Friday, November 23/2012

Last breakfast. The food at the hotel has taken on a certain sameness and the flies become an increasing irritant, so that the sight of a browned fleck on the morning pancake produces an involuntary shooing wave. The jam jar has a large chip missing from the rim - but how long will it be before nostalgia sets in for the best homemade apricot jam we've ever had, full of sweet, golden chunks.

Quick final trip to the artisan centre. The building itself is quite striking inside, with Islamic tiles and stucco lace reminiscent of Alhambra Palace in Granada. Through Bab Doukkala, our nearest gate in the wall. There is often a beggar at the gate, but beggars here are fairly passive. Is this a cultural tradition or are there penalties for aggressive begging? There is quuite a police presence today, and soldiers as well, J points out. And the air is almost thick with pollution, maybe because it's the end of the week.

Pack up and check out by noon, which leaves us two hours lobby time before the taxi J has arranged (50 dhirams rather than the more common 100 - both sums more than it would be if the meter were turned out, which it never is). As we're leaving the lad from Stockton-on-Tees says his goodbyes and we find out the reason for the heavy police and military presence. The king is in the city. He attended Koutoubis Mosque this orning, the one everyone uses as a landmark. Which was a little unfortunate for our friend and his brother, who had intended to go there but couldn't. The king's presence meant that other worshippers were allowed in by invitation only.

We're at the airport in plenty of time. Exchange our remaining 120 dirhams - quite a production. Do I have a receipt for the money? Eventuallly I find that I do. Ten euros in exchange, plus an extra three and a half dh in change. But first I fill out an information form and my passport is pput through a scanner and two large duplicate recedipt forms are produced, one of which I sig. More or less the same amount of paperwork required for a marriage licence. The nice young man doesn't actually have a ten euro note, but he does have a twenty, so I hand over two five euro notes as well as the Moroccan currency. This leaves us with 10 dh in coin, but we're not at the square any more. The only thing it would buy is a single rather dry looking croissant, so we don't bother. And after going through security it's euros only.

There are two queues for the scanner in security, separated by gender. J's little bottle of water is no problem - we're not in the EU here - but the woman hesitates over my tea bags in their foil bag. Thé, I say. She repeats it but checks. Thé it is - no problem. It`s a long wait, as the BA flight is late in and threfore late leaving, but the airport is new and clean and eventually we`re underway. The plane is full and we`ve booked aisle seats opposite each other. J is sitting next to a Scottish couple who live just outside Brighton and they chat happily for most of the flight. Collect our suitcases and head for the bus stops. A small typed otice points out that the times are wrong, but the ones I got after much searching of the internet are OK and the H3 bus arrives and delivers us to the Ibis Gatwick just before midnight.

Thursday, November 22/2012

Last day in what used to be called the rose city, from the reddish buildings. Visit the artisan centre. Its a wonderful spot in the old city because it combines many of the local arts and crafts and it's possible in some cases to watch the people at work - weaving carpets, painting on wood, making sandals or doing metalwork. There is jewellery and paintings - a bit production line for tourists in some cases but also a place where the craftsmen can work in peaceful surroundings and the visitors can watch and shop without any hassle or pressure. A relief after the souks. One shop features argan oil. Originally the nuts were processed through the digestive tract of the goat and retrieved from the feces - does make one wonder who first had the idea and why. Now the pressing is done mechanically and itès possible to buy first cold press oil used for cooking or oil prized for the skin and the hair.

Last meal in the square as well. The water sellers are asking to have their photos taken -  for a price. Don't think they actually sell much, if any, water these days, and appearing in a red suit with a decorated pointed hat probably does deserve some reward. The mussel stands look attractive but we want one last lamb tagine. We also want to try pastilla, a Moroccan specialty as a starter. All right but not to be added to the repertoire, even though it sounds a bit odd. Actually it is a bit odd, but Rolf, a German man staying at the hotel, has said we should taste it and we do. It's chicken cooked inside pastry - about six inches in diameter. The unusual bit is that it hasn't quite made up its mind whether it's a sweet or a savoury, as the pastry is dusted with sugar and cinnamon and the filling includes almonds as well as chicken. We split one as a starter. All right, but not to be added to the repertoire, and served at the sort of tepid temperature that is less than ideal for chicken. Actually, a number of Moroccan offerings seem odd - like the apple juice with milk (which we haven't tried). But the tagine that follows is excellent, and sizzling hot, with the lamb and olives and vegetables still bubbling when the conical lids are lifted.

There are restaurants nearby that specialise in rooftop terraces for the view "panoramique." But there is an advantage to our view as well, on the edge of the crowd and more a part of it, watching the women with long coats as brightly coloured as saris or the teenage boys showing off their acrobatics. A bit more subject to the sales pitches though, ranging from children selling small packs of tissues to the man who offers J an exquisite picture made, rather sadly, from butterfly wings. He would  give us a good price, but price, unfortunately, isn't the problem.

Wednesday, November 21/2012

Our lobby is a busy place, busy mainly with Moroccan men - drinking mint tea steeped in little silver teapots with high lids (apparently best when poured from a height), transacting business in the morning or cheering football matches in the evening. The bar does a steady business as a "dry" bar - though we're happy to have a bottle of Famous Grouse in the room for a wee dram in the evening.  Usually, but by no means always, the men are in western dress. The jellaba may be worn coat-like on top of trousers or, like the man ahead of us at breakfast, simply over bare legs with slippered feet. J makes friends with a darkish-skinned Moslem lad from Stockton-on-Tees, here in Morocco for the first time on a week's holiday along with his brother, eager to enjoy the hammam and the tour to the mountains. They're a reminder that those who appear to us to be locals may well not be.

The water sellers are in evidence at the square tonight, wearing their traditional red garb and pointed hats. They're hung about with brass cups and carry the water in leather bags, slung over the shoulder. Apparently the brass cups are for Moslems only and, in the (seemingly unlikely) event that a non-Moslem wishes to have a drink it will be provided in a white cup. Actually there's no sign of anyone buying water from them. Probably they make a living these days by charging tourists for photo ops. They certainly add colour to a busy scene.

Tuesday, November 20/2012

One of the pleasures of the square, Jemaa al Fna, is that there are more locals than tourists and they are a continuation of a long tradition. In the earliest days the square was a place of execution, and its name means Assembly of the Dead. But for many years, certainly well over a hundred, as Edith Wharton refers to it in In Morocco (1917) it has been a gathering place for local people, not only for buying and selling but also for entertainment - storytelling, acrobatics, snake charming, etc. Traditionally it was also a centre for services, so scribes and purveyors of herbal remedies flourished. Tooth pulling is still on offer, and Lyndsay, a Yorkshire woman spending a couple of days in Marrakesh at the end of a biking holiday in the Atlas Mountains, recounts having encountered a toothpuller complete with tray of sample teeth removed from the afflicted.

It's a particular pleasure to walk through the square and see a circle of perhaps fifty men and boys surrounding a storyteller who can keep them enthralled with words alone, electronic devices left in pockets. Janet and Joe and I walk down through the medina to the square in the mid-afternoon, past the shoe shiners and the horse-drawn caleches. The men are just setting up the food stalls for the evening and the fruit stalls are flowing in the late sun - figs, dates, nuts and apricots all as beautiful as they are sweet but all, unfortunately, visited by flies.Janet admires the pointed slippers and the caftans. Many of the shops are high in tourist appeal, but there are also sellers who have staked out small bits of pavement and are selling cigarette packs from an open carton or bars of soap.

We stop at our previous restaurant for lamb tagines, seated outside where we can watch the throng in the gathering dark. The young boys toss their little blue lit whirlygigs up against the darkening sky and steam rises above the lights from the food stall. There's a steady low drumbeat and a hum of energy. On the pavement the little lanterns glow red and blue and gold.

Monday, November 19/2012

A happy surprise this morning.Others have written of the beauty of the nearby Atlas Mountains but so far, other than in our descent, we had failed to sight them. The culprit appears to have been pollution, which is pretty dire. Maybe here, as  in Athens, things are a bit better after a weekend Still a little dim in our photography efforts, although I have done some violence to J's original (taken from our hotel balcony) in an attempt to bring out the contrast, but definitely there, in the near distance beyond the Koutoubia Mosque. Janet, an Englishwoman from the Midlands, who is here for a week's Vitamin D, is of on a side tour to the mountains today, so we'll look forward to her impressions.

We walk west of our hotel along Mohammed V - have to be careful navigating as streets are seldom labelled, they often meet at odd angles,and names may be similar (for example there is also a Mohammed  VI and the two streets intersect). Our goal is the bureau de tourisme and we eventually find it, though the first policeman we ask says that he's on loan or exchange from Agadir, but his colleague will know - as he does. the office is nicely designed but almost empty; no sign of brochures, etc. The man in charge is happy to give  us a fairly decent map, though. Easier to find than the tourist office, not that we were looking, is the Canadian immigration office. The red maple leaf on its sign is visible a block away. It purports to offer services for students and would-be immigrants but we don't check it out, in part because the office itself is on the fifth floor. Spot an interesting building on the way back with Middle Eastern looking wooden balconies at the top above the usual clay-coloured facing.

Even in the streets outside the medina, carts pulled by horses or donkeys share the roadway with buses, cars and trucks. Within the medina they're joined by caleches and bikes, motor and otherwise. The donkey carts are used for deliveries and general movement of goods or building supplies, and also serve as temporary beds when empty - it's not unusual to see a worker having a kip in a cart by the side of the road.

Drop in to the store next to the hotel. As everywhere else, it is subject to flies, but here there are also small birds, sparrow-sized flying in through the open doors and perching on the pasta in open bins or on the chopping block where the meat is cut. the hotel and shops are, if anything, overstaffed, but hygiene is simply not a concern. I find myself thinking that any place that served food at home would lose its licence for similar neglect,  when I remember our regular coffee shop in the summer of 2011 when the air conditioning was non-functional and the door stood open all summer.

Sunday, November 18/2012

Rainy morning, though if internet weather can be believed this should be the only rain of our stay. At breakfast J watches as a young girl at the buffet drops a piece of cake on the floor, goes to replace it on the plate, hesitates, and finally puts it on the counter next to the plate. From whence it is retrieved by a water and replaced on the plate. So the tongs placed beside the baskets of bread and plates of cake are incomplete guarantees of hygiene. And we remember in Cairo seeing a man with an enormous tray of bread drop a loaf on the road, pick it up and return it to the tray, and carry on with his deliveries. J has another of the "pancakes" - which we have discovered are not exactly pancakes. They're not made from batter but are white squares of a phyllo-like pastry unfolded by the girl and cooked briefly, one at a time, on a small griddle.

By noon it clears and we walk a bit in the opposite direction from the medina, past a walled cemetery and the Gendarmerie Royale. One forgets that this is a kingdom. Much less African looking here - with the standard international shops and a McDonald's. J, ever the economist, checks its prices. Difficult to knkow what to make of the Big Mac Index here, as a Big Mac is fifty percent more than a lamb tagine in the medina. So who would prefer it? The streets here show the French influence - broad avenues and enormous squares. some intersections have police but they leave pedestrians to their fate, operating in chatty pairs and only responding to the occasional motoring infraction. The lanes in the medina are reminiscent of Paris as well, but only in the pervasive smell of urine.

We are reading at night a book downloaded onto the Kobo, Edith Wharton's In Morocco, an account of a journey made to Morocco in 1917 - a trip made more difficult by German submarines in the Atlantic, the division of the country into Spanish and French zones, and the combination of early motorcars and primitive dirt roads. The author laments the lack of existence of a guide book, but she is well informed and has a good eye for detail and her work makes fascinating reading.  Much of her description of Jamaa el Fna, the big square, still applies today, as she talks of the crowds surrounding dancers and snake charmers.  A little earlier we had wondered if there had been an original purpose for the niches in the walls within the medina, cavities a little bigger than a person. The question of purpose remains unanswered, but Wharton does refer to "mad negroes standing stark naked in niches of the walls and pouring down Sudanese incantations upon the fascinated crowd." Shelter for the odd beggar today seems rather dull by comparison.

Saturday, November 17/2012

Today our wandering in the shops has an objective, though not one that we achieve. We're looking for a small immersion coil. Marrakesh would seem like a probable place to find one, and at first our difficulty is in describing it. However, we get quite good at explaining in French what we want, just not good at locating one. We have hopes of the small shops outside the souk, but far more of them have electronic than electrical goods. In the end, people who understand that it would fit inside a glass, make water boil, be like a kettle without the outside casing, and be handy for making instant coffee don't know where we might find one. Though many of them would be happy to console us with other goods we might purchase.

We wander recklessly through the souk, losing ourselves quite thoroughly and inspecting both the touristy parts and the depths where tourists are nowhere to be seen. Unlike the souks in Istanbul and Damascus, there don't really seem to be sectors, so shops selling leather or fabric may alternate with those carrying ceramic tagines or sweets. At one point the only non-locals seem to be an older couple in sunhats who look as if they know where they're going. They do, and disappear into a dwelling in a tiny lane in the farther northern reaches of the souk. A Berber man tells us he can show us where the big square is - it's just after the tanneries. However, the "after" turns out to be historical rather than geographical. We're not up for a tour of the tanneries and he's offended - "then give me something." We part with a little annoyance on both sides. But between the orientation provided by the sun and the odd helpful direction we find our way back to Jamaa el Fna and the snake charmers.

Friday, November 16/2012

Friday, the Moslem holy day, and there are some signs of it. There seem to be mostly tourists at breakfast, when yesterday there were more businessmen. And quite a few of the small shops are closed, though by no meansall. We're finding new ways through the maze of the medina, guided at times by the tallest of the mosques. It's a good landmark from a distance and highly visible from the square next to it, but tends to disappear in the streets and lanes of the middle distance.

The most direct route starts through a market near the western wall. Really less a market than a lane lined witih the tiniest of shops and restaurants, catering almost entirely to locals. Children's toys - including little blonde plastic dolls reminiscent of the celluloid ones of my distant childhood and looking not at all like Moroccan babies. Vegetables - potatoes, radishes, aubergines and greens - on mats on the ground. Barber shops only gig enough to encompass the one or two chairs. Round loaves of bread and heaps of brightly coloured spices, as well as dates and figs - all wonderful to look at but unfortunately subject to the ubiquitous flies. As are the wares of the tiny butcher shops featuring three or four chickens or part of a lamb carcass.

The larger streets are home to electronics shops, more substantial restaurants or pizzarias, pharmacies, etc. At night the square seems more full, with more young families, perhaps enjoying a free day. Fathers seem as affectionate as mothers, and as happy to cuddle little daughters as sons.

Some very small children sell goods - such as packs of tissues - to tourists. A few hang out around the restaurants, less beggars than opportunists - happy no doubt to receive a coin or a sweet  should it happen. Restaurant staff send them on their way, but gently, as they also discourage the hopeful cats. The square is again full of performers - musicians and acrobats collect small crowds of admirers. There are snake charmers and belly dancers - their encircling audiences no doubt a fruitful source for pickpockets who can count on distracted subjects and an easy escape in the dark. The dark is also a good backdrop for some of the wares on sale - displays of little metal lanterns with candles flickering behind coloured glass panes ranged on the pavement, or the little fluttering blue lighted whirligigs that young boys launch into the indigo sky and gather as they flutter down.

Thursday, November 15/2012

Breakfast buffet in the restaurant. it's a sunny room with a similar view to that from our room. It's not at all bad - quite Middle East cum North African. Baguettes, croissants, plain cake - the last cooked as you wait. There also seems to be a runny cooked cereal of some sort - we don't sample to find out what. And it's not entirely carbohydrate as it seems at first glance. There's also yoghurt, hard boiled eggs, and little triangles of cream cheese. The coffee is good, though the "juice" is, presumably, the usual sugar water and  again we don't try it. the semi-dried olives are excellent and there are also plates of cut tomatoes and cucumbers.

The wifi in the lobby is excellent, but doesn't begin to reach to our second floor room (room numbering on the European system - ground floor is zero). We check the weather and email. Make efforts to get a decent map on the playbook but its GPS is not up to the challenge, and it's hard finding the ciry area to centre in on. Then we spot a fellow tourist at the desk with a map. Where did he get it? Right here. Unlike most third world hotels, reception does indeed dispense small maps, showing our location and the adjoining medina. Very nice.

The medina proves to be quite a bit bigger than the map would suggest. There are also far more roads in the real life version, no two of them parallel. To say nothing of the tiny lanes. It's a maze. Cautiously, we circle outside the wall, then enter by one of the gates (babs - we recognise the Arabic word from Damascus' geography). There's a little triangular park near a very tall mosque. It's lovely and shady with plenty of benches for resting. The triangle is surrounded by horse drawn caleches, the drivers touting for tourist business, and points, at the apex, into Jamaa el Fna,the famous square at the heart of the medina.
The square is huge and irregular, a little like a fairground when it`s not fair day. Which is not to say that it`s empty. It`s swarming with people and with cars and motorbikes crisscrossing at random angles, managing always to miss the people. Plenty of stalls selling fresh squeezed juice and clusters of watchers around performances, human and monkey, but you know that the square is in waiting for its true life, which begins at dusk. Radiating from the north of Jamaa el Fna are the souks, the markets selling to tourists and locals alike, though there are far more locals than tourists in evidence. there are the souvenirs - costume jewellery and tooled leather; the practical, appealing mainly to locals with things like children`s clothing and plastic basins; the semi-practical, like brilliantly coloured tagines (lovely but fragile and heavy as souvenirs). then there are the completely bizarre - as when one rounds a corner and is confronted with a heap of sheep`s heads. They`re a local delicacy but these are as yet unskilled, with eyes accusing.

Back in the evening for a meal. Dusk by six and the square now lit by flowing lamps from the food stalls erected every night.there`s a hum now and more performance art - boys doing handsprings and small crowds where it`s impossible to see the centre. The food stalls are surrounded by inward facing benches, and they`re busy places, some more so than others. There are dozens of them, all known simply by number - 32, for example, is famous for its lamb sausages. We go to one of the small restaurants rimming the square, though. There it's possible to get "le menu" - the equivalent of the prix fixe. And, more importantly, to face toward rather than away from the square and the street theatre.
We each order salad rather than "normal" (read plain?) omelets as starters and, surprisingly, our salads are different, though not billed differently. One is a tomato, cucumber and coriander plate - very refreshing - and the other an odd mixture of rice, potato, carrot, tomato and beetroot in a salad cream on top of lettuce leaves. A bit odd but OK. J orders the lamb couscos and I the lamb tagine. (We know we're right in guessing the "lamp" is what we're after as the French is listed as "mouton"). They're both good, though we agree that the tagine is slightly better, served in the little tagine casserole with conical lid in which it was cooked, the lamb butter soft and covered with potatoes, green beans, tomato and olives, the juices all preserved by the sealed dish. The couscous is also served with vegetables - courgettes, carrot, and marrow all arranged in a pyramid over the couscous and lamb with a bowl of cooking juices on the side. As usual we share both, as well as the small round loaf of bread - delicious with the juices. Dessert is a small pastry - almond and rosewater - with sweet mint tea, our little silver teapots full of mint sprigs. There's no hurry and the restaurant is busy but not crowded. quite a lot of tourists but locals as well and no wonder. The meal is delicious and the bill for the two of us comes to 95 dirham (€8.55, $10.55 CAD, £6.85)

Wednesday, November 14/2012

We're off early by tube to King's Cross. Then train to Gatwick in time for a fair bit of hanging about before the British Air flight to Marrakesh. The plane is pretty full but we're lucky - seats A and C near the back, with an empty seat between us. Well, some good planning but also luck. Acquire a bottle of Famous Grouse from the onboard duty free in anticipation of Moslem abstemiousness

We left Gatwick to fly over an irregular patchwork of greens. Morocco from the air is sepia monochrome - texture but almost entirely mud coloured. Only as we begin the sesent to Marrakesh are there symetrical green plantations in evidence. And the city itself seems almost entirely clay coloured brick. Short transfer to our hotel, past palm trees and rose bushes. We're on the edge of the medina, just outside the walls of the old city. Beneath our tiny balcony there is endless traffic, pedestrian as well as vehicular. Men, mostly in western dress but some, mainly older, in flowing jellabas. Women, mostly wearing the hijab but some, mainly younger, without. Women as well as men on motorscooters. Taxis plying their trade. Bicycles weaving between private cars. A bus station opposite. Curiously, the dual carriageway separating us from the medina has a pedestrian walk light monitoring one road, while those crossing the other, equally busy, side take their chances. No accidents as we watch. Is this like Krakow, where a critical mass of people gathers before attempting the crossing, or like Beirut, where red lights mean little but catching the eye of the drivers ensures safe passage. Tomorrow we'll explore.

Tonight we do check out the supermarket next door to the hotel. We'd known that there was a shop, but this is considerably more - like the Magasin Général in Tunisia, but better. It has everything from avocados to washing machines, children's clothing to yoghurt. There's also a small attached bakery, and the shoppers, happily, seem to be entirely local. We now have bottled water, as well as bills smaller than the 100 and 200 dirham notes dispensed by the airport cashpoint. Though the bills are as dirty as Egyptian money, the fifties as limp as used tissues and less clean.

Tuesday, November 13/2012

Our last day in London. It's also Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights and Shanthi has kindly invited us to tea. She has taken the day off work, visited inlaws and gone to the temple and now we get to share in the lighting of the Diwali candles and in the meal, made festive with rose petals strewn across the tablecloth. It's Jean and Joe and I, along with Shanthi. Priya is still at work but will be back later as will her boyfriend. Lovely meal with shanthiès homemade springrolls  and butter cake.
Then back to pack and set an alarm.

Monday, November 12/2012

Errand day, as our two weeks comes all too quickly to an end. So small bits of shopping and internet housekeeping re the changes occasioned by Thomas Cook's defection - rebooking of transfer, etc. Still plays unseen and exhibitions unviewed. Where does the time go? Last vegan buffet with quite a nice wine. Consolation - this is one place we'll always come back to.

Sunday, November 11/2012

Remembrance Day. Our worthy plans for joining her majesty at the cenotaph at eleven end when we wake late enough it's no longer possible. My poppy has only just survived to the 11th, being a fragile British paper version, closer to true poppy colour than the vibrant Canadian ones, but less resilient. We met a young English girl selling poppies at Notting Hill tube station who recognised J's poppy as Canadian. She's engaged to a Canadian whom she met when they were both serving in their respective forces in Afghanistan. They're to be married New Year's Eve in Edinburgh and will then be moving to Kingston.
Have a slow wander down Oxford Street before meeting Kristen and her boyfriend Chris for lunch. The intended restaurant is closed but Prix Fixe (actually their name) next door provides a good alternative. Kristen still working as a social worker and Chris back at uni doing a master's. They're looking at going to Canada in the spring after  Kristen's work visa here runs out. Meanwhile K has concentrated on seeing as much of Europe (and even North Africa) as she can manage while within short flight distance - Budapest, Malaga, Berlin, Marrakesh, Istanbul, Athens, etc.

Saturday, November 10/2011

The family run hotel where we stay is cosy. the original fourteen foot high ceilings with moldings and plaster decorations and a ten foot high window. The furniture is mismatched but period, interesting and solid wood. The plumbing is less happily period. New shower with plenty of hot water and good pressure, but a temperamental toilet. Makes flushing feel like a primitive psychological conditioning experiment. The sort where a chicken being fed random pellets of food repeats the behaviour in which it was engaging when the pellet arrived, hoping for the best. Thus we form theories based on the success of the last flush - jiggle first and then hold it down firmly - that are rapidly proven dubious.

Friday, November 9/2012

Fly Thomas Cook has called and left a voice mail to the effect that our flight to Paphos on November 25 has been cancelled. Call back and they're happy (much happier than we) to rebook us on Easyjet at 7:15 - more than two hours earlier than the TC flight. Not really a great deal to be done - and none of it the fault of the pleasant Nicola. TC seems on its last legs. Actually it's amazing they got us on the UK phone. We could easily have been in Morocco and never got the message.

In the evening we meet up with Alexander and Flora at the Colossi Grill near Sadler's Wells Theatre. The Greek Cypriot staff know A&F well and are happy to recommend their best. A meze selection for starters (and whitebait for A). Then souvlaki for A and F and lamb kleftiko for J and me - beautifully succulent on the bone. Noisy and cheerful and we do get to chat a little - politics, economics, families, food.

Thursday, November 8/2012

Our original intention was to queue for same day release tickets for Alan Bennett's new play, People. That would mean being at the National Theatre by eight and leaving here by seven. It's a good day for it, because there's a matinee as well as the evening performance, so twice the chance of getting a ticket. But at six a.m. we rethink - not because we're reluctant to leave the nest warmth of the bed (though we are) but because Alexander has asked if we fancy going to a funky little venue on the southbank to see his younger brother Roddy in an inaugural gig  with his new band, Quorn. If we leave now to get tickets for People, and go to the matinee before an evening concert, it will make too crowded a day. So we hope that we can catch a performance when we're back in London in April. Already we've missed a bit of performance art. J reports having read of a scuffle breaking out between two patrons at a performance of People. One, an elderly American and the other a rather large Brit - the issue being the lack of room to accommodate them in adjoining seats. Apparently audience members were forced to intervene when the dispute became physical, though some had at first hesitated, thinking they might be witnessing a part of the evening's scripted drama.

A trip in the afternoon to see an exhibit of Marilyn Monroe's media portraits at the National Portrait Gallery. The 50th anniversary of her death. She was the same age as the queen - very sad.

Tonight we see some planned performance art. It takes a bit of doing to find the Nursery Theatre. Arch 61 off Great Suffolk Road is a bit vague as an address, and we get quite close before discovering, with the help of two kind girls with GPS, the rather grotty lane following the railway arches.
It's a little cavern - funky, seating about forty on a miscellany of furniture from comfortable armchairs to a bench that's more sawhorse. The band is called Quorn - happily, Alexander discovers, because they fell heir to a quantity of black T-shirts inscribed with the name (and as it is a town in the north as well as a brand name, they're safe from litigation). It's not all band. There's a five woman modern dance group who begin with a shadow performance behind the white paper screen and continue with a number of presentations, many of them quite witty and some actually based on current (as in today's) news items. The band provides minimalist accompaniment and the whole performance is clever, often very funny, and pleasantly intimate in the small, informal space. A off immediately afterward as he has five pianos to tune tomorrow morning.

Wednesday, November 7/2012

Lovely day for a walk and we wander along the south bank fro Waterloo Station to the Tate Modern. There is currently no installation in the great hall, but we go to an exhibit on the human figure. One huge painting, Sabra and Shatila, by Iraqi artist Dia al-Azzawi, portrays the 1982 massacre in camps in Beirut  of Palestinian refugees by Lebanese Christian Phalangists. It's horrific, not in its initial effect but as realisation of its import grows. A little reminiscent of Picasso's Guernica. Jean Genet also visited the same camps after the massacre and spoke of the "thick white smell of death."

Back to Indian Veg - this time with airplane sized bottles of wine, for which the restaurant cheerfully provides wine glasses.

Tuesday, November 6/2012

Tube to Wimbledon - no need to change - and then train to Thames Ditton. Jenny has Emma's girls. Jasmine (four in January) chats with us until she's off to nursery school. Leila (one and a half) plays a bit, but has a cold and falls asleep with her head on J's shoulder.Doug is back for lunch and we stay until Jenny is leaving to collect Jasmine. busy, but lots of chat in between.

Monday, November 5/2012

Plan to go to the Saatchi Gallery for a photography exhibit but when we arrive the gallery is closed for a private event of some description. so plan B - the serendipitous takes over. We notice an advertisement for an exhibit at the Science Museum - on the work of Dr Alan Turing. Turing was responsible for much of the breaking of the wartime Enigma code. there are three of the original Enigma machines on display, as well as the Pilot Ace computer, for which Turing wrote the specs in 1945. The computer was completed in 1950 and is massive - about ten feet by four, with dozens of little light up circuit lamps - and probably less computing power than the mini tablet in my handbag. Turing was a pioneer in the world of computers but came to a sad end, committing suicide after legally imposed efforts to change his sexuality by female hormone treatment intended to reduce libido and reverse homosexuality. A sad waste of a great mind.

Guy Fawkes Day. Most fireworks seem to have been on the weekend. there are some parks with displays tonight but we don't go. We do go to the Indian Veg for dinner though. It's a quirky little restaurant in Chapel Market near Angel tube station. An amazing little place that's always busy, clearly attracts regulars, and can always squeeze in a couple of extra people. Open seven days a week from noon until 11:30, it serves a vegan buffet for  £4.95, always with delicious hot dishes, salads, rice, dhal and side bits, like chapatis and balti mix. They don't have a licence, but are happy to have you bring your own wine or even a tin of lager if  you prefer, available from a supermarket round the corner. Delicious.

Sunday, November 4/2012

Wake ten minutes before the mobile alarm, which has been set for six. There`s a tiny bit of rain but we layer up and take the umbrellas - off to see the beginning of the Brighton to London run, the worldès oldest motoring event, begun 116 years ago. All 500 cars are pre-1905 and a few of them pass us on Bayswater Road as we walk to Hyde Park in the pre-dawn, their small frames and spluttering cylinders seeming very vulnerable in the mercifully thin early Sunday traffic, the rear lights mere pricks of red in the headlights of a double-decker bus.

Gathering in the park, they look considerably jauntier, brightly painted and decorated with brass. there's a huge variety, no two alike. the largest are four cylinders and the smallest one we see is little more than a tricycle, raising the question of the point at which a vehicle is declared a car. A happy variety of drivers and passengers as well, some in period dress and others, more prudently, in waterproofs. It will be a cold run for those without rain gear as the rain is heavier now and few cars are closed in. Some of the unprotected woolly clothes must be sodden before their owners reach the start line. And Brighton, sixty some miles away, is a three hour journey for these cars. but everyone is cheerful, repacking the wicker trunks, checking the engines, enjoying a last cup of coffee. A steam engine billows a fog at us and some cars get push starts.

There are some famous drivers here, we know, mingling in with the others. Racing great Sir Stirling Moss is driving with his wife in a 1903 car that has done the run thirty-five times, and Nick Mason, drummer for Pink Floyd , is driving a 1901 five litre Panhard. Mason has driven in the run every year since 1985 and says his passion for cars predates his inolvement with music. Motoring rugs covered with pastic, rain dripping from broad-brimmed leather hats, tiny squeeze bulb horns tooting and they're off. And we back by tube from Hyde Park corner to dry off ourselves.
Motorsport not over for the ay, as noon brings coverage of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix - a close race with a surprise Raikkonen win.

Overheard at Waterloo Station: You don't get it - the police want ME.

Saturday, November 3/2012

To our Starbucks office in the morning for filter coffees and internet. J with the Saturday Guardian and I with the Playbook, on which I download a London map. Not everyone buys as much as a filter coffee. The man at the little table next to us has no coffee at all but is sustained by a packet of chocolate covered digestive biscuits - currently on special offer next door at Sainsbury's for  £1.

In the afternoon we go down to Regent Street to see the cars on exhibit before tomorrow's annual London to Brighton car run. They're wonderful - dating from the earliest years of the 20th century (all before 1905). Brass headlamps gleaming like little hurricane lanterns and old-fashioned bicycle style horns. Most of them are open-topped and all of them full of personality - many with names like Annabel and Edwin. Some are accompanied by drivers in period costume and a woman in an old style scarf-tied motoring hat retrieves some food from a wicker basket fixed to the side of her car. Most seem to be two cylinder; sometimes, astonishingly, only one. Six point five is a typical horsepower.

Back up to Oxford Street to take the tube to Camden Town. On the pavement a large sign proclaims that America is Ending - according to God. No shortage of apocalyptic vision here and plenty of people to receive it - almost too crowded to walk. As it is on Camden High Street, though it's a little less crazy  heading down to Lidl and the charity shops than following the young people in the other direction, toward Camden Market.

A bus from Camden High Street to Kilburn High Road and an early meal at Roses. We've gone intending to have fish and chips, which are always excellent here, with golden breaded fillets extending over the rim of generously sized plates. But when we sit down, the man at the next table is being served a succulent lamb kleftiko and J can't resist ordering the same. So I go with the fish and chips and we share both dishes. Two veg and roast potatoes with the lamb, and nothing that has seen the inside of a freezer. We share a portion of cheesecake for dessert for a total of  £13 (€16 or $20.50 CAD - Canadians note that includes tax). Roses has quite a varied menu, most of which they can produce on any given occasion, and their dinners would feed two people of modest appetite. IJ once sent his compliments to the chef, who had cooked perfectly an enormous fish fillet of varying thickness.

 Midway between Hallowe'en and Guy Fawkes Day and costume occasionally evident: a young woman on the tube in pink dress with full skirt and ballet shoes with platform soles and pink-streaked hair, as well as a man in red cape on the street corner waving his sword.

Home in time for special TV programs celebrating the life and work of Eric Sykes. Though I loved watching his comedies in the 60's (black and white), I'm ashamed to realise that he ony died this year and not long ago - aged 89 and performing almost to the end despite profound deafness and, in the end, complete blindness. A master of facial expression and timing and his work as impressive now as it was sixty years ago - the writing as timeless as the acting. The last film in which he appeared was, to the delight of his grandchildren, one of the Harry Potters.

Friday, November 2/2012

Back along Queensway. Scarves, mugs, and souvenirs for sale outside the shops. Luggage on display, phone unlocking,  currency exchanges. fish pedicures  £10. And the restaurants. The bronze coloured chickens hanging in the window of The New Fortune Cookie. The same ones as last year? My favourite sign reads Brazilian Buffet by Kilo - modern cuisine at its best. This in a warren of shops and cafés with signs in Polish, Arabic and Russian. The hair stylist advertises cuts at  £7 under the name of Polscy Fryzjerzy. Odds are the sign was designed by a Russian, as the first word should be "Polski" but the Russian alphabet lacks a k. Café Albroush promises traditional Sudanese food and Sam's Gold & Silver offers to sell, buy and repair, just across from the Psychic Mews.

Outside, the Catholic church, Our Lady Queen of Heaven, requests that rubbish not be dumped behind its iron railings, as well as giving Brazilian Mass times. And on the other side of the road caftans from the middle east are on offer near London's Only Ice Rink and Bowl. J has picked up a Metro at the tube station as I potter along the road and he takes it across the Bayswater Road to a bench in Hyde Park to read. I join him, passing the little black three wheeled truck selling coffee on the sidewalk - "not just coffee it's London's finest." The sign says "not for profit" and indeed the café Americano is only  £1.

In the afternoon out to West Harrow to see Jean and enjoy a delicious mutton curry. Time for a visit before Shanthi arrives to share the meal and get caught up. then Priya joins us after her evening class - delighted because she has just sold a  £1000 Calvin Klein watch at her part time job, and made her November quota on the second day.

Thursday, November 1/2012

Down to Trafalgar Square to do the banking. On the other side of the square Canada House has not yet reopened. When? Three months or maybe a year, we're told by a man unlocking the door. Can he really have said "when the high commissioner comes back"? Must have misheard. In front of the National Gallery there's a poppy blitz on, with a pipe band, a Harley Davidson and three double-decker buses - one of them a routemaster, boarded a few minutes earlier by Prince Charles when the convoy stopped at St James's Palace on its fundraising run.
Up to Kilburn High Road in the evening for dinner. Our regular pub and its regular specials - seafood basket (me) and cottage pie (J). Two for  £6.49.

Wednesday, October 31/2012

 Back in London, at the Baron's Hotel, just off Queensway, and out rediscovering the percolating street from the first tube station down by Hyde Park to our corner by the flower market where a black man sways as he plays Mancini on the trombone.  There are two pubs and more restaurants than we can easily count -  several each of Asian (Chinese and Indian), Lebanese, Russian, Brazilian - as well as a steakhouse and a contingent of at least six of the usual fast food chains. Sadly, the Tesco around the corner is gone. surprisingly, too, as it was always crowded with long queues of locals taking their  fruit and vegetables, pastries and bottles of wine, to the multiple checkouts.

Sunday, April 22/2012

Concert in the afternoon at the Royal Albert Hall - beautiful, ornate, round building with good acoustics (well, reviews are mixed but we were happy). It's not sold out and so we're offered free upgrades from the circle - good view but pretty high up - to the stalls. It's a St George's Day concert with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Anthony Inglis conducts - with flair and wit - and Claire Moore as soprano soloist. We're delighted to find John Humphrys is presenting as promised (looked for a moment as if he would be replaced). The concert is much in the style of the last night at the summer proms. There's popular and sometimes patriotic music from Elgar, Handel and others (including the Hallelujah kChorus) and we wind up with Land of Hope and Glory. Everyone singing by then and lots of flag waving (St George's flags having been included in the programs). red and white balloons released from the ceiling at the finale. Really fun.

Walk to the Nag's Head in Knightsbridge for a half pint afterwrd. another on my A list, though pretty crowded with surprisingly young drinkers. quirky, though, with the walls completely covered with old photographs and the ceiling all flag and collage, and, as J says, looking like it's going to fall in.

J fancies fish and chips for the last night, so we head back to Kilburn High road. again, the fish at roses is perfectly done and the fillet enormous. Plates are (I surreptitiously measure) thirteen and a half by eleven inches and it takes a bit of eating before the fillet isn't longer than the plate! Mushroom starters and cheesecake afterward (both shared - and not to save money as the prices are amazing but to have hop.e of finishing).

Then it`s home and time to pack up.

Saturday, April 21/2012

To the South Bank to meet Jenny and Emma and Emma's little girls. Coffee (and juice for Jasmine) inside the National Theatre's big comfortable cafeteria cum listening space. Leila, aged nearly one, is very busy seeing how her cup works with and without its lid, paper napkins inside, etc. Jenny (and Doug) just back from a few days in Germany. Emma has just started back to work after maternity leave. Nice to chat.

In the evening to Kolossi Grill with Alexander and Flora. It's a Cypriot restaurant just south of angel tube station - small and friendly. share meze starters - very good taramasalata - and then lamb. Kleftiko melts in the mouth like butter. excellent. There's a painting of Kolossi Castle on the wall. Interesting as we were in the castle in January. Nice to be able to talk to A and F as well.

Friday, April 20/2012

Stop at the bank, Charing Cross branch, to arrange (successfully we hope) to have the debit cards replaced with ones tht expirein the spring when we're home rather than in the winter when we're away. there are a finite number of tickable boxes - the young man tilts the screen so we can see - so our cards are listed as damaged. Does seema bit lame that they would both be, but whatever works.

Bus from Trafalgar to the War Museum, but we see it goes out the Old Kent Road to a large Tesco - so we check it out, as the large ones don't exist in the city centre. Then back to the museum.  There's an exhibition on following one large (ten children!) South London family through the war years. There's a lovely scale model of their house - from bread on the table to chamber pots under the bed. Then displays of rtions and ration books, clothing, gas masks and government advice, as well as info on evacuation, women's work, nutrition, etc. There are short film clips and it's also interesting listening to some of the comments and memories of others at the exhibition.

Our plan is to go to the Spitfire restaurant on Fulham Palace Road. it's a Polish restaurant with really good reviews and we've had our eye on it for a couple of years now. A bit confusing to access from Hammersmith tube station as you exit at the back of the mall and go under the flyover - and ti's raining. But when we get there (only a couple of blocks) we find that the restaurant is empty - and to let. We've waited too long.

Instead we go to the café in the Polish cultural centre. It's a nice place with a fair variety of comfort food. J has the beef goulash and I the perogies - very nice ones too. That would have been plenty, but J persuades me - minimal arm twisting necessary - to have an apple szarlotke as well. Reminds us both of J's mother's baking.

Thursday, April 19/2012

Camden town for a bit of shopping - mostly browsing the charity shopps. And in the afternoon we check out one of the pubs on my A list. It's the Mitre (more completely, Ye Olde Mitre, and old enough that the name isn't just fanciful), at the end of a lane of Hatton Gardens. The lane is entered through a door that's closed when we arrive. does mention the brewer, but we would never have gone in if we hadn't known. The pub is small but picturesque. The two separate rooms don't link up, though the bar in the middle serves both. All dark wood and reproduction period portraits. Is that Elizabeth I in the corner? Maybe we're basing the assumption oon costume. Amazingly the pub does date back that far - to 1546. The lounge on the other side is tiny but cosy and has small panes of old glass. It's full - with drinkers spilling out and sitting on the upturned barrels in the courtyard.

We're intending to hit another A list pub, stopping on the way to pick up an Economist at the nearby LSE (where it's a pound cheaper than elsewhere). It's been showering off and on - increasingly on - and turns into heavy rain. So we abandon pub number 2 and also our plans for eating out. Just doesn't feel worth the stormy walk, even with umbrellas. We'll picnic in after a hot cup of tea. By the time we reach Queensway there's thunder and lightning and we're happy to be in with tea and telly.

Fascinating documentary on our newly enhanced television. The story, accompanied by quite a lot of period home filming, of Jutta and Helmuth Cords, a Jewish girl and a German soldier, who fell in love near the beginning of the war and were the first couple to be married in Berlin after the end of the war. They later emigrated to the States. Narrated by the wife, still very sharp.

Wednesday, April 18/2012

To Holland Park to look at Tony Benn's former house which has a plaque on it honouring his wife Caroline; educator, writer and socialist. A nice terrace house with a little picket fence and a garden someone has taken some time with in the past. Also an interesting example of what now goes for over  £3 million - but presumably didn't sixty years ago.

Take a look at the new 3D televisions not requiring glasses at John Lewis. Interesting concept (by Sanyo) but still needs work. Focus not always good, especially on writing. There's quite a bit of ghosting. Simply not good enough for over £3000 - though the idea of going sans glasses is attractive. there's an LG one with glasses that's better, but still uneven - sometimes impressive but at other times rather like a large viewmaster.

On Kilburn High Road J buys a pair of shoes - good black oxfords - on sale for £30. And since we're on the road we stop for supper at Roses - roast lamb, roast potatoes and two veg for J - similar for me but with chicken. Humus and pita starter and cheesecake (decadent but shared) for dessert.

Some time after 9 the man arrives to put in the black box for the great digital switchover. so we suddenly have a great picture and dozens of channels - some junk but quite a lot of good ones. Ironic, as we're in a city where there's endless interest and stimulation without television.

Tuesday, April 17/2012

The forecast is for showers, but they space themselves pretty conveniently. we do a bit of outdoor exploration. Bentinck Street, parallel to OxfordStreet, has been home to quite a few notable people, though it`s a very short street. Anthony Blunt and Guy Burgess lived at number 5 at one point. It`s still there but shrouded as the renovation works are in progress. Gibbon wrote Decline and Fall at number 7 (unlike the spies`abode it`s marked with a blue plaque). chopin lived briefly at number 10, and Dickens for a time at number 18. The interior of number 18 is gone - totally demolished - but the facade is still standing, awaiting a new building to face.

A few blocks away, on Wimpole Street we spot the building where the young Paul McCartney lived above his then girlfriend`s family. We`ve read that Lennon wrote I Want to Hold Your Hand in the basement. Wimpole street is more famous, of course, as the place where Elizabeth Barrett lived before being rescued by, and married to, robert Browning the house is no longer there, but a plaque marks the place where it stood.

we`re very close to the Wallace Collection, so, after a quick look inside St James`s Catholic Church, Spanish Place, we go to visit it. It`s in a remarkable place. The house, originally a private home, holds the collection of five generations of the same family. It rivals many national galleries in both the quantity and the quality of the paintings, an amazing classical collection. It`s known for Hals`painting of The Laughing Cavalier. It`s an intriguing portrait, and the subject has a very modern face, apart from the period moustache. He`s not actually laughing, though. It`s a knowing smile - one of shared irony or even assignation.

Our last stop in the area is number 34 Montague Square. It`s supposed to be where Ringo Starr had a flat. We`re surprised to see a blue plaque, as they`re not awarded to the living - but when we get closer we see that John Lennon lived there as well for a time in the sixties.

We`re tired and getting hungry, so get a bus on Baker Street that`s headed to Waterloo. It`s slow moving, but that does give us time to focus where we might not otherwise. we`re parked in a jam on Regent Street when we see a round green plaque marking Lord Stanley`s purchase from a silversmith on this site, of a silver cup "for the people of Canada to commemorate amateur and professional hockey." It`s been a while since amateurs had a crack at it. J thinks the last may have been the Kenora Thistles.

From Waterloo by tube and Docklands Light Railway and to Greenwich, where we stop at our second Oxfam charity shop of the day. The first was on Marylebone Lane - a huge one dedicated to books and music. this one is all books as well, and there are some we'd really like to have, including a signed one by Roy Hattersley. but they're too big and heavy, and reluctantly we leave them.

What we've really come for is our second visit to Goddard's pie shop. this time we have the crumble - J apple and I rhubarb. Still the best, with the custard filling the bowl and the soup plaate in which the bowl sits. It's been six years since they closed in Greenwich but the crumble hasn't changed. This is it. We can barely finish it - and the girl had said to come back if we wanted more custard. Two pounds seventy (three euros six, $4.32), tax included. Amazing.

Stop at Crossharbour, thinking as usual of Conrad Black - Lord Black of Crossharbour. will he ever come back? Buy a top up for the UK mobile. Then home.

Monday, April 16/2012

To the Courtauld Institute in the morning as itès free until 2pm on Mondays. We start with the late medieval room. Interesting the traditions in painting infants - so many of them are ugly and, stranger, they often look like miniature adults. It's not that the artists  had never seen a baby or that they weren't able to draw well - so what was the statement?  There are some beautiful altar pieces  here as well, andsome lovely ivory miniatures.

The second floor has quite a number of Rubens' works. He's a much more varied painter than we'd realised. A landscape looks quite unlike the portraits, and J points out that his work changed after he'd been to Italy and come under the influence of Italian Renaissance painters. The top floor has old friends as well, like Manet's Bar at the Folies Bergère. There are a few Dégas works that we think of as typical, as well as a quite shocking painting of a woman in a window. Well, the story is shocking. Dégas painted it during the Siege of Paris and paid the model with a chunk of meat which she fell on immediately and ate raw. There is a special Mondrian exhibition on, but we`re not really Mondrian fans - and we`re full up. J disappointed that Blunt's living quarters are not on display.

Catch up time at our Starbucks office, while J takes a long walk in Hyde Park. Really this is a pleasant place to work. Comfortable chairs and I like the music. Decide to eat supper in the room and go in to Tesco just as they`re marking down - delicious couscous and chicken salads, a prawn sandwich, and fruit cups all for about a pound and a half. We get cherry tomatoes and oranges as well. A lovely supper in with the telly.

Sunday, April 15/2012

The Chinese Grand Prix is on BBC1 with coverage beginning at 7, so we watch.  J wisely gets up but I watch from bed, which means I sleep through the first part. Exciting win for Nico Rosberg.

We'd thought about going to Petticoat Lane street market this morning but there's a bitterly cold wind (though it's sunny) so we start thinking indoor thoughts. Go down to Bayswater Road to catch a bus to Euston Road for the Wellcome Collection. And we're immediately diverted into further outdoor walking, as almost the whole of Bayswater Road, on the Hyde Park side, has become a free Sunday gallery - the longest, it says, in the world. We're not seriously tempted to buy, but it's fun and the offerings are quite varied - London scenes, abstracts, flowers, traditional pub signs, and some witty drawings. Back on the bus and - with a brief practical shopping stop on Oxford Street - over to the Wellcome.

The exhibition is on the human brain. There are posters about the city advertising it, including one mentioning vinegar and brown paper as an old headache cure, which stirs a memory in my mind of the seldom quoted second verse of the nursery rhyme Jack and Jill:

Then up Jack got and home did trot 
As fast as he could caper.
Went to bed and wrapped his head
In vinegar and brown paper.

Hadn't thought of that in years. The exhibit has models and videos and historicl material. There are several references to the pioneering work of a Dr Cushing, including one article that mentions his mentor, the Canadian Sir William Osler. Osler was also the mento of Dr Wilder Penfield, the neurosurgeon who operated on my paternal grandfather in the 1930's.

Back to Chapel Market in Islington and the Indian Veg restaurant for another vegan buffet. then home to read our fat Sunday Times.


 

Saturday, April 14/2012

By tube to Jean's for a chat and tea before going to Shanthi's where we've been invited to tea in honour of Tamil New Year. Shanthi's friend Shirley (from Singapore - knkown her ever since she was born) is here with her two daughters, Laura - enjoying her first job with a PR firm - and kSophie - aged 12. And shanthi's daughter Priya is here of course - her time now split getting retail experience with Abercrombie and Fitch and with Calvin Klein. We're all impressed with the jewellery the latter gives her to wear in her job at Brent Cross Mall.

We begin with Asian sweets - with Tamil names we don't quite get. There's a golden soft crumbly dough, almond flavoured sweets, and crispy deep fried ones. Then to the dining table where we have a hot noodle dish, tuna sandwiches, fried chicken legs, mutton rolls (delicious, like spicy spring rolls with a lamb filling and a slightly crunchy exterior) and cake and tea. A Singapore high tea, the girls recognize. Shanthi urges more, but we're all happily full. Lovely visit.

Jean drops us near Rayer's Lane tube station - and in front of a grocery shop that sells Turkish products and J is delighted to find packets of the Turkish red pepper (biber) flakes that he loves.

Friday, April 13/2012

Lucky draw from the hat of possibilities on Friday the thirteenth. We decide to go to Hogarth's  house in Chiswick. bit of a walk from Turnham Green station, but an interesting one through Chiswick, now a part of London but in the 18th century, when hogarth lived here, a town on the Thames well outside London. It still has a bit of a village feeling to it, though the house is situated on Hogarth Lane, which is a lane in name only. It's a dual carriageway which becomes, a little to the west, the M4 . There are paintings here that show it as it once was, though - a country lane.

The real fun in the place, though, is the engravings, someof which are the originals. satirical, indiscreet, and as busy as a giles cartoon. The Rake's Progress with the weeping pregnant fiancée in the doorway. And all the peripheral characters, like the chimney sweep poking his head out the chimney, the syphillitic child, or the monkey in the corner peeing into a helmet. There are dark themes but very funny caricatures illustrating them. I've always wanted a copy of Gin Lane, and they do have the posters, but no tubes. So we opt for Hogarth placemats instead.

We're a ten minute walk from St Nicholas Church where Hogarth and his wife and sisters are buried, so we go over to look. The church is a nineteenth century rebuild but the tower is fifteenth century and the records go back to the twelfth century. The assumption is that there was originally a Saxon church on the site. We're fortunate to meet one of the wardens in the churchyard, who shows us the Hogarth tomb and also points us to where Whistler and his wife are buried. The latter is an interesting tomb with resin figures at the corners replacing original and replacement bronze ones - both sets having been stolen.

Round the corner from the church is the George and Devonshire, a Chiswick pub dting back to the 1650's. In fact it's the only pub left of the original Chiswick village establishments. We stop for half pints of the Fuller's Pride brewed locally. There have been some changes in decor over time. The jukebox style gambling apparatus with flashing lights isn't period. The fireplace may be original but the empty Pinot Giorgio bottles on it are a late and fairly unimpressive addition. Historically the pub had a smugglers' tunnel leading to the Thames and apparently the steps leading to it are still there in the cellar.

Dinner is in Islington - a place I've found googling. It's a real keeper. Indian Veg on Chapel Market, just north of the Angel station. It's quirky and friendly. The walls are covered with vegetarian facts, figures and advice. Small tables with tablecloths and a sign announcing that you're welcome to bring your own wine without corkage fee. (All right. I confess that I googled "very cheap" and "no corkage.") But it's wonderful. an absolutely delicious eat all you like vegan buffet. It's amazing, healthy - and f£4.95 a person.

Home by tube. At Bayswater Station an underground worker with a brush is busy sweeping up what turns out to be large white dominoes from the stairs.

Thursday, April 12/2012

To HSBC to sort things out. A separate method of having the cards verified by Visa, which makes them usable online, but is becoming a pain. The young man does give Joe a little key for generating access numbers as well, though.

In the afternoon to Chris Mullin's play A Walk-On Part: The Fall of New Labour. It's at the Soho Theatre, which is small, seating about 150 in the upstairs theatre. The seats are comfortable, but more or less cushioned benches with backs - but no arms, allowing more people to be squeezed in. Works nicely for this play though, as it mirrors the seating in the British House of Commons. The seating isn't assigned and we're there early enough to get centre front, a highly desirable location in this intimate theatre because we're seated at stage level.

The play is heavily based on Mullin's political diaries, one of which we've recently read, and covers his 23 years as a labour MP, endiing with his resignation at the time of the last election. It's very funny, often very indiscreet, occasionally poignant. And there's absolutely no downtime - no looking at your watch or wondering where to go for dinner. There are only five actors - one to play Mullin and four (two men and two women) to play all the rest, and they're very good. No props other than straight backed chairs and a screen at  the back of the stage that serves, variously, as window on the House, photos of politicians and announcement of dates. The script itself is good - the best bits culled from the diaries, but the facial expressions and body anguage are wonderful. Amazing that the same person (Hywel Morgan) can play Tony Blair - brilliantly - and Tony Benn (amongst others) convincingly. Or, as in the third male character (Howard Ward), John Prescott and George Bush. John Hodgkison as Mullin, is impressively energetic and witty. The audience loves it.

Back to Roses (apostrophe not forgotten - it's as in flowers not as in belonging to Rose) on Kilburn High Road for lamb kleftiko (a whole leg and beautifully done with roast potatoes and 2 veg) and spaghetti bolgnese. A bit busier tonight but probably entirely people living within a mile or two of the restaurant. As far as we can make out, the specials aren't special in price but are guaranteed to be something they have. They're a bit like a Polish restaurant menu in that the meny lists all the dishes they ever have and you have to ask what is available. But then all the prices are astonishingly good anyway.

Wednesday, April 11/2012

Observation on public transportation: young white men are theleast likely people to give up their seats to the elderly - or to me, not that I require it. I do have seats offered tome more than in previous years though, for whatever reason. The most likely to give up seats are Asian men of almost any age, followed by young Middle Eastern men and young Asian women, followed (at some distance) by young white women. Observations unscientific but accurate, I think.

Tube to Camden Town and then bus to Hampstead Heath, as we've noted that our one year tickets to Keats House expire on Sunday. the house is the one Keats lived in with a friend just before his final illness sent him to Italy in search of a warm climate and a cure. His fiancée, Fanny, lived in the other half of the house, since made into one. Even though we've been before, it's a moving experience, and interesting too for things like the 18th century kitchen and the sole water supply from a cistern on the roof to a lead sink. Add this to a diet which seemed to consist mostly of meat and white bread (vegetables having only recently been declared not dangerous) and it's hardly surprising that so many people succumbed to disease, quite apart from the lack of modern medicine.

Supper at an Asian buffet by the Kilburn High Road tube station. Not exciting, but not at all bad. Chicken satay very nice. Spring rolls and samosas pretty useless.

Last bit home is the tube from Notting Hill Gate to Bayswater. A man gets into our carriage and grabs three abandoned Evening Standards. He's not quite quick enough to jump off before the doors close, so, having been obliged to come to Bayswater, he alights and rummages through two litter bins, retrieving several more copies of the Evening Standard to add to at lest ten in his bag. J suggests that he may want extra copies of a particular article, and it's plausible, but the paper is distributed free and theman looks obsessed.

Tuesday, April 10/2012

Check out the Notting Hill pub Harry took us to many years ago. We find it on Campden Hill Road. too early in the day now, but marked down for future reference.

By tube to connect with Dockland Light Railway. when we get off to change at Bank St they're announcing delays on the Central line, which we've just left, as there's a person under a train at the west end of the line. This is not an uncommon occurrence, usually suicide of course.

We're off to Greenwich again. This time we have an agenda, but it takes us a while to reach the National Maritime Museum. On the way, we detour through the Old Royal Naval College. The painted hall is impressive trompe d'oeuil, looking three dimensional, and dates from the beginning of the 18th century, or at least the painting does. there's a small room off the painted hall where Lord Nelson's coffin lay before the official lying in state.

But the greater interest today is in what's going on outside the Naval College. As we're heading towards the college we first spot a man in the distance crossing a square wearing pre Vatican II ecclesiastical robes. Then we see a great many trailers as well as people in period costume. And finally, most impressively, an absolutely enormous statue, much larger than life size, of an elephant. It's a film shoot, of course.  Turns out they're shooting Les Miserables. Though how the elephant fits in....

Then to the National Maritime Museum and the agenda.  J is looking for a large model of the Uganda, a ship that he took students on for one year's Mediterranean cruise.  It was later used in the Falkland War as a hospital ship - andwe did see the model on a previous visit.  But everything is in flux here and Olympic oriented, and the Uganda is no longer on display.

I've also come with a question.  My 6x great grandparents emigrated fro Germany via Rotterdam in 1709.  This was part of a scheme for acquiring labourers in the New World on behalf of the English navy.  The reward was English citizenship.  Between leaving Rotterdam and sailing to New York, the emigrants spent the winter of 1709 in England.  There were three caps - at Deptford, Camberwell and Blackheath, and I'm hoping to learn their locations.  The short answer is "lots of luck."

So we drift along to some of Greenwich's other charms.  The halcyon Bookshop has most of its books selling for a pound. At first we assume that the shop has been abandoned, misled by sacks of books blocking the aisles and heaps of them cascading onto the floor.  But no, it's open, and we browse for a while through the unsorted shelves.  Then, a few doors up the road, there's the Junk Shop. It's a series of tiny rooms, on two levels, with an uncountable number of old things.  Some possibly antique, many period or collectible, some more or less junk.  And there are thousands of them, from books to jewellery to kitsch to poison bottles (for holding poisonous contents, one assumes). Fascinating.

We finish up at Goddard's pie shop, now officially open, having chicken and mushroom pies with mash and gravy. Can't hold the desserts. Are the pies the same as we remember? Is the plate smaller, the scrubbed wood tables gone? Not sure, but the pies are good and at similar price to the ones we remember.

Monday, April 9/2012

Morning trip to the British Library, chosen for its proximity to the tube station - rain doesn't matter much. The BL has two of the four copies of the Magna Carta in existence, so we focus there. In the afternoon check out the theatre listings from the comfort of Starbucks. It's pretty full. The man next to me has taken off his shoes, leaving grubby feet on the cold floor. Looks like he's here for the duration. But we do find a free plug. Then down to the Soho theatre off Oxford St to get tickets for Chris Mullin's A Walk On Part - The Fall of New Labour. Mullin was a Labour backbencher and we've just finished reading and enjoying one of his political diaries - A View from the Foothills. This play is unique in that it actually played once at the House of Commons, at the invitation of the Speaker.

There's a small bit of comedy as we leave the theatre. We're approached by a cheerful man bearing copies of the Big Issue, the magazine produced and sold by the unemployed. "It's your lucky day," he begins. "Because I'm not selling anything." Naturally we're intrigued. "I'm accepting donations for me to have a beer on my way home." Ear to eear grin. "It's St Alan's Day. We confess that we haven't heard of St Alan but he's sure, and not a bit abashed. I fish in my pocket. "Would 20 p be of any help?" "Yes, indeed." So off he goes, and we're still chuckling a block later.

Finish up with a meal at Roses on Kilburn High Road. Unlike some of the pubs, they are indeed doing food today. And every day. It's a small restaurant with a laarge menu and huge portions. Excellent food and quiet local clientele. We opt for two courses and then begin to question our wisdom. J's chicken and broccoli fettucine is delicious and substantial and my fish and chips enormous. The fish fillet ust be 18 inches long. J says maybe 20. It's also cooked to perfection, which must have involved keeping the tail end out initially. J, who inherits more than half of it, says it's probably the best cooked deep fried fish he's eaten - and he's a very good fish fryer himself. We shouldn't be able to hold the apple pie and custard, but  it's good and we do. Total price, with large mugs of tea, £14.50 (€17.69, $22.91). Tax included, and we shouldn't have to eat for days. 

Sunday, April 8/2012

Relatively early, if drizzly, Easter start, as the rail lines are full of engineering works, buses replacing trains, etc. work out a plan to go via Wimbledon instead of Waterloo, which looks muchmore efficient, so we pick up bunches of narcissi from the little flower market outside the pub on the corner and head off. At Wimbledon we transfer to a bus replacing a train at an unmarked bus stop. Does he go to Thames Ditton (as promised by National Rail website)? No, we'll have to change at Surbiton. Well, it's wwell along the way. Walkable from there in a inch. And if the second bus were as slow as the first walking would have been attractive. The only other passenger is a girl who makes repeated phone calls - "I have the sugar but I'm on a bus that's moving like a snail." In Kingston we pass the cattle market car park twice. Is it different entrances or are we circling? Jenny remembers when she was a child and it actually was a cattle market.

But we arrive, and without being rained on. Lovelly Easter brunch. Jenny and Doug have the perfect dining table. It seems to seat an infinite number - fourteen of us here anyway - Laura and the boys, Emma and Giles and their girls, Jenny's mother and aunt, as well as Jenny, Doug and us. Jasmine 9aged 3) has helped to make the Middle Eastern date rings. Jenny's grandmother was Palestinian Christian and so are some of the recipes. The coloured eggs are hard-boiled and we play a traditional family game where we tap ends of our eggs with the others to see if anyone ends up with an uncracked egg. Cody (also aaged 3) is too young to remember last Easter but emerges with a winning egg.

After brunch there's an Easter egg hunt for the children in the garden - chocolate eggs this time. The dogs, who would have been happy to help, have been penned but watch with keen interest. Doug's sister Kathleen and her husband arrive, so we stay to say hello bud then head off.

Just as well we didn't go earlier as the earlier bus didn't come - we're informed by a man waiting for t?) he 3:40 along with us. We chat. He's been to Canada in the 70's when he (or his band?) toured with Nazareth. Home trip smooth - and back with the Sunday Times, more than a day`s read.

Saturday, April 7/2012

Re-establish the Starbucks Office. Not bad - good coffee, comfortable chairs next to plugs for the computer, and nobody hurrying you. and open on a long weekend when the library isn't.


down to the British Museum. It's holiday crowded so we do our usual - opt for a look at one area we haven't visited before, in this case Assyria, about 8th to 9th century BC. First of all I have to ask J where Assyria was when it was at home - answer, more or less Iraq. there are very Egyptian looking statues, including huge (12 foot high?) lions with human heads that once guarded a palace entrance. Also a large number of elaborately carved stone wall panels that lined palace walls and were inexpertly removed to be taken to another palace some 2700 years ago. They've been amazingly well restored though, and record past battles, domestic life, royal life etc, both in pictures and in extensive writing.


Try to check out the Mary Ward Centre near Russell Square. It's an educational facility, but with a good gallery and café - unfortunately closed for the Easter break. Stop off in Camden town. Then pub supper and home with fat weekend paper to read. We`ve missed the Oxford and Cambridge boat race and it was dramatic. Interrupted by a swimmer protesting elitism. A radio 4 presenter refers to it drily as a "race hate crime."

Friday, April 6/2012

Tube system a bit altered for the weekend, though not badly. Down to Earl's Court for a wander round. Nothing looks especially new and interesting. Warm on the sunny side of the street. In the afternoon we go to Trafalgar Square where there's a re-enactment of the crucifixion scheduled. cast not of thousands, but of 100 plus. We do wait quite a while for it to start, but the people watching is good. The squarae is crowded, with tourists mainly. It's sunny and there are buskers - a girl playing the violin and men being living statues - one all silver and one gold. The gold sttue wanders back to the National Gallery for a smoke break, beaked mask removed, before heading back to his pedestal. There's some technical problem and they explain the play will have to restart. we've been here for about an hour enjoying the crowd, but we can't really see the stage - just the screen - so this is our exit cue.

Up by Leicester Square, in the process of being revamped (the square, not us). it's supposed to reopen this month, but if the loud drilling and the mess is any indication the target is optimistic. Through china town and down to Covent Garden. St. Paul's, the Actors' Church, there has a vigil Mass scheduled for 9 tomorrow evening to be followed by a "Resurrection Party". Sounds like a brilliant idea but 9 is a bit late for the start,not just for us pensioners but for the tube system if it's a post-midnight finish.

Thursday, April 5/2012

Walk across Hyde Park and along to the royal Albert Hall to buy tickets for a Proms style concert on April 22, our last day here.

In the afternoon out to Jean's in West Harrow. We take her the Benn diary (hard cover) and the four books of the Raj Quartet, so things should be much lighter now, although the Jaworskis, like nature, seem to fill any vacuum when travelling.

Samosas and other Indian appetizers from Jean's handy off licence. We chat until Shanthi joins us after work and then have a lovely curry meal that Jean has made  - lamb, leeks, sweeet potato, green beans, salad, dhal and beautiful fragrant rice. Followed by apple crumble and custard. We won't need to eat again for days. Beautiful meal! Before we know it it's after ten and we're on the tube back.

Wednesday, April 4/2012

Walking dowon queensway when someone hands me a card in English and Arabic suggesting I consult Yasmina at the Psychic Mews. But we pass up the opportunity to see  the crystal ball read and take the Docklands Light Railway to Greenwich.Takes almost no time to find Goddard's pie shop. It's a shop that's been in the same family  in Greenwich for over a hundred years. They closed a few years ago and went into wholesale, but had always intended to reopen locally and they're about to - tomorrow. We peek through the window - the menu and pries ook pretty much like the old place and it's just the other side of the square.

We also check out the market. It's not the seething place of weekends, but there are a number of stalls open, including one manned by a philosopher who asks if you're willing to draw a philosophical question out of a hat and discuss it. Mine is "Is there such a thing as nothing?" So we do discuss it for a bit. There's a pythonesque aspect to it all, but fun.

Past the Cutty Sark, which is in the final stages of restoration after a fire five years back. There are literally miles (11 of them) of rigging on the 46 metre high mast and the gilt trim gleams. It was a record setter for speed in 1885 - Sydney to London in 67 days. Royal reopening sheduled for the end of the month.

To Kilburn for a meal. Seems a bit odd as we leave the tube station and are handed cards advertising Duke's Comedy Club by a young man saying brightly "Stand up comedy on Good Friday." Down to the Old Bell for vegetable curries and an ale from the April guest ale list - Cumberland.

Tuesday, April 3/2012

Reacquainting ourselves with our part of London. And down to HSBC to try to sort out the retistration for online purchases. Lovely girl called Emily gives me two pages of directions and a nice little gadget for generating sign on numbers.

Up to Camden High Street. Hot cross buns are on sale everywhere. Marks and Sparks are the best.

Monday, April 2/2012

We're at the bus stop with our suitcases when a taxi pulls up and the driver says "five euros to the airport." Done. the usual is well over twice that. Jane's brother and his wife are on the same plane, but we only eet up when we're about to board. flight a bit delayed because of strikes in France (knock on) but quiet and nice enough curry with quite a drinkable red.

At the hotel Genie shows us the room - same one as last time but with improvements. There's a brand new shower and sink.

Sunday, April 1/2012

Last bits - finish reading the Rankin and finish packing. Boxes tied, suitcases done.

Saturday, March 31/2012

Our last Saturday here. It's not cold, but it is very windy. Take a couple of last minute things to the charity shop. WE've thought of ice creams at Harry's Café, but it's too windy to enjoy them so we settle for Cyprus coffees.

Last loaf of sesame rye bread from the bakery and last salad things (and fresh strawberries) from Prinos. We're walking back when a man calls our attention to a tree covered with blossoms with an amazingly beautiful scent. we take one to try to identify. Does smell like jasmine, but one woman suggests Mexican orange - she has one at home - and Kiki also thinks it may be citrus.

Flat looks like disaster zone with drawers and cupboardsopen and emptying, flat surfaces covered, bottlesbeing decanted into smaller and taped for transport or sealed for storage. You'd think we were moving house.

And reading in between. Looks like we may just finish the Rankin. We forget the world wide turn off of lights for ecology and read right through it, so spared moral dilemma.

Friday, March 30/2012

Pre-packing. Should be simple, as the cases are so small, but that doesn't make it any easier. Some things will be boxed for next winter. We too have tried to reduce the volume with limited success. Then spot (not that it's difficult) Arvid and Eva's things packed and labelled on the floor outside the 4th floor lift. thirteen containers occupying an area about 60 feet square. We feel positively Spartan.

Haven't timed the book finishing perfectly either. I seem to be about half finished Anthony Blunt's biography and similar with the Ian Rankin we're reading aloud. Take to London or store for next year?

Thursday, March 29/2012

J confirms with Mr A that next year's rent will be the same as this - and yes, we can have the confirmation in writing.

Last coffee with Margaret down at George's. Quite a crew there, not all of whom we know. Margaret's been lovely and brought us a little fridge magnet with Paphos Castle as a memento. So I'm glad that I've brought along a little container of the lemon curd I made this morning.

Maggi's last day, so we help her move her boxes and cases down to the mezzanine, m lamenting her inability to reduce the number of boxes despite her best intentions.

We take the bus out to Vlachos in the evening. Arrive a little early and go fo a walk nearly to the second road in to Pyla - just past Beau Rivage Hotel, deserted, semi-dismantled, and for sale. When we get back Jane and Bill are there along with Jane's brother and his wife, who are visiting from England Aylsa and Harry arrive and we have a lovely visit and meal. Harry and Aylsa pack up the leftovers for the animals, the multitude of dogs and cats they share their house with. There are birds too, including a couple of baby birds.The breeding is somewhat accidental.  Harry says, seriously, "I don't encourage it." No Cypriot restaurant hurries you, so we're neearly 3 hours. Aylsa and Harry kindly give us a lift home.