Friday, November 28/2014

Walk up the hill to the hospice charity shop. It has tons of books as well as CDs and clothing and tables outside for coffee. And, as far as we can make out, supports the only hospice in Cyprus, one funded entirely by charitable donations and fiund raising - which has been forced to cut back its scope recently in Cyprus's economic troubles. Pleasant sunny place and definitely a good cause. Simplest solution to limited winter clothes here is to pick up a couple of extra shirts and rredonate them when we leave.

Do a little research on pigeons and can see that their prospects are not good. They normally lay two eggs, which take 18 days to hatch - by which time we'll be long gone. Worse, this is followed - obviously - by a longish period of attention to the nestlings. And the parents, having found a good nesting spot, tend to return to it in future. Seems pretty unlikely that the hotel and various occupants of this flat in the weeks to come are going to want to play host to a pigeon nursery.

Christmas tree now greets you as you enter the hotel lobby, just in time for Advent. Going to the reception/bar/dining area means going outside, past gardens and pool. Works better in Cyprus than it would in Canada, though the walkway does tend to flood briefly in heavy rain.

Thursday, November 27/2014

The luxuriant growth in the flower beds behind our block turn out to be rosemary. Got curious and pinched a little as we passed. Far too much for anyone to miss a little to be saved forvthe soup pot.

Lovely being back where oranges and lemons and tomatoes and cucumber and herbs are all fresh and abundant.

Wednesday, November 26/2014

Rain gone, though it's still pretty cloudy. Second pigeon egg in the nest this morning. Have no idea how long they take to hatch. We seem a bit undereducated for the pseudo grandparental rôle. The pigeons don't seem too bothered by our proximity - better than cats. That's good as our drying rack is on the balcony and it would be inconvenient not to be able to use it.

Tuesday, November 25/2014

Rain day, as predicted by Accuweather. Not bad, though, as we have reading to do - things we're reading separately as well as an Ian Rankin, the only non-electronic book we have with us, that we're enjoying aloud.

Also, we have a quiet drama to follow on our balcony. The balcony is small and pretty sunless, so we haven't sat out on it. Actually, we haven't even unstacked the two plastic chairs next to the little table. Only really used the place for drying clothes. But the quiet space did have its appeal, and two pigeons have taken up residence. We'd spotted them there earlier but weren't sure at first whether the pile of twigs were going to amount to anything. J was first to suspect them of nest building but they seemed lazily casual and half-hearted about it, bringing the occasional addition and then disappearing for a period. But this morning there is an egg in the little nest and the female plumply ensconced on it, though they do take turns. We had actually planned to dismantle the nest before things went this far, thinking that their long term prospects on a hotel balcony weren't too good, but we weren't quick enough about it. We're only here for another two weeks and who knows after that. The birds don't seem distressed by our presence but co-existence may be more difficult with the next guests.

J takes advantage of the little oven, a luxury not present in much of our winter accommodation, to roast a large chicken from Papantoniou. Results are beautiful, though it does seem a bit ironic to be cooking one bird while protecting a nest a few feet away.ru

Monday, November 24/2014

Walk slightly uphill (well, we're so close to the harbour that more or less everything is uphill) to the new Kings Avenue Mall. It's enormous and fairly classy, but also pretty much like any other Western mall, with the same international chains you see everywhere, like Zara, Adidas, Mango, etc. The most interesting store is simply called Public, and has a number of new Ipads at what seem initially to be good prices, and for non-EU residents leaving for non-EU destinations, such as Lebanon, there is a tax rebate which looks to be about eight and a half percent. There's also a fair sized Carrefour, more or less like the one in Larnaca, but not really as good overall as the locally owned Papantoniou across the road from us. And source, happily, of the nicest, most garlicky humus I've ever eaten. 

On the way, we pass Agia Solomoni catacomb caves, quite near the pillar where St Paul is supposed to have been tied and whipped. Remarkable largely for the number of white handkerchiefs and bits of cloth (and, sadly, plastic bags) tied to the trees in front, representing petitions. Will come back some other time to look inside.

In the lobby, after dinner in our flat, look up the municipal Paphos tourism site. Some useful, if incomplete information - for example the weekly guided walks around the historic spots appear to be free and probably quite interesting, but they also seem to cover more territory than could easily be done on foot in a half day, so more info necessary. The best of the site, though, is its entertainment value. Example:

--Intercity taxi service is offered in shared 4-to 8-seater minibuses. This service provides a connection service between all major towns at a fixed rate. As rates are not fixed, negotiating the fare before you get into a taxi is a must; otherwise you run the risk of being ripped off. 

Sunday, November 23/2014

Violent thunder storm during breakfast but quickly replaced, Mediterranean style, with full sun. More people on the street today, though not a lot of them looked like tourists. The nice mobile phone man talked about fifty businesses closed on one road, in one place 20 in a row. Our observations obviously only impressionistic, but many empty shops and business for sale signs. 

Over to the Players Pub across the road for the last Grand Prix of the season. Lewis Hamilton ahead and favoured but teammate Nico Rossberg still in contention. Football game on some screens, but 12 of us watching the race, eight men and four women. Well, three of us women watching and one busy throughout with her mobile. Could have had an F1 app, but if so it must have been much better than mine as she never looked up at the screen. Pint of Guinness each and quite a good race, with Hamilton the winner as predicted.

Booked at 5:30 for Sunday dinner at the First and Last (English) pub. Lovely meal, with the lamb shanks we pre-ordered, Yorkshire pudding, roast and mashed potatoes, and four veg. Whilst on the way to book it yesterday, we stopped to admire a pomegranate tree with dark red fruit on it like Christmas ornaments. This owner kindly gave us a pomegranate but as it was too big for my handbag and we still had errands to do, J secreted it in a hedge round the corner, planning to retrieve it on the way back. I did spot an old lady sweeping her drive nearby and we joked about her taking it. Well, on our return it was gone. Regretted the loss, but worse, began to imagine the man and woman as neighbours conversing. He: Some foreigners admired my pomegranates and I gave them one - they were so pleased. She: That's what you think - they weren't grateful at all and could hardly wait to get round the corner to throw it in my hedge.

Saturday, November 22/2014

Back up the long hill to the mobile shop, where the mobile is indeed waiting and operational. And he has removed the need for an opening code, which, like many home security systems, inconveniences the owner more than it does any half way competent thief. More than that, he has NO charge - just recommend him. We will indeed, but don't really know anyone in Pathos to recommend him to. Do, as a gesture, buy a top up card from him.

Stop on the way back at the greengrocer. We admire the live snails, buy olives, oranges, tiny aubergines and honey. Give a miss to the enormous green cabbages, more than capable of convincing anyone that babies are found under cabbage leaves and not brought by the stork.

Friday, November 21/2014

Task of the day - break in to our own mobile. Long ago - like last February - shortly before leaving Cyprus we switched mobile phone providers and acquired a new SIM card. Good reason for the change: our previous had gone to the nasty North American habit of requiring a top up every month. CYTA, our new provider, required top ups only annually. However, its SIM had a quirk of its own - a PUK (personal unlock key, PIN of sorts) that was required to unlock the phone after it had been shut down. Only inconvenient initially, but nine months later mentally irretrievable. Yes, it was written down with the initial purchase info and, actually, not thrown away. But not something that it occurred to me to bring along this winter. But we're now in Cyprus and Paphos has a CYTA office, so presumably the problem is soluble - and I can't be the first to experience it.

CYTA office is about two miles away, uphill. Well, it isn't uphill both ways. And there's a green grocer half way along that's always worth a stop. At the top of the hill, looking for final directions, we find a mobile sales and repair shop that sells CYTA products. The owner is nice in a low key way. The CYTA shop is closed - early closing on Friday - and not open on Saturday. He can probably phone through, though. But it turns out they won't release the number without more info - like the phone number, easily retrievable if we could open the phone. However our friend has a plan B, which basically consists of leaving it overnight while he hacks in - though this is not presented anything like so crudely. It will be working in the morning, 100% sure. So we leave with no phone and, actually, no receipt. In a one man shop in a country where everything is based on personal relationship it would be too rude to ask a man who has been so helpful over the past fifteen minutes to provide one. And the mobile is neither new nor smart.

Thursday, November 20/2014

Our hotel, the Daphne, is a pleasant surprise. We checked it out a couple of years ago and it seemed a little seedy then, as well as charging exorbitantly for wifi. But the location is excellent - a short block from the waterfront and across the road from the best local supermarket, Papantoniou. So, despite low expectations, we booked for three weeks anyway, since we'd been offered flat plus breakfast for a ridiculously low amount. Worth, we thought, going out for coffee or a pint daily to get a touch of free wifi. First surprise was the hotel itself. No four stars, but they've definitely been making an effort - lots of licks of paint and everything is very clean. Sparkly pool and friendly staff. AND the wifi in the lobby is free, if slow.

Second surprise is that the breakfast buffet is quite nice. Not enormous, but choices of cold cereal, boiled or fried eggs, cold meats and cheeses, tomato and cucumber and olives, sausage and bacon, baked beans, bread and rolls. And the juice is from concentrate but it IS juice and not the sugar water supplied by many classier places. So a very positive beginning. The flat is pretty good too. Bedroom, and small sitting room and kitchen. The standard two burner hot plate top but the unit has a small and extremely clean oven. TV has basic local channels (except for the mysterious lack of the government owned CYBC 2. Also Euronews English, Fox Movies, and - happily - BBC News.

Wednesday, November 19/2014

To King's Cross by tube and then train to Luton Airport. Luton is a warehouse of an airport but the EasyJet staff are friendly enough, no doubt trying to identify themselves as different from Ryan Air. Seats have a tight 29 inch pitch but for a four and a half hour flight it's not too bad. The woman next to us pays £9.40 ($16.90 CAD) for an egg salad and tomato sandwich and two cups of tea, one of which she spills on the tray and herself - but, fortunately for us, not in our direction. We've brought sandwiches and hot cross buns and water, but presumably we do benefit indirectly from the prices charged for food, lottery tickets, seat selection, etc, as we only paid £107 ($192 CAD) for two one way tickets, checked suitcases included. Not at all bad for a flight of close to 2000 miles.

Dark when we land, but warm, and we take the local bus in to Paphos, the Kato Paphos bus station being only a couple of blocks from our hotel.

Tuesday, November 18/2014

Last day in London, this round anyway. Luckily, it is also the day that linguist Lynne Murphy, who blogs under rhe name Lynneguist (fascinating blog on UK/US - and other - variations of the English language) is giving a talk at University College London on "polite" words - please, thank you, sorry - and their varied meanings and uses. Picked this up from Lynne's Twitter feed and, happily, she confirmed that non-university people were welcome.  Deserved a prize for near success in the maze of UCL buildings. Get close, but a room that appears to have the right number is simply labelled "plant room". Boiler? Orchids? Get re-directed to a seminar room where we are indeed the only non-u types. 

Interesting talk, particularly on what is perceived as politeness US style (friendliness, egalitarianism) and UK (non-intrusiveness, preserving right to privacy). Very friendly atmosphere and everyone invited back for a drink and a chat in the linguistics work area. Nice to meet Lynne after years of enjoying her blog.

Monday, November 17/2014

First, apologies to anyone trying to read this with a magnifying glass. Not surprised if no one reads it at all. Seem to have lost, inexplicably, all ability to control font size. Will continue to pursue this; there must be a simple solution.

Changes in Our parts of London since last April:

Inverness Street market has finally lost the remaining fruit and veg stall. After years of being nosed out by competitors selling everything from souvenirs to cheap clothes, it's gone - the cheerful blokes who sold better-than-supermarket veg in all weathers, and for better than supermarket prices and without a self serve till.

Beggars seem now a permanent fixture on Queensway. There was always the odd one but seemed more like temporary financial problem than way of life.

Cheap day of tickets at the National Theatre have gone, over the past couple of years, from £10 to £15. Admittedly still a bargain, but they've been a standby of pensioners as well as the young, and neither student grants nor pensions have increased by 50% over the same period.

Sunday, November 16/2014

To Westminster Cathedral for 10:30 Mass, with full choir including the boy sopranos. Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time and full church as always. The choir is superbbut the PA system doesn't do very well with the spoken word - neither of us catches more than about one word in ten. Unusually, there is no second collection, but we do encounter a second opportunity for charity. In the midst of the construction surrounding Victoria Station an enterprising (or desperate) busker has picked up an orange road pylon and is using it more or less like a kazoo, entoning the notes for "Fly Me to the Moon" and using his baseball cap to collect the contributions. Not the best musician I've passed this season, but the first I've stopped to fund. 

Supper at the Indian Veg in Chapel Market. Lovely fruit salad and curries. Take our own small bottles. Of Tempranillo with us. Last time until April.

Saturday, November 15/2014

We have tickets to Great Britain at Theatre Royal Haymarket. It's a satire not-all-that-loosely based on the recent scandals of the (mostly gutter) press involvement in phone hacking and their incestuous relationship with the police. Unsubtle, but fast paced, hard hitting and witty at times. Thoroughly enjoyable. Not terribly full at the matinée, which works in our favour as our tickets, bought fairly cheaply through the Telegraph website, have been upgraded from galleries to stalls. Ten rows back and in the centre - actually couldn't be any better. And the play is fun, starring Lucy Punch, better known to us as the first receptionist on Doc Martin. Actually written and secretly rehearsed while the Brooks and Coulson trials were taking place and made public immediately after the verdict.

Astonishingly busy when we get out. Dark now, and the pavements just buzzing with activity and excitement. Piccadilly tube station so full it's not easy to see where the Bakerloo line signs are.

Friday, November 14/2014

J off to Southbank and Strutton Grounds and I to West Harrow to see Jean. Can see I'm going to arrive early and it's a nice day so get off at Harrow-on-the-Hill and walk. Tea and chat on everything from family to linguistics.

Thursday, November 13/2014

Roses On Kilburn High Road for the Thursday special - the best lamb kleftiko anywhere, Mediterranean included. The café is interesting as always, and not merely for rhe excellent food. It's foremost a neighbourhood eatery, and most of the patrons are locals, probably regulars. As we walk in the five tables for two along the right hand side are all occupied by lone men, here for a cuppa or their supper. The one nearest us dozes over his empty mug while others eat or read the newspaper. Two women about our age at the next table are taking advantage of a warm corner. The one with the Irish accent talks; her friend listens. They're sharing an order of bread and butter and a small order of chips. One of the women makes a bit of a sandwich with the chips. When we leave we ask to take the remainis of the enormous legs of lamb with us, and the Irish woman gives our table a long, silent look. Devastating, but, amongst adults in a first world country, a problem with no solution.

Wednesday, November 12/2014

Starbucks fully functional this morning. Not so the Saatchi Gallery, one of our regular stops, where the gallery is unexpectedly closed for a private event. So on to the South Bank as the sun and mild air shouldn't be wasted. Stop at Tate Modern to check out the latest installation in the enormous turbine hall. It's an enormous bright fabric and wood piece called "I Don't Know" by Richard Tuttle. Cheerful, but not in the runnung for our all time favourites.

Greenwich for crumble at Goddard's Pie shop - our favourite for 20 years or so, but a Greenwich icon since 1890. We choose apple and black currant, with lashings of custard, and think of new uses for our own currants. Jubilee line delayed by "a person on the line" - an almost daily event somewhere in the system. Must be truly horrible for those who have to deal with it

J mends an umbrella found abandoned on King's Road, Chelsea. We're currently one up so a loss must be on the cards.

Tuesday, November 11/2014

Over for the usual Starbucks office start to the day only to find that their wifi is down. Share this happy news with an American unpacking his laptop. He's quite annoyed. " it was down last night, so this morning I asked THREE times before I got my coffee. British infrastructure is third world." He's wrong about communications infrastructure, which is, overall, better than North American, but the frustration is understandable.

Then to the Imperial War Museum on an appropriate but busy day. It's been renovated recently and looks quite classy, but it takes me a while to find my old favourite, the smallest boat still extant from the Dunkirk evacuation, a brave little craft that looks too small to have crossed the channel. An expedition impressive enough that I was an adult before I realised that Dunkirk was not a victory.

There's an interesting exhibit on espionage and we also watch a some short period films. One shows reconstruction in southern Italy at the end of the war, a moving view of barefoot girls carrying rocks for construction, men repairinge ancient locamotives, olive groves being cultivated again. Another film shows reconstruction in immediate postwar Germany, as people live amidst the rubble, allowed 1000 to 1200 calories a day and tested medically by the occupying Allied forces to see if that was enough!

There's a talk in the evening at the London School of Economics on Kurdish nationalism and the Kurdish liberation struggle in the light of current events. We're interested enough to arrive early and surprised that they haven't chosen a larger room. Then the presentation by Dr. Yaniv Voller of the University of Edinburgh, who is launching a book on Kurdish nationalism. Try to be charitable, but the talk is disappointingly superficial and the question period even more disappointing. Dr Voller must, presumably, know more than we do about the Kurds, but fails to convey it. The questioners, on the other hand, are informed and provocative - and get little in the way of answers. I am so tempted to stand up at the end and say that there is so much depth of knowledge and passion in the room - could we go to the pub and have a real discussion. We share the lift as we're leaving with Kurds who seem to have much the same view, sadly minus the thought about the pub. Ah well.

Monday, November 10/2014

Back by train from Thames Ditton, as far as Wimbledon with Elaine and Phil weho are on their way into London to see the poppies. Not much time left, and not many chances if you live as far north as Yorkshire. Some talk last night on the north south divide and injustices of same. Could have been talking about northern Ontario.

Pick up tthe train tickets for next Wednesday run out to Luton Airport so that's done. St Pancras always feels slightly festive. Sign for the champagne bar? Stop at the little John Lewis there to admire the new ipads. Ipad mini 3 newly released and fingerprint accessible. Will it recognize more than one print? Oh yes, says the bubbly girl. Ten - so no need to amputate the husband's thumb for convenience of portability.

Sunday, November 9/2014

To Thames Ditton and a visit with Jenny and Doug. Watch Remembrance Sunday program, including her majesty ignoring terrorist threats and laying wreath at the cenotaph. Then Jenny's mum and Laura and Cody arrive for lunch,mas well as Elaine and Phil from Yorkshire. Lovely to get together again and J&D, E&P, and J and I go for a walk in a park just past Hampton Court. Lots of dog friends for Brownie, who is delighted at being off the lead. The park runs along the Thames and there are fascinating houseboats and riverside cottages, some on an island an accessible only by motorboat or dinghy. Possibly inconvenient but charming and immensely covetable.

Doug's sister Kathleen and her husband drop in for a visit and we have the first g&t's of the Cyprus season. Well, sort of, anyway. Then dinner - roast beef and pie with custard and cheese plate and talk until midnight. What life is for.

Saturday, November 8/2014

Our day for visiting the poppies at the tower of London. It's a magnificent display - 888,246 ceramic poppies in an installation called Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red. There is one poppy for each British and Commonwealth military death in the First World War. One therefore for my Scots grandfather's young brother who died in France. At 4:55 pm a bugler plays the Last Post and names from the Roll of Honour are read, but truthfully it's difficult enough to get anywhere near the moat at any time. There are official suggestions re routes other than the obvious, and at Tower Hill tube station the exit gates are left open as the crowds surge through. 

It's a very moving sight, and a quietly respectful throng, from infants to the elderly, all paying tribute as well as seeing the beauty. The poppies fill the moat and reach past Traitors' Gate with a particular poignancy, ablood red reminder of the many brought here to be executed, often for having chosen the wrong side to champion. 

Friday, November 7/2014

Appointment at Apple's "Genius" bar. Nothing much wrong with the mini, but the original charging cord is much taped and the nice long replacement one only works about every tenth try. Very satisfactory though - nothing wrong with the port and we get a freebie new replacement "lightning" connector. Is this because the staff guru next to us recognised J by his poppy as a fellow Canadian and told our guru to treat us well? Pretty decent, though. No longer under warranty from Apple, though John Lewis did sell it to us with an extended warranty.

Actually the ten minute appointment slots had us slightly intimidated. Talk fast and focus? The reality is much more relaxed and we have plenty of time to poke around the Christmassy things at Covent Garden market.

Thursday, November 6/2014

To West Harrow and a visit with Jean. Her eightieth birthday coming up next month, although you'd never think it. On New Year's Eve actually, and as she says there's always a celebration with fireworks along the Thames and parties everywhere. We go over to collect the very nice Chinese food she's ordered and Shanthi arrives to share it, full of stories of her month's holiday in Sri Lanka and India, from temples and five star hotels to the horrors of the Indian railways.

We emerge from Bayswater tube station to the sound of sirens. There's a fire- smoke but no visible flames - next to, or perhaps over, the bureau de change. The currency exchange is a glass fronted box now full of smoke, so we wonder whether the firemen have brought a battering ram in addition to the long hoses and oxygen tanks.  If so, they don't use it and the cash remains secure, if indeed that is where it reposes at night. A few people are led out of the building, one of them an old man with long black coat and black woollen hat, who is eventually found a chair at the Lebanese restaurant, oddly outside rather than inside where it's warm. There are quite a few of us viewing the excitement from the pavement opposite, shop keepers and passers by. Eleven thirty is relatively early for Queensway. After a few minutes the police tape goes up and we're moved along a bit. Time for home anyway.

Wednesday, November 5/2014

Guy Fawkes Day, although we forget about it until evening when we can hear the sound of fireworks - but are not really tempted to go out and follow the sound to the source.

In the daytime we make a foray up Green Lanes Road. It's Turkish territory, with plenty of little restaurants, some the subject of excellent reviews. And there are numerous Turkish food shops as well as a few travel agencies and social service facilities with a Turkish clientele. We're here for Sama, a warehouse like wholesale/retail place that's a wonderful trove of Turkish and Middle Eastern foods. It's pretty unprepossessing from the outside but inside the shelves stretch back laden with dried figs and apricots, sundried tomatoes, bottles of oil, dried peppers, dates, two foot long honeycombs in wooden frames, J's favourite dried red pepper flakes, and a whole aisle full of olives. So we're well supplied with snack food for the duration.

Tuesday, November 4/2014

Meet up with Jenny outside the National Gallery, a good meeting spot because it's central, there's a large portico in front allowing shelter from rain if necessary, and there.'s plenty to enjoy if one arrives early. We are a bit early and watch not only the crowds but also the "statue people" - the mime artists with metallic body paint who perform or permit photos in response to donations. We head over to St Martin in the Fields across the road where there's coffee and lunches in the crypt. Coffee and catch up conversation. And two hours later emerge to dark skies (in part because it's now late afternoon) and rain. Abandon plans for walk in park and separate for our trains.

Opposite Charing Cross Station discover an open umbrella abandoned on the pavement. Does have a small hole, but serves well to take us down to Embankment and then home from the tube. Gains and losses on umbrellas must be about equal, including the one J was given at Sainsbury's in Finchley Road when he asked if his had been turned in and was told no, but he might as well have one of the long term unclaimed ones. On the whole, though, while numbers may be equal, there is probably a bit of a decline in quality. The best of them, found on the tube shortly after we left one on a bus, we ended up leaving subsequently on a bench in Paphos. Tonight's find is carefully dismantled by J, ever the tinkerer, and the structure of its frame duly admired, but it really isn't worth salvaging.

Monday, November 3/2014

Chillier this morning, though not as wintry as Starbucks seems to think it is - with red coffee cups and strains of "dreaming of a white Christmas" in the air. Our regular Starbucks has pretty impressive staff though. Not only do they juggle orders with four or five behind the counter and no mistakes, but Antonio immediately produced our regular  when we appeared for the first time in over six months.

To the National Portrait Gallery in the afternoon, the most intimate of London's major galleries, probably because the subjects are as interesting as the quality of the art or the artists.  A section on the Romantic period has a portrait of Keats in the Hampstead room we have visited next to a very young Coleridge and round the corner from an elderly Wordsworth. On the other side of the room, beneath a portrait of Blake, a remarkably shifty Turner looks as if he might be scalping tickets. 

Nearby there is a huge parliamentary scene of the trial of Queen Caroline, wife of George IV, longtime prince regent. The scandal, involving her affair with an Italian and his subsequent attempt to divorce her, seems remarkably modern, down to the character on the left handing a newspaper with the latest juicy details into the chamber to the hands of an eager MP. And there's both a bust and a portrait of William Hogarth, of Gin Lane fame, looking much less like an aesthete than a builder come to do repairs. So much for physical stereotypes.

Then supper at the Indian Veg near Angel tube station. Price has increased again, after a little more than a year, but only to £5.95, and the buffet has actually gone slightly upscale. Still entirely vegetarian and mostly vegan. And delicious.

Sunday, November 2/2014

Up before dawn to walk down to Hyde Park for the start of the 2014 London to Brighton veteran car run. Before we even reach the park we hear the putter of a car behind us on the Bayswater Road - one of the antique entrants (the youngest cars are 110 years old) on its way to the beginning of the rally. A scary prospect here, before they're all gathered together, as a few tiny vehicles, the smallest barely larger than a pram, make their way through the (admittedly light) pre-dawn London traffic. Several pass us, someof them not even equipped with lights, their little horns sounding as they bravely change lanes in front of the buses.

There are plenty of RAC volunteers out organising the start, which is good because there are over 400 cars. The first - the oldest - are scheduled to leave at dawn, which is just before seven this morning, with the last leaving about eight. There is a light drizzle, which dissipates, but it's not cold. The breeze is a mild one as we walk along the Serpentine, the swans gliding beside us. Most cars have several passengers, sometimes including a small child or a dog, and the participants are busy with last minute adjustments, goodbyes and coffees. Many of the people are in period costume, and the occasional leathers and goggles look particularly useful. Cars with roofs or windscreens are in the minority.

They're off, some with more difficulty than others. There's the odd steam engine - do they carry extra water? Some have tires with tubes while others are hard as an old wheelbarrow's. There's not a lot of room for spares but we spot extras looped on the side of one car. They're all beautifully mainained, some in the original colours but others presumably not - ivory, mint, fire engine red and cobalt blue liven up the ranks. Who knows how many will make it all the way to Brighton, but all but two do get away. Hartbreaking to bring a car this far - all of them trailered and some from as far away as America or Australia - and then be unable to join the rally. A third has had difficulties, but as we're leaving it sputters to life and heads off after its mates to cheers and applause. And we hear someone say "It's not a race- it's a run".

Saturday, November 1/2014

Regent Street closed for the country's biggest free car show, attracting some 400,000 people. We've come for the cars from tomorrow's London to Brighton car run - all of them pre-1905. They're not all that's on display though. Thereare some pretty impressive new cars, luxury and concept, ranging from a bright red Porsche sports model to a sleek new black Tesla.

It's the vintage cars that take our hearts, though. Dating from the late 19th abd very early 20th centuries and no two alike. Many of them tiny and brightly coloured. Some familiar names like Oldsmobile amongst them and others long vanished into ancient automotive history. Most with unbelievably small engines - five horsepower, for instance, and two (or even ONE) cylinders. Wicker trunks attached, and squeeze bulb horns. Most roofless, though a prize winner has a fringed top. Many of the owners are in period costume, to the delight of the photographers amongst the throng.

Friday, October 31/2014

Hallowe'en, and a number of people on the street in costume, although Guy Fawkes Day is bigger here. To Kilburn High Road to renew acquaintance. Stunning afternoon. Temperature reaches 23, a record, and it's sunny. Take a break on Kilburn Grange and watch the children with dogs, the young boys with footballs, a young couple stripped down for sunbathing.

Supper at Roses. More or less as always, though the checkered tablecloths are new, and the young East European waitresses seem part of an endless sequence. J fails to identify the language as they chatter to each other, so not Polish, Russian or Ukrainian. Romanian? Not as busy as usual. Prices pretty much the same as usual, though the roast dinners have disappeared from the two course specials and found their way back into the menu proper.

Thursday, October 30/2014

Plane arrives at Heathrow at dawn. As we're in no hurry at all to get to central London any earlier than we can get in to our accommodation, everything conspires to speed us. Short immigration queue, suitcases on the carousel before J is out the loo, train on the platform immediately, no waiting for the transfer. All of which leaves plenty of time for coffee and internet at Starbucks before we can decently present ourselves to check in. 

Lovely weather. Nineteen degrees and sunshine, the best reset mechanism for jet lag. Surprisingly, the sim in the mobile works. Wouldn't work in Canada and should have expired after six months non-use, but it's been six  months and a week and all's well. Which is nice as there's still £7.90 left on it.

Tuesday, April 22/2014

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

Monday, April 21/2014

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

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

Sunday, April 20/2014

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

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

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

Saturday, April 19/2014

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

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

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

Friday, April 18/2014

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

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

Thursday. april 17/2014

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

Wednesday, April 16/2014

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

Tuesday, April 15/2014

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

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

Monday, April 14/2014

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

Sunday, April 13/2014

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

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

Saturday, April 12/2014

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

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

Friday, April 11/2014

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

Thursday, April 10/2014

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

Wednesday, April 9/2014

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

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

Tuesday. April 8/2014

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

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

Monday, April 7/2014

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

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

Sunday, April 6/2014

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

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

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

Saturday, April 5/2014

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

Friday, April 4/2014

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

Thursday, April 3/2014

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

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

Wednesday, April 2/2014

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

Tuesday, April 1/2014

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

Monday, March 31/2014

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

Sunday, March 30/2014

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

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