Karpas peninsula. We drive north past mimosa bushes and fields with poppies and other wildflowers and past vineyards. Over the border to the north, passports in hand. Through Famagusta, with a quick glimpse of Othello's tower (so called because of a reference to Famagusta in Shakespeare's play) and we head northeast. Stop for coffee at the Blue Wave seaside restaurant. The area north of Famagusta is a little reminiscent of the Cornwall coast, with rough, steep cliffs alternating with long, deserted sandy beaches. The North is mostly Turkish but there are some mixed villages. We cut across to the east coast. House prices are often advertised in pounds sterling, but the winter population is pretty well local. Some intriguing cafés, including one identified by a sign saying it is located "10 metres backward". 

We stop at a coastal restaurant for lunch. Nearly miss the meal, though not the restaurant, as there's a closed sign on the door when we arrive. But a man comes up from his seaside docks, smelling slightly of diesel, and turns the sign around. We're welcome . Did we want coffee? We'd hoped for lunch. Well, it's only him and his wife - he can do us cheese omelettes with salad and chips. We say that would be very nice, and wander through the large restaurant, fascinated by the eclectic decor, which ranges from kitsch to family photos to reproductions of famous paintings and sculptures to enormous millstones. And when I go to pay, he refuses a tip. Posturing? Not a bit of it - he pats my arm, folds the bill and tucks it back in my change purse, saying gently no, this is my home. 

There's a monastery further up the road, and wild donkeys. How far? About ten minutes our restaurant host says. Turns out to be at least twice that, but the donkeys are there all right, and charmingly friendly - hardly seem wild at all. Though clearly the furry hope was that we'd thought to bring treats, and we're here without as much as a carrot.

Then back along the north coast and through the mountain pass. Through orchards and barley fields and home.