Monday, December 9/2013

It doesn't have the fame of Heraklion, but Chania lies atop the ruins of a Minoan settlement, virtually all of which is unexcavated. There are later layers as well, of course. Byzantine and Venetian most notably. A much conquered island. The Turkish mandate is not quite within anyone's memory but probably still rankles. Even the Egyptians occupied the island at one point. Union with Greece came only a hundred years ago. In fact exactly a hundred years ago and there is an exhibit at the old arsenali building on the waterfront commemorating it. The old town was walled and much of the wall still remains, mostly Venetian but some much earlier. We're staying in what was, at one point, the old Jewish quarter.

It's a short walk anywhere in the old town. The arsenali buildings along the waterfront are not, as their name suggests to my Anglo mind, former arsenals but former dry docks. These are Venetian but there must have been dry docks of a sort here almost from the beginning of time. There has always been a harbour and for hundreds of years a harbour wall. The lighthouse, or at least the oldest bits of it, is the oldest in Greece. Next to the Grand Arsenali are the donkey steps. Traditionally, and presumably into the last century, donkeys were used to carry goods from the ships at harbour into the town. The donkey steps are designed to accommodate the animals - wide enough to allow a donkey to place all four hooves on one step, rough surfaced to avoid slipping, and with white stone marking the edges as a guide.

Sunday. December8/2013

We go to the Catholic church round the corner on Chalidon Street. It's Franciscan, like most Catholic churches in the Mediterranean, and an ethnically mixed lot as one would expect in a country that's primarily Orthodox - Philippino, Polish, Italian, etc. The service is mostly Greek but partly Latin with bits of English. One of the Franciscans looks. Lot like our former colleague Ron Skitch. Seems weird to hear Ron talking in fluent Greek, though not nearly as strange as hearing his heavily accented English. 

We're lucky in the Sunday we picked. The second Sunday of each month there's coffee after Mass, and today it has been agreed, for the first time that everyone will bring some food from their own culture to share. It's crowded but friendly. J complements a Polish woman in Polish on her poppy seed roll - as well he should having had three. But there's tons of goodies and everyone happy. We chat with a retired English expat who lives in Plaka, a nearby village. He says there's a large expat community, and in his village it keeps three tavernas running all winter.

Saturday, December 7/2013

Market day. The farmers' market is on the eastern side of the old town and it's easy enough to spot. The double row of stalls must be nearly half a mile long, featuring mainly fruit and vegetables. Huge green bunches of herbs, tomatoes, oranges, lemons, carrots, potatoes, radishes - and much more. There are walnuts and almonds, dried apricots and figs, fresh soft cheeses and yoghurt. At the far end are several stalls with cheap cutlery, plastic dishes, handbags and clothing. A glass case outside a butcher shop displays chickens and we buy one, thinking chicken soup, stir fry, sandwiches. The butcher singes the remaining feather bits with a torch and then takes a cleaver to it - saving a great deal of work later with J's Swiss Army knife. Then, with soup in mind, we acquire some potatoes and carrots, a large bunch of parsley and a small cauliflower, as well as tomatoes.

Interesting how much more secure it feels in Chania compared to Athens. In Athens I was reluctant to take the ipad mini out to use it as a camera. It would have been so easy for someone to grab it and run, as a shopkeeper suggested to me, disapprovingly. In fact we did see a man, not young, racing away from the central Athens market on Athinas Street with a joint of meat he'd stolen, pursued unsuccessfully by two white coated butchers, one brandishing a stick. Comic in a way, but  there's a Dickensian desperation about stealing meat, as opposed to, say, an ipad - and no doubt it's a practice the butchers can ill afford to encourage. Unemployment in Crete is about 20%, lower than the national average, though youth unemployment is horrifically high everywhere.

Friday, December 6/2013

Stroll round the harbour. It's charming, reminiscent of Kyrenia's in North Cyprus, but bigger.  The Venetians are responsible for much of the harbour construction (they began building the harbour wall in the early to mid 14th century) and even the lighthouse is partly Venetian, the oldest existing in Greece though much repaired in later times. There are also some of the arsenali of the period (no, not arsenals as I'd assumed, but dry docks). Many of the cafes and restaurants are closed for the season, with repairs and painting proceeding, but some are open. Coffee not cheap (Starbucks filter €2.50 - £2.10, $3.65 - compared with £1.55 in London) but in Greece local shops outdraw the big name chains, their coffee being considered superior. 

The old town was originally walled and much of the wall and some (long dried out) moat remains. The earliest is Byzantine from the 10th century, built on earlier Hellenistic foundations. There are also significant remaining Venetian fortifications. We circle past the fishing boats, heading into town. Along the waterfront two or three men are fishing, one with no rod but a fairly efficient hand held reel. Don't know precisely what they're fishing for, but they must have fair expectation of a catch or they wouldn't bother. 

As we head inland the old town joins the new. We stop for koulouria. The old woman selling assumes we're German but only a few words are needed anyway. In addition to the standard, she has a whole grain koulouri with sesame, flax, and pumpkin seeds, as well as small loaves with raisins or olives. The whole grain are delicious and we sit on a bench outside the town market to eat them in the sun. Children seem to be everywhere by noon. Is this standard or the Friday custom or a Feast of St Nicholas special? There's also a major demonstration by older students going on in the streets, but our Greek isn't up to identifying the issues. The town market (covered) is primarily for tourists, though there is a butcher and a cheese shop. A larger version of those in Larnaca and Paphos.

Thursday, December 5/2013

Exploration day. We're in a little studio (have been upgraded because the studio booked was smaller - must have been really tiny. The bed fits well largely because it's three inches narrower than a standard double. Very cosy. Greek style loo, with the shower unenclosed - make sure towels and toilet roll are out of the way and depend on the central drain. Basic kitchen, once the daughter of the house has been assured that we do intend to cook and fetched the little burner/oven combo. The oven probably works, but if you move the unit to a point where the little fridge would not obstruct its door the cord wouldn't reach the socket. But there is a quaint charm about the place. No tv but pretty good wifi, which we'd always choose over tv.

We're just behind the harbour. In fact the houses on the other side of our lane back onto the harbour - or front onto the harbour and back onto our street, depending on point of view. Our place was apparently built in the Venetian era, over 500 years ago, fairly typical of the neighbourhood. There was a major earthquake in 1595 that did significant damage to the old town, as well as devastation caused by a week's concentrated bombing during 1941, but many old buildings remain in use and some have been restored to period. 

We left Canada a month ago today, and for the first time we can cook, so priority number one - after a walk along the harbour front - is the little supermarket near the top of Halidon Street. Very few processed foods, a modest produce section, northern wall almost entirely Greek wine, mostly Cretan. Prices good enough to gamble hopefully on quality. Whole grain spaghetti and bread, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes and spinach - as well as extra virgin olive oil and tomato puree and tinned chopped tomatoes. And oranges and a bottle of Cretan cabernet sauvignon. Still have cheese. Lovely doing our own meals again and the wine, rather to our surprise, is very good.

Wednesday, December 4/2013

Wednesday, December 4/2013

Moving day. Just when we'd got really efficient about living here. Learned to go outside to the koulouri lady at the corner to buy two koulouria to upgrade the breakfast. Found the best of the three spanakopita sellers on Zinonos and made friends. Learned the central streets without a map. Oh well. 

Metro to the airport. Takes close to an hour. There are gypsies "entertaining" for money in the carriages. The accordion music is cheerful enough. The depressing thing is that the children (there was more than one pair consisting of accordion playing young man and child collecting contributions in a plastic cup) were young - probably between seven and thirteen - and ought to have been in school and neither the Roma community nor the authorities seem to wish to enforce this. The other passengers ignored the musicians but the young woman sitting opposite did give two coins to an older Greek woman who came past speaking softly and holding out her hand.

At the airport we display our boarding passes and the girl is polite about our first time ever downloaded mobile device scannable boarding passes but says she'll print us some  - because it's easier. The promised 60 minutes free wifi at Athens airport doesn't materialise. Well, the little circle spins valiantly but to no avail. Leading us, of course, to think of a number of things that it is vital to find out before we land in Crete. The flight itself is all ascent and descent with a quick cup of coffee and a biscuit squeezed in. Fly in over a dark sea that is so scattered with white that I think, impossibly, of snow. But no, it's white caps and waves breaking wildly over rocks and shoals - a beautiful navigational nightmare.

Extremely lucky on landing. Suitcases through quickly. Bus arrives fifteen minutes after luggage claimed - and it was impossible to ascertain from the internet which, if any, of the schedules and dire warnings were to be believed. The driver speaks English, the bus goes to the station, and the station is a ten minute walk from our new home, Morfeas Nest. It's on a narrow cobbled street that can have changed little in the last several centuries. Too dark to explore tonight.

Tuesday, December 3/2013

Temperature plunge - yes, I know, not by Canadian standards.but about 10 degrees when we get up and very strong winds. Much warmer than we remember it 10? years ago, though, when it kept snowing and we decided it was time to go to Cyprus. Tomorrow to Crete. We buy the tickets at the metro station from the machine. It has both Greek and English instructions. The seniors' tickets are half price but you're warned to carry ID. Actually, there are few checks on the Greek metro and there is no difficulty in boarding without a ticket, but there are spot checks and apparently major fines for fare evasion.

Monday, December 2/2013

Interesting to look at Athens from the point of view of New York's experience. Unscientific observation here shows quite a lot of neighbourhood deterioration over the last 10 years - unrepaired buildings, much more (and less artistic) graffiti, presence of squatters, etc. The broken window theory suggests that dealing immediately with petty crimes and socially undesirable behaviour prevents escalation, and was the basis for New York's zero tolerance policy. After its implementation crime rates fell significantly and continued to fall for 10 years. On the other hand, unemployment fell by 39% over the same period. In Greece unemployment is 27.3% - youth unemployment nearly 65%.

Sunday, December 1/2013

The forecast is for rain so we take our umbrellas with us to the new Acropolis Museum. It's impressive - big and so shiny new that the marble approach is near lethal when wet. Technologically modern too. For a modest €5 you get a ticket with a bar code scannable at the entry barrier.

The first pediment we see is actually a bit of a disappointment. Close up, the figures are actually a bit rough and crude. And of course we've just come from a London visit to the Elgin marbles at the British Museum, a much larger collection than is here. An injustice not lost on the Greeks, as the short historical film on the acropolis depicts Lord Elgin as a vandal, although it also shows earlier Christians destroying "pagan" parthenon friezes with a self-righteous fury worthy of the Taliban (a portrayal that has occasioned protests from the Orthodox Church).  Most of the artefacts are a impressive, particularly because they are displayed on pedestals that can be completely circled, allowing you to lean in as closely as you like. Four of the six caryatids from the erechtheon are here, one nearly faceless - and missing other vital bits as well. A fifth is hidden behind screens, where it is the object of laser based restoration techniques.band number six resides at the British Museum. 

The museum cafe is a  pleasure too. It's large and glassed in and we stop for a Greek coffee there, sitting by the window with an excellent view of the (back) side of the acropolis.  

And before we leave we spot, almost accidentally, a brilliant little animated film on the history of the acropolis. It's witty in an almost Pythonesque way, with terrific visuals. Kudos to the producers!

Saturday, November 30/2013

Wander north of Omonia, in territory we used to frequent in the early years of retirement. This area too has seen decline, and quite a few businesses are closed. It's a mixed neighbourhood, with businesses increasingly mixed with residential quarters as one moves east. 

The youth hostel is on Victor Hugo Street, and we stayed there several times, most recently nine or ten years ago. We've heard that it has been completely renovated. This seems to be an overstatement. It's been privatised and given a lick of paint and bright new coverlets, as well as wifi. It has also lost its cafeteria, situated in a classic building across the road and gained much higher rates than we're paying for a hotel that includes  breakfast. We remember the main receptionist from the old days - a bit of a dragon lady then, but with kindness beneath the exterior. Now she's nearing retirement and reflective. The hostel isn't the same as when it was non-profit; it's a different philosophy. And Athens? As you see, it's suffered. Optimistic? Well, things will get worse before they get better. Originally German, she has a slightly more unemotional view of the situation. Things had to change: there were people collecting two pensions, people who could not read or write given sinecures with no duties, tax evasion, laundered money. Yes, Athenians still go for coffee - they would do that whether they could afford to or not. It's the culture. And the very rich are so hard to touch: they just move the money and maybe jobs as well. 

Friday, November 29/2013

More people watching in Athens. This time in Monastiraki we're watching the watchers. There's a wood and concrete structure at the north end of the square that could serve as either stage or bleachers. Right now it's occupied by a group of what looks like regulars. Actually a bit of a community, judging by sharing of cigarettes and concern when one man twists his leg. It's a mixed group, with more men than women; some young but many middle-aged. Mostly unemployed? A man, not of the community, goes by begging, without much success. He gets even shorter shrift when he tries his pitch on two Orthodox priests walking along Ermou Street. Today the centre of the square becomes theatre in the round, as a few lads show off their acrobatic routine. There's also a man with a unicycle, but his act is a bit lame - he expects applause for not falling off, a feat he can't always manage.

Zinonos Street, near Omonia Square, provides constant entertainment as well. It's definitely down on its luck, though a couple of expensive jewellery stores attest to a more affluent past. None of the well-heeled shoppers of Ermou Street here. But it's a rough, brave and vibrant community. Most of the people working or shopping on it are clearly local and they know each other well. Probably few own cars - the little shops sell fruit at a hundred percent above main market prices and can only be selling to neighbourhood residents who buy in small quantities and are ill-equipped for a major shopping expedition at any distance. The clothing too commands a premium, but less of one. Still, day or night the street is busy; bargaining, squabbling, joking, sharing a beer or a coffee. We overlook it from one side. From the other it's watched by a multistory building that has seen much better days. There's a clothing shop and a little cafe with orange tables and not a lot of business. It's a building that has spent the last ten years or more running downhill. A number of flats are occupied, with laundry hung outside in bunches that suggest lack of both female presence and clothespins. One apartment is missing a bit of wall, the deficiency covered by a pink quilt. A squat or can someone actually charge rent for it? Tough times, and if they don't fully extend to our side of the street, the fear of descent into third world is everywhere.

Round the corner we stop at a tiny cafe for a light supper - two Armenian (read minced lamb meatball) gyros and a half litre of house wine (vin tres ordinaire, but ok). The gyros are good, and we're full - at €4.70 (£3.95, $6.75 CAD). Well, that's the price it would have been if we hadn't asked for ketchup, which we got for an extra euro - nearly half the price of a half litre of wine!

Wednesday, November 27/2013

On the road again - or more accurately in the air. Noon flight to Athens. Leave a bit late and two hours time change, so half past six into Athens, and dark. We make the 19:03 metro into the city. The lady at the terminal is happy to sell us half price seniors' tickets. Doesn't ask to see the passports - maybe I should be offended. J has an interesting talk with a (mid-forties?) Greek man on the way in. J asks about the situation in Greece: yes, things are difficult but he is, surprisingly, fairly optimistic. He himself was laid off by a large industrial company and now is trying to put a new life together, working for himself. His mother is partly paralysed. Yes, medical care is free - if you wait for months. Education is free.

 Omonia Square is our stop, and quite near the hotel. It has a rather seedy reputation, but the reality at 8 pm seems more seedy than dangerous. There are little shops still open and helpful locals on the streets. Our memorised version of the map proves fairly reliable. The hotel itself was booked through Alpharooms, which we've used in the past. The two complaints from the reviews were about the neighbourhood - which seems to be basically safe (except perhaps late at night), if unaesthetic - and the basic character of the breakfasts. The receptionist is friendly and the hotel as clean as the reviewers said. The wifi works after a little hesitation (and in our room not just the lobby!) and the tv produces the sound for BBC World, with promises from the receptionist that this will be accompanied by the picture in the morning. We're happy.

Tuesday, November 26/2013

Last day. Will they miss us at Starbucks and however did we travel before wifi? Actually, I remember in our pre-netbook days (to say nothing of pre-tablet days) when we used to go down to Earl's Court in London and pay our pound for an hour's worth of time on a grotty computer in a room crammed with backpackers - and congratulate ourselves for having begun our travels in the high tech age. Now absence of wifi is almost a deal breaker, although not in London where we have an amazing deal without.

Side note on London. So many places where clerical staff are gratuitously kind. Especially  at libraries, theatres, museums, where they go out of their way to be helpful and actually acts like they care about how things have worked out. Think for example of the girl at the Barbican Library who, with some difficulty, found me a spot in the music department last spring where I could get wifi access to set up a new ipad mini. And even the postal clerk today who finished the transaction by telling me to take care - yes, a catchphrase, but a happy one.

Monday, November 25/2013

Starbucks fairly full so a man with a rather large face takes the chair on the opposite side of our little table. Not sure whether the difficulty is neurological or psychological but his jaw works violently and continuously. And rather in our faces. That's a little disconcerting but the unnerving bit is that he is consuming what appears to be medication from a blister pack at a rapid rate. Could be lemon drops I suppose but doesn't look much like it. So I start to wonder what, if anything, I will do if this induces seizures, coma, sudden death. Sudden death, of course, the simplest to deal with. I'm a medical coward: when in doubt summon a barista. 

To Thames Ditton in the afternoon to visit Jenny and Doug and assembled family. Twelve of us round the table and they among the very few we know who can easily accommodate twelve round their dining table. Jasmine and Leila there first, Jasmine very proud of her school uniform and the gold star pinned to it (given for kindness). Cody the same age as Jasmine (4) and a comedian. Lovely sense of timing and feigned unawarenhess of audience. Leila (2) no longer a baby at all and well aware of her audience as well. Jenny just back on Friday from two weeks in Vietnam. Try to get a sense from her photos of  how much it has changed since we honeymooned there twenty years ago.

Sunday, November 24/2013

Chilly but dry. Indoor day for us, though. We're back in the early afternoon to watch the last F1 race of the year, the Brazilian Grand Prix. The championship has already been decided and Vettel covers himself with more glory. It's also Mark Webber's last career race, and lots of emotion there. And in Canada it's Grey Cup day - and much chillier in Regina.

Saturday, November 23/2013

Out to West Harrow in the afternoon to see Jean. Good visit and lovely Sri Lankan curry meal. J has ordered two of Taleb's books from Amazon and they're here, fortunately lighter paperbacks than we'd expected. Jean has stories of her neighbour's hundredth birthday - longevity down to daily luncheon martini? Certainly the photo shows a woman looking much younger. Shanthi joins us for the meal, delayed a little because she is duty magistrate for the weekend and has spent the day in court, habeas corpus eing taken seriously in these parts. In theory she does this two days a week and works at the Department of Justice the other three, but as is the way with part-time jobs the sum of the parts seems to be more than one whole.

Friday, November 22/2013

To the London School of Economics for one last lecture. This one by Lina Sinjab, BBC Syrian correspondent. She's speaking particularly about the hope provided by civil society in Syria at present. Almost 50% of Syrian children have dropped out of school, but Sinjab talks of the women who are responding to crisis by teaching children or giving medical help or forming home handicraft groups. We're most impressed by the people who have come to listen, most of whom have spent time in Syria - reporters, a man from the foreign office, middle east researchers. They all appear to be here on their own time, on a Friday night.

Thursday, November 21/2013

To Trafalgar Square after Starbucks. We hit it as there's a big promotion for naturally raised British pork. They're giving away pork-topped tacos and actually do hand out something like 4000 of them. We arrive exactly ahead as they're giving away the last two - by this time their vegetarian option with beans, onion and mushrooms, which is fine with us, in fact delicious. 

The Portrait Gallery is just off Trafalgar and one of our favourite spots. This time we concentrate on the 20th century portraits, which have changed more than the Tudors since our last visit, not surprisingly. I'm interested in a painting by Boshier of a fellow artist (not least because the sitter reminds me of Mike Duffy). Heavy use of palate knife and two overlapping faces. Boshier's comment is that one should only paint portraits when the sitter is not present - otherwise one paints only "physiology" rather than character. This subject, he says, had two aspects to his character. On the way out we visit the Epstein collection. As well as the busts (first time I realised Lucian Freud was, briefly, Epstein's son-in-law) there is a Karsh photograph of Epstein. Actually our family could have had a Karsh. My grandfather knew him when he was young "Joe"Karsh, the photographer, and kept intending to get him to photograph my mother and her sister - I think largely to help give his career a start.

Our last (probably) visit to Roses Restaurant this trip. (No, there's no apostrophe. The logo shows flowers). We've picked Thursday because they do the best lamb kleftiko we've tasted, in our outside of Cyprus. (Photo of the lamb instead of the Boshier or an Epstein bust is not because we are obsessed with food - although we do like it - but because the Portrait Gallery won't let us take pictures and the restaurant will. There's entertainment too, as well as good food. The man at the next table is a pontificator who is instructing his wife. Her answers are inaudible, or maybe she's learned not to bother. He tells her that electricity is ridiculously expensive and they must boycott. I mean it: DO NOT turn on the electricity. His solution is to go out to eat, and in fact they order one cup of tea, "to share," with their meals. Interesting because food is actually cheaper in the UK than in Canada, witness the fascinating eating-on-a-benefits-budget blog and Facebook page  A Girl Called Jack, as well as our own experience. Accommodation isn't cheaper but food - and wine - is. It's impossible to believe that judicious shopping at Sainsbury's or Tesco or Aldi's and a thermostat set moderately low wouldn't be cheaper than eating out. Electricity also is cheaper in the UK than in Ontario. I'm tempted to provide unsolicited advice but am fortunately prevented by my role as eavesdropper.

Wednesday, November 20/2013

To the British Museum. There's always so much to see that we usually choose one exhibit or one or two galleries and focus there. This time we're anticipating being in Greece in a week's time, and much of the best of Greece's history is in the British Museum, to the fury of many Greeks. I have more than mixed feelings about this though. Lord Elgin arguably came by the marbles honourably; he didn't smuggle them out of the country. They've undoubtedly been better preserved by the British than they would have been in Greece, especially in pre-EU days. Besides, it's so limiting to suggest that countries should only display artefacts of local or national origin. No Renaissance paintings in North America, no inuit sculptures in the UK, etc.

The British Museum is quite near the London School of Economics, where we're headed. It's even closer to the Mary Ward adult education centre, which is a handy place for supper. The centre provides a variety of courses and opportunities, particularly in the fine arts. Some of it very practical, such as help in setting up websites. The little cafe has paintings on the wall and a choice of gourmet vegetarian dishes, the most expensive main course at £4.40 ($7.35 CAD). Some of them are pretty to look at too. 

The presentation at the LSE is by Professor Mike Savage. It's based on the results of the recent UK class affiliation survey as published by the BBC. I thought then (and yes, I did do the questionnaire) that it was superficial, arbitrary, and flaky, reminiscent of the surveys in popular women's magazines and, I thought, biased in favour of urban dwellers, youth and extroverts. I have most of the same thoughts listening now, though J, who has not had the disadvantage of previous exposure, is less irritated. On the other hand, the woman who responds to the presentation, Professor Bev Skeggs, is sharp, funny, and basically sound - and unwilling to undertake a serious discussion of class without mention of capital or labour. Well, OK, perhaps Marxist, but you can disagree with Marx without going all teen mag. And I mellow afterward because the speaker's inaugural lecture is being rewarded with a drinks reception and wine is a great defuser.

Tuesday, November 19/2013

To the Science Museum in Kensington. We're here to see the exhibition on 3-D printing. It's a bit underwhelming though. Too many words and pictures and too few actual 3-D artefacts. Some pretty interesting concepts all the same. Over five and a half million people have been given 3-D printed implants and body parts. Not everything printed has to be plastic either. Biological materials and even living human cells can be used and it's possible to do very accurate custom adjustments.

Some of the historic exhibits are actually more satisfying though, because there's more to see. For example Robert Stephenson's locomotive:

It has an interesting history:

Dinner at Mamuska's Polish restaurant, far southern end of the Bakerloo line. Menu very Polish (although bilingually written). Cafeteria style setting but friendly service, sense of humour, and large portions of comfort  food - cabbage rolls, pyrogies, sausage, potato pancakes, etc.

Monday, November 18/2013

Our location is perfect. Just off vibrant Queensway and near two tube stations. The only downside is that the neighbourhood, while alive and multi-ethnic, is a bit too touristy- and that drives the prices up.  It's not upscale by any means, but the shops, pubs and cafes in Kilburn, much of the east end, and even Camden Town, are cheaper and more likely to be family owned than they arehere in Bayswater. Sparkly too at night, and darkness comes early at this latitude. But food, whether discount supermarket or ethnic shop are better in Kilburn High Road or Chapel Market or Brixton.

Queensway, 8:30 PM:

Sunday. November 17/2013

To Westminster Cathedral for the 10:30 Mass with full choir including the boy sopranos from the choir school. Always incredibly beautiful. And usually standing room only. The building is 19th century red brick and not overwhelming from the outside, but its Byzantine style interior is impressive and looks older than it is, all marble and mosaic.

Back to Kilburn High Road for dinner. It's real in a slightly rough, multicultural way, much the way Queensway used to be twenty-five years ago. And it lacks Queensway's tourists, which makes it a little less crowded and does wonders in keeping the prices down.

Saturday, November 16/2013

Qualifying for the American Grand Prix not on at at 10:30 as listed, and when we think about it it's pretty obvious the listing would have been wrong. Why would there be pre-dawn qualifying in Texas for a race?

Take the Bakerloo line over to Waterloo. Makes it twenty minutes from Bayswater, so a definite keeper. This time the South Bank almost too crowded to move. A market on behind the Royal Festival Hall with an impressive variety of stalls. Ethnic foods of all kinds and even pork cut from an entire free range pig. Mulled wine with brandy. Hard to imagine anyone being allowed to drink in Ontario without being practically glued to the chair in a roped off area, which is pretty embarrassing actually. If people in London, and most of the rest of the world for that matter, can drink whilst walking without starting fights, vomiting, vandalising, etc. presumably Ontarians could manage the same with a little practice. Must be something hazardous we're up to though. Helicopters patrol the Thames continuously, and it's not just today so it can't be as part of a particular diplomatic event.

Elephant and Castle is the end of the Bakerloo line, a couple of stops past Waterloo. Relatively seedy area in the past, but seems now to be in the midst of some large scale renewal. It's a multi-ethnic area, and if we hadn't noticed the Tesco would have been a dead giveaway. All the usual supermarket offerings but also such exotica as huge five kilo bags of pounded yams (pounded to a powder) and Nigerian grown beans. Upstairs in the same mall is Mamuska, a Polish restaurant that looks fairly basic but has been reviewed frequently and enthusiastically. We don't sample the wares this time though, because we're off to the Indian Veg for our Saturday evening buffet.

Indian Veg, near Angel tube station, is our favourite standby, and we're prepared for their happy no corkage policy with (refilled) plastic wine bottles from the flight over, light and handy for supper when called for. It's Saturday busy, but the food is good as ever and they can always squeeze in two more for the vegetarian buffet. Definite second helpings.

Friday, November 15/2013

The Saatchi Gallery is holding previews of its new exhibits. It says for its Facebook fans, and that is indeed how we found out, but one assumes that the exhibit is simply open to the general public before any formal opening ceremony. The Saatchi is always worth a visit. The offerings are uneven, but they're often intriguing and the best shows are excellent. It's actually a much braver gallery than the Tate Modern.

Today I'm most interested in a set of large paintings by a young American, Michael Cline. The large canvasses lead to highly disturbing speculation and narrative, at odds with the innocent blandness of the style. The subject matter is horrific: the room for rent appears to be a cardboard box, a struggle is taking place over a body lying underneath police tape, police arrive in a room where one person is dead and the others eerily, corruptly unconcerned. 

These are not the only disturbing works on display. A whole gallery features nameless wooden grave markers and slick paintings by Russian Denis Tarasov of gravestones bearing full length portraits of the dead, most of whom have died unnaturally young. And then there is the unnaturally flattened body, entitled "Crush" lying in the corner of a room that features a major construction illustrating vandalism.

Then a trip out to Hammersmith to check out the Polish Cultural Centre. There is a small exhibit of paintings there as well, featuring four young Polish painters, and J picks up a couple of Polish magazines while we're there.

Thursday, November 14/2013

A white Lamborghini of breathtakingly futuristic design is parked in Queensway, not very near the curb and more or less impeding traffic. Licence plates not UK but not diplomatic either. Arabic numbers on top and regular ones underneath. Easier to understand the sense of entitlement with a car like that than to fathom why the owner was oblivious to possible damage to his own vehicle so imprudently positioned.

A brief visit to the British Library. Spend a little time with the Magna Carta exhibition. There.s also a small display of children's book illustrations. Actually, I'm most taken with a little book in the shop featuring quirky places to see in London, but unwilling to spend £11 ($18.35 CAD) adding a non-electronic book to my suitcase. 

Supper at the little cafe at the Mary Ward Centre, an adult education facility. It's an easy walk from the British Library but a bit awkward to find, hidden behind Clerkenwell Road. A lovely little find, though. Gourmet quality vegetarian food at student prices. J has a lentil and vegetable stew and I celeriac and mushroom pie with rice and cheese topping. We share a green salad. Delicious.

Our final stop is at the London School of Economics for a lecture (passing on the way our second interesting car of the day, a GWiz electric at a free charging point - electric cars are also exempt from the daily congestion charge for driving in central London). 

The speaker is Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Professor at Harvard and former minister in the da Silva government in Brasil. The event is being broadcast for BBC Radio 4, and it's very interesting. Unger's vision is of a society that moves beyond the "poisonous" confines of economic nationalism: It's intolerable that we should embrace globalisation where goods  and money are free to move but people are imprisoned within the nation state. He sees a world in which each adult is responsible not only for a productive job but for caring for someone outside his or her own family and insists that this is not an impractical utopian ideal but a way of life that would be embraced for the deep satisfaction it provides. The proposals, he says, don't depend on the view that we can radically change ourselves. We want ordinary activity gradually to expand. For example, suicide dropped during WW II and rose afterward because people were engaged in something bigger than themselves. We want that enlargement not only in crisis: nobody who has tasted a larger life will want to abandon it.

Wednesday. November, 13/2013

South Bank again and Tate Modern. The gallery is being renovated and expanded on a large scale, so there's no exhibition in the turbine hall and won't be until some time next year. There is a Paul Klee exhibit on, but we're reluctant to come up with the £16 each ($26.70 CAD) to see it and settle for some of the free galleries. Interesting photographs by Syrian born Hrair Sarkissian, who displays a set of pictures of squares in Syria that have been used for executions. The forty year old photographer says that executions were usually held about dawn but bodies left until nine or so, and he can remember seeing some hanging once as he walked to school. The photos are themselves taken at about 4:30 AM, and the squares are peaceful but....

Then back to Kilburn High Road, where we end up having supper at The Bell. Their seafood and chips basket, two for £7 ($11.70 CAD). Along with a pint of bitter each, it's comfort food, if not health food. The pub itself is rough and ready, with a regular clientele that provides plenty of unscripted entertainment. Though you're best seated well away from the loos if you don't want to find yourself thinking of cat boxes. I'm assuming those at the bar have had a great deal more to drink than we have, though they're probably more extrovert to begin with. The colours are nailed to the wall, in the form of a huge poster in support of Celtic football team, a reminder that Kilburn was once mainly Irish, though it's now largely West Indian and Asian. The conversation would make for good theatre of the absurd: a long dialogue about having a bath, with many reminders that nakedness is not sufficient - it 's also necessary to run the water. And there's song as well: a bit of Don't Cry for me Argentina, sung by a Caribbean man of indeterminate age. As we came in a customer was being loudly ordered out, but this turned out to be another patron's wish and not management edict. It's pretty friendly though, and I ask J if ut reminds him of Winnipeg's North Main in his student days.

Tuesday, November 12/2013

To Canada House, our High Commission for a discussion between Canadian journalist Doug Saunders (Globe and Mail, etc) and British journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown on the subject of the myth of the Muslim tide, also the title of Saunders' latest book. We're lucky to have noticed it was on, lucky in that Saunders is one of the journos we follow on Twitter and he referenced it. So we emailed our request to the government and were duly informed that our names had been added to the list. We've often been to Canada House before, mostly in the old days to check our email and once, during the volcanic eruption no-fly time to be provided with rather superior biscuits and lukewarm advice, as well as internet access. This is a rather better part of the building, still undergoing lengthy renovations and expansion than we've been invited to visit before. It's the same location on Trafalgar Square, but this time we're taken upstairs to reception rooms with leather furniture and served wine as we wait for the discussion to begin (although it's still impossible not to think that for less than $10,000 we could do considerably better for them in the way of Canadian art for the walls).

The talk is a bit late starting but the time happily filled chatting, in part with Rouben Khatchadourian, political affairs counsellor at the High Commission. He's had various Middle East postings following a military career that took him to Bosnia and has a quiet, modest style and a commitment to the low key work of diplomacy that lasts beyond the length of a single parliament. 

The discussion is interesting and works quite well unmoderated. Doug's basic thesis, backed up by many stats, is that there is no tide of "them" taking over "us". Numbers of Islamic immigrants are not enormous, most don't come from poor and overcrowded areas, and high percentages are well educated, committed to their adoptive countries and (within a generation) fairly typical citizens of their new homes in all respects including birth rates. Yasmin is, as always, more scattered and more passionate, equally distressed by racism in the west and by western over-optimistic tolerance of practices she regards as dangerous, such as the wearing of the hijab. Her point is that the growing insistence on having small children wear it is essentially a form of sexualising them. It's an interesting and valid point, but I can't help feeling some reluctance at the idea of identifying an ideal and then insisting that everyone adopt it. And there are practical difficulties. What precisely is a hijab, and will the queen be forbidden to wear a kerchief to the racetrack? There also seems to be no sense that there may be a protective social value in pluralism. Societies can go rogue and secularism is neither value free nor inevitably positive. Provocative though.

Monday, November 11/2013

There seems to be a steady trade in umbrellas, trade being the operative word. They're for sale at little shops all along the high street for £3 ($5 CAD). But only in a downpour should one pay that, because pound shops sell identical ones for only £1. Still, trade is what we seem to do - leave one on a bus, find one on a train. Sometimes trading up and sometimes down. The best of them I lost in Paphos, of all places, last year. We're one up at the moment, having found an extra on a District tube carriage Saturday, but it may not last. Nothing wrong with the umbrella, but they do tend to take their leave.

Remembrance Day, but we're in Starbucks at eleven, and if there's silence it's accidental.

To the Museum of London for a Gresham lecture, this one entitled "Is Man Just Another Animal." Steve Jones, the presenter, is an appealing personality, and entertaining as well as informative, with a gift for putting information in perspective. We may share 95% of our DNA with chimps but we share 50% with bananas. The differences are significant. We are the only primates unable to survive on raw food alone, requiring cooking to compensate for short intestines, small mouths, reduced teeth and a modest stomach. Those who try to survive on raw food alone eventually starve - a man does not live on what he eats but on what he digests. Only in brain size do humans come off superior to the other primates. But human brain size is smaller than that of Neanderthals and no larger than it was 100,000 years ago. 

Back to Kilburn High Road for dinner - our first time at Roses this trip. It's always good comfort food at prices the fast food places along the road can scarcely match, and always locals eating there. We start with large bowls of potato leek soup. Then I have roast lamb, roast potatoes and gravy, and J fish and chips. They do fish better than any other place we know, the perfectly cooked fillet longer than the ample plate. 

Program on telly tonight on speeches that shook the world. Most original hint (used by Enoch Powell amongst others): don't pee before you deliver the speech - it provides that extra sense of urgency.

Sunday, November 10/2013

Stroll along Bayswater Road for the weekly Sunday art display, a mile or so of mostly paintings hung on the fence that marks the north side of Hyde Park. Some are clearly for the tourist market - sketches of Tower Bridge or Big Ben - but there's quite a stylistic variety as well as a range of quality. And wit - a portrait of Her Majesty reading The Racing Post, cigarette grimly held between clenched teeth. We're charmed by a bright composite of central London with the iconic spots juggling for space like the illustrations in a child's book, and chat with the artist about travel as a way of life. I've been remembering the first time I came here on a Sunday nearly twenty-five years ago and was captivated by the work of a young Polish Englishman - and suddenly spot works that I'm sure are his. Wenczka - that must be the name. It is.

Then a walk along the South Bank, also Sunday busy. They're building little wooden kiosks, happily Christmassy, along the pavement. It's reminiscent of the frost fairs held on the ice centuries ago when the Thames froze over, though the crowds then were Londoners and most of these people aren't. Westminster Bridge is almost clogged with camera wielding tourists.

Last stop is Greenwich, at Goddard's Pie Shop (established 1890 but sadly relocated a couple of years ago to a rather less charming building a block or so away from its original home). The crumbles are still large and delicious and overflowing with custard, though (£2.90). Their specialities are pies - steak and kidney, chicken, mushroom, etc - and eels, but having no room for two courses we're always forced to choose, and opt this time for apple and black currant crumbles.

Saturday, November 10/2013

To Somerset House for an exhibition,

linked vaguely to next year's hundredth anniversary of the beginning of WWI. Somerset House itself initially difficult to access, as the Strand is closed fore annual Lord Mayor's Procession - an impressive affair with ancient coach, and guilds and much period costuming. We only catch a glimpse. The Worshipful Company of Joiners and Ceilers. What on earth are ceilers? All very cheerful.

Stanley Spencer, eccentric painter, near mystic, and sometime war artist is featured in a collection of war paintings completed between 1927 and 1932 and showing scenes of ordinary, even domestic, military life, based on Spencer's experiences in Macedonia and at Beaufort Military Hospital - scenes including daily routines like sorting laundry and filling water bottles. The paintings are normally housed at Sandham Memorial Chapel, purpose built for Spencer's work. The major piece in the chapel is The Resurrection of the Soldiers, a vision of the end of the war in which heaven has emerged from hell and stunned, rather than ecstatic, soldiers are rising from the subterranean. It's reminiscent of the resurrection painting at Cookham parish church in Spencer's home village, where recognisable local residents are shown stumbling from their graves on the day of judgement. A painting we saw on a day trip to Cookham a few years ago.

Supper at The Indian Veg, our standby vegan buffet. The food is as good as ever, probably a little better, but nothing remains the same forever. After years of serving an eat-what-you-like meal for £4.99, they've gone to £5.50. Still an incredible bargain, and no charge for bringing your own wine or beer.

Friday, November 8/2013

Bit of puttering along Kilburn High Road and then over to Bishopsgate to see Owen Jones interview Tony Benn about the last of his many diaries - A Blaze of Autumn Sunshine. We're lucky to get a train as there's been a fire in one of the stations and somebody under a train at Victoria (an almost daily occurrence), causing major delays. As it happens, though, we're in plenty of time, largely because I have mistakenly written down six instead of seven as the starting time, which gives us front row seats.

Benn is in good form for an increasingly frail man of eighty-eight. He has had a long and  honourable career as a Labour MP (fifty years in the House of Commons, for which he gave up a peerage), a campaigner for social justice and against war, and a compelling speaker and political diarist. In his prime there was nobody to match him in the last categories, and it is to his credit that so uncompromising a socialist maintained friendships with people of all walks of life and political persuasions, from Billy Bragg to former Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath.

Physically Benn is showing his age, but he's sharp, and is, of course, delivering narratives and analyses that he has formulated well already - probably in the same words. So when Jones suggests that in his old age some may have recast Benn as a grandfatherly character rather than a major dissident - a harmless, kindly old gentleman - the reply is immediate and practised: I am kindly, I am old, I could be a gentleman - but I'm not harmless. And he's comfortable with the thought of death (a great adventure) and with a religious framework, though he's no longer orthodox in belief. Of the Old Testament he says "My mother taught me that the kings had the power and the prophets had the righteousness - and I believed her and it's got me into a lot of trouble".

Jones does a lovely job of shepherding - compensating for Benn's deafness by fielding and rephrasing questions from the audience and shaping the interview with an attractive energy and wit. He's got a book of his own for sale too - Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class. Very tempting, but books are heavy and for the first time we're travelling entirely electronically. 

So happy to have finally gone to one of Benn's events. There may not be many left.

Should have been bedtime at midnight but Deric Longden's film, Lost for Words, starring the incomparable late Thora Hird, another national treasure, is on the telly. We've seen it before, but it's brilliant, if sad, and we can't resist. Is the other star, Peter Postlethwaite, gone now too? Yes. And so, this summer, is Longden, the script writer. We must be getting old.

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Out to West Harrow to see Jean - timing influenced by the fact that we've had Bishopsgate Institute mail her our tickets for tomorrow night when Owen Jones will be interviewing Tony Benn on the last of his published diaries. Benn says it's the last, not just the latest, and as he's eighty-eight now he's entitled to a retirement that he doesn't seem inclined to subside into. In fact he decided not to stand again for parliament in 2001 after spending over fifty years as a Labour MP - very much Old Labour and not New Labour - saying he wanted to have more time for politics. Fortunately we bought the tickets online weeks ago, as the event is sold out. Benn's diaries rank among the best political diaries and many of non-Labour political persuasion still remember him as the best political speaker they ever heard.

Lunch with Jean, whom we last saw, briefly, in New Brunswick in September, and, as always, four hours of talk passes almost instantly. 

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Despite a slow start, we arrive early and circle London until it's six a.m. And we can legally land - first in the queue. Tube to Bayswater and a slow coffee and internet stop at Starbucks to allow the little hotel time to have a room ready. Starbucks has done some room changing. Gone is the seedy and probably unhygienic comfort of the basement cave. All clean, square, desk-like little wooden tables. Neat and cold. Same friendly staff but gone too are the characters - the man who brought his own toast and the mentally afflicted man who sat for hours with a single cup off tea his ticket to warmth. Gone where? Miss the cosy muddle.

Small jetlag nap and then out to Camden High Street. By half past three it's getting dark. So much farther north than Winnipeg.

BBC announces that Yasser Arafat may have been poisoned, while Al Jazeera says almost certainly poisoned - 83% probability. Interestingly they're both reporting on the same set of findings by a Swiss forensic team and choosing totally different quotations from the findings. The BBC feels obliged to point out that the polonium poisoning verdict was one that Arafat's wife would have wanted. Undoubtedly true, but irrelevant, one would have thought, to the findings of the (presumably unbiased) Swiss team.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Bus from St Vital to Winnipeg airport, where I pick up two cups of coffee from Starbucks. The girl asks if I want a receipt. Must have mistaken me for a senator. 

The flight to London is completely full as they've cancelled a direct flight from Calgary and added the resulting bodies to our flight. Seems to happen increasingly with Air Canada - reminiscent of China twenty-five years ago. The food is deteriorating as well. Do Air Canada's caterers ever actually eat their own offerings? Salad involving dark yellow kernels of corn and pale yellow (once green?) leaves of cabbage in a container with no actual dressing but a little water in the bottom. The container itself is about two and a half inches squared, which is more than enough. Maybe they look at the uneaten portions and conclude that nobody eats salad so they needn't bother. Fortunately the wine is quite adequate.

Read, electronically, the whole of James Bartleman's memoir of a childhood in the other Muskoka, the one inhabited not by wealthy holiday makers and cottage owners but by day labourers living hand to mouth and natives existing on the fringes of white society. It's funny and moving and inspiring. Partly the story of any boy growing up in a northern Ontario town in the forties and fifties - fishing and reading comic books and splitting firewood, partly social commentary, and partly the account of a boy of imagination abd vision and integrity - and luck - who went from an uninsulated shack and half-breed status to the lieutenant governor's residence.  Called Raisin Wine in honour of Bartleman's father's favourite home brew production.

Tuesday, April 23/2013

Shakespeare's birthday and the Feast of St George. Only in the year of volcanic ash were we here this late. And today it's spring - warm and flowery and alive - so off we go to Canada tomorrow, to the land of endless snow.

Monday, April 22/2013

Second visit to Autograf, the wonderful Polish restaurant in Tottenham. More perogies, cabbage rolls (this time with mushroom sauce - a good idea) and goulash. Probably the only people in the restaurant who ordered in English - although even with us there were a few words of Polish thrown in.

Sunday, April 21/2013

Meet Jean and Shanthi for lunch at a little cafeteria serving Malaysian students. To prevent its being swamped by tourists and non-Malaysian students, admission is accorded to those speaking a Malaysian language and their group. So Shanthi is our admission card. Interesting food, and quite a variety for such a small space. Jean says it reminds her of the food they ate when she was teaching in Singapore. So we have curries, brinjal, samosas, sweets, ginger tea. Very nice. London is such a rich place culturally.

Saturday, April 20/2013

Rubens Ceiling centre panel

Third time lucky - Banqueting House is open, as promised on website, finally prudently consulted. Very interesting. The execution spot of Charles I. We've often wondered at which window, and there is a bit of uncertainty, in part due to some rebuilding. Despite the name, the banqueting house was largely used as a reception place for foreign dignitaries, the Rubens ceiling intended to impress - and no doubt succeeding. Charles I was beheaded on a scaffold outside the window, and always makes me think of the line from Macbeth - nothing in his life became him like the leaving it (said of the previous Thane of Cawdor, not Macbeth). Charles prorogued parliament for years (sound familiar?) and insisted on the divine right of kings, but he died bravely, wearing a warm shirt lest his shivering be mistaken for fear. One can only imagine his children, aged nine and thirteen, being sent in the morning to say good-bye to him - horrific for both parties.

Friday, April 19/2013

Attempt number two at the Banqueting House. Closed again. But you said yesterday it would be open today. So it was - until one o'clock. Fortunately the National Gallery is nearby. Head toward a room that promises a Hogarth. It does have one not-particularly-interesting Hogarth. But also a great horse by Stubbs. It's prancing and magnificent and must have been quite hard to do, in that there would  have been no photographs at the time and no possibility of asking the horse to pose mid-prance. Contrast with a large painting by Van Dyke showing Charles I, easily recognisable from the next room, on a horse that is hideously disproportionate, and not, one assumes, for any symbolic reason. Maybe court painters just aren't willing to say that they don't do horses.

Thursday, April 18/2013

Serendipitous day. The plan was to go to the Banqueting House, scene of Charles I's execution. Should have googled first, of course. It is closed for some function. We'd planned to be indoors because heavy showers were expected, and as we walk down the Strand they arrive following great gusts of wind (also predicted and the reason we haven't bothered with umbrellas). Shelter for a bit in the doorway of a coffee shop and then hop a bus that's going a long way. Actually West Hampstead. By which time we've had a rethink and take the tube one stop over to our usual favourite spot - Kilburn High Road. Lots of browsing along the charity shops (rain stopped by now). We're thinking dinner when we remember that Roses has lamb kleftiko as its Thursday night special. That seals it. And happily so, because it's the best lamb kleftiko either of us has ever tasted - butter soft and folding back from the leg bone as it's done to total perfection. Better than we've ever had in Cyprus, and, we reflect, for less money that we could possibly buy the raw lamb in Canada. So happy postponement to the Banqueting House in favour of the banquet.

Wednesday, April 17/2013

It's sunny and much warmer. Men sitting smoking shishas along Queensway. We skip the crowds for Maggie Thatcher's funeral. The funeral itself is highly controversial. A state funeral in all but name, minus the lying in state. The cost is supposed to be £10 million. Which many regard as scandalous. Others are cynical about the opportunism in a grand Conservative funeral as the coalition is faltering along with the econmy and the IMF is highly critical of the Chancellor of the Exchequer (shown in tears aat the funeral, presumably engendered by  the occasion and not the IMF). There`s an interesting question of protocol regarding the assessment of greatness. Defined by policy, by longevity, by tenure as prime minister, by international activity? Any PM who served more than ten years? If Blair were to die accidentally would he be accorded the same sort of funeral? Of course Thatcher won her war and arguably didn't start it. And who decides? Not the House in this case, but a PM who happens to be from the same party. Yes, she was the first woman prime minister. Would the apply to a first black PM? A first disabled one? The only comparable funeral was Churchill's but Churchill was much less controversial and his government, happily, a wartime National Unity government.

Speculation: Invited guests, many of them elderly, had to be in St Paul's by ten for an eleven o'clock service. And to leave their homes or hotels much earlier. How many loos are there in St Paul's and how many in the congregation went without morning coffee?

We to the National Portrait Gallery in the afternoon. Another look at the portrait of Richard III, after rereading Josephine Tey's Daughter of Time when R's body was discovered and identified this year and then visiting York on Sunday. A painting of Elizabeth I that looks like a death mask attached to the top of an elaborate dress. Presumably the sitter only had to pose while the face was being painted and the rest could be added later. In this case the shoes peep out from under the hem at an angle that seems not quite right. Also view an interesting set of busts by Epstein.

Walk down Whitehall, where there's a protest on regarding a coming execution in India. Then tube and DLR to Greenwich for our semi-annual visit to Goddard's Pie Shop (same family since 1890). Can never hold both pie and crumble (eels also available) so we now go for crumble. Today's choice apple and black currant with massive amounts of custard.

Tuesday, April 16/2013

We're not up early but get to enjoy Jasmine (4) and Leila (nearly 2) after Giles drops them off to be looked after for the day. Jasmine is very self possessed, talkative and socially adept. Leila is quieter but self-reliant in a different way, talking to herself while she plays with the toys. Interesting to watch her analysing how a toy works (some of Grandpa's genes?). She has very good fine motor co-ordination. Doug's sister Kathleen stops in with her grandson Johnny, an active, happy little boy (10 months old?).

We take train and tube back. Genie has saved us our old room and it feels like home now.Time for a little shopping in Camden Town, including a bottle of ruby cabernet which we take with us to Indian Veg, where the owner is happy to provide us with wine glasses. Good as ever.

Monday, April 15/2013

We're off and so are our very gracious and generous hosts. Phil and Elaine have a newly acquired motor home and are heading off Liverpool way to try it out and visit friends. It's both airy and compact - really nicely planned. I could quite happily live in a space like that, at least for half the year.

We stop at Leeds on our way and take a look at the house where D and J lived when their girls were little. Very nicely located in a dead end road across from parkland, and they sound a little wistful. Lovely big house too.

As we reach London, we can see that the weekend sun and warmth has done its best and cherry blossoms,magnolias, forsythia and camellias have joined the daffodils. Late but lovely.