Wednesday, April 26/2017

Tube to Heathrow. J had packed the scales , so good to find we're both under twenty kilos. Actually, much more and I couldn't carry it on stairs anyway. Flight nearly full, but I've booked us a bank of two seats in a plane that mainly has sets of three or (in the centre) four. The advantage of having booked in July. 

Discover the advantage of leftover extra old cheese and sundried olives. Cajun chicken gone by the time the stewardess reaches the back of the plane. No objection to vegetarian, except that we've had their pasta before. Defies trade description legislation. Pasta with creamy tomato sauce, mozzarella and vegetables. Two pieces of carrot, neither as large as the paring from a baby fingernail, and necessary to take their word for the tomato sauce. Those allergic to tomato need not necessarily worry.  But not at all bad with extra old cheddar and black olives added. Nuts with the wine afterward. 

Toronto airport almost unfunctionally slow. Those with connecting flights do have a separate queue, but they haven't picked up the system familiar to patrons of Heathrow - and any bank - of the person at the head of the queue goes to the next available desk. There is a man pointing out the line that looks most likely, but nothing to prevent one standing behind the person who has an outdated passport. Liquor from duty free all scanned at security and resealed, not rapidly. Good to see Susan and Ian in Winnipeg. Nearly home. Have seen the webcam images of Sioux Lookout snow, but it can wait a day.

Starting to sound bitchy. Been a long day: twenty-three hours from getting up to going to bed. No record, but enough. That's it for this year.

Tuesday, April 25/2017

Last day. Odds and ends. And I to West Harrow to see Jean one more time while J takes a walk in Hyde Park. Then packing. Jane said it should be easier than in Cyprus - and it is - but still the Chinese puzzle aspect of fitting everything into one small suitcase (each). Did we really need it all? And of course there have been small acquisitions. Why do we still have sundried olives and cheese and nuts left? We can't take them into Canada. One o'clock. Think it's all done.

Monday, April 24/2017

This is the day! J has been to Stratford-upon-Avon before, but I haven't. Unfortunately, to get a good price on the train we've had to book a few days ahead. This gives us tickets for about £12 each instead of £59 each, but doesn't really allow us to take the weather into account. So, for the first time in twenty-three days here rain is predicted - wintry showers to be precise. 

Umbrellas called for. We take the train from Marylebone station, which is really handy. Train turns out, conveniently, to have wifi aboard - slow but welcome. Change at Leamington Spa for Stratford-upon-Avon, which is at the end of a spur line. The station there has, as we'd hoped, leaflets with 2 for 1 vouchers for the houses we want to visit. Regular price £26 each, so we're pleased. Ten or fifteen minute walk into the town centre, which is nearly as compact as it was in 1600. There's more than enough to do, so we find ourselves skipping short videos and recitations that are probably worthy of more attention, consoling ourselves with the thought that the passes are good for a year - we can come back for the things we've missed. 

Our first stop is the house in which Shakespeare was born, actually a building that became in Shakespeare's own time three houses. A moving thought, though actual appreciation slightly impaired by group addicted to selfie taking. The building is pretty large, consisting of three houses joined together, which Will later cannily let out as a hotel. Also stop at his later home, New House. Here the house no longer exists, though the gardens do. 

And then Holy Trinity, Shakespeare's parish church. Obviously a functioning parish now but also the place where Will was presumably baptised and definitely buried, along with most of his family members. As well as the grave stones in the church, there is a memorial relief of WS, donated by his friends a few years after his death. Interesting in that, as the info points out, presumably it actually resembles him as his wife and daughters were still alive at the time it was installed. 

Our last stop is Half House, home of Shakespeare's elder daughter, Susannah and her husband Dr John Hall, a physician who had a reputation as a diagnostician and was apparently much sought after by those who could afford his services. In some ways the most interesting of the houses. It's large and clearly the former home of a prosperous upper middle class family. And we've been learning as we go about the implications of the class system. Not subtle. Everything from the colour and fabric of one's clothing to the number and content of one's daily meals prescribed by law. There is a copy of an edited version of Dr Hall's case notes. Not discreet politically or otherwise, it seems, and so, four hundred years later we know that his wife suffered from constipation. Still some diagnoses and remedies that make sense four hundred years later. I pick up a copy of the book. Astonishingly heavy for a paperback. Worse, our beautifully informative guide tells us, it's out of print and the original plates seem to have been lost. The exhibition room here has period medical equipment, including a disturbing needle for pushing aside the clouded lens in cataract patients. A saw for amputations (though the only anaesthetic must have been alcohol) and an artificial nose - handy for one who had lost his original in battle or, less gloriously, through syphyllis. [OK - this doesn't look right, but I'm on an airplane and my spellcheck pretends it doesn't know the word at all and thinks no nice girl should either]. 

Just beginning to rain, but we're ready for the warmth and stimulation of Starbucks, which owes us two free large coffees due to past purchases. Train back to Marylebone. A handy station for future reference, as it's only twenty minutes exactly from leaving the train to arriving via tube, at our hotel room. Compare with trains arriving at King's Cross or Waterloo. Though there are a finite number of destinations from Marylebone. Mainly Birmingham (but why?) and Coventry (ok, there's the cathedral). So may do again.

Sunday, April 23/2017

Shakespeare's birthday, and Feast of St George. Westminster Cathedral. Had thought of last week, but joined Jenny and Doug and family in Thames Ditton instead for Easter traditions. Not quite as full today, and sadly the boys' choir has the week off. Well earned, as they will have sung at both Easter Vigil and Easter morning masses last weekend. They're replaced by an excellent choir from Salt Lake City, obviously on tour. There are quite a lot of students from the same American institution in Church, kids between ten and sixteen wearing school blazers. Resist impulse to ask if they're really from Salt Lake City as we thought Mormonism was obligatory.

Saturday, April 22/2017

Haven't been to Covent Garden yet this year, so we go. Possibly a mistake on a Saturday. Under the false impression that most of the London visitors had gone home. In fact they're all still on the underground. Given to holding map reading conferences at the bottom of escalators. J heard to mutter bloody tourists at one bottleneck. Covent Garden pretty full too. But always fun, particularly the crafts. Fall for - but don't buy - intriguing pendant featuring old-fashioned watch works. Really no genuine bargains to be had, but lots of enjoyment. Then Northern line from Leicester Square to Camden Town. The high street much as usual, and suspect mainly locals. Market area a sea of humanity. Not unusual. Camden Tube station on Saturdays is exit only. Slow bus to Kilburn and home.

Friday, April 21/2017

Despite having seven day tube passes, we actually don't go any further than our own neighbourhood, having started with errands that made longer trips pointless. It's an interesting area - central, very near Hyde Park, well connected by tube and bus. Its chief problem is that it's too heavily touristed, which drives prices up, so that there are no downscale pubs and café, as there are in Kilburn and parts of the east end, or probably Brixton, though there are the standard fast food outlets - McDonald's, Burger King, and Subway - in an absolute pinch. Basic filter coffee very cheap at Starbucks - 75p ($1.28 CAD) if you bring your own cup and fairly generous filling of same - but everything else there highly overpriced. Which leads a few of their less easily embarrassed - or more socially unskilled - customers to bring their own snacks and buy only coffee, and occasionally not even that. Not us, obviously, but some of the semi-homeless who exist in London uneasily adjacent to those for whom money is there to spend.

Thursday, April 20/2017

Visit the Canadian war memorial in Green Park. It's really quite attractive - red granite with sheets of water streaming over bronze maple leaves. As the leaves are bronze they've aged in reverse fashion to real maple leaves - going from brown to bright green over time. 

There are three or four wreaths laid next to the memorial, including poppies commemorating the hundredth anniversary of Vimy Ridge.

Our first  time in Camden Town this spring. Enjoy looking in and out the charity shops, although we're usually most tempted by the books but this time know better than to acquire any more. Then catch the 31 bus to Kilburn and are in luck - the Thursday kleftiko isn't finished so we enjoy it for the last time this spring.

Wednesday, April 19/2017

The serendipitous nature of London. We decide to go down to St James's Park and also take a look at the Canadian memorial near Buckingham Palace Gate. But somewhere between High Street Kensington and Gloucester Road the underground train comes to a complete stop. A couple of widely spaced announcements that there is a difficulty that should be solved soon, apologies proffered. Forty-five minutes later the train returns to High Street Kensington. Major signalling failure at Earl's Court, affecting both Circle and District lines. 

So we explore around High Street Kensington station, not having been there for years. Most interesting store is an enormous whole food market, covering two huge floors, with organic and natural foods and drink, at astronomical prices. There's a buffet where you can fill a container with hot foods for £1.95 a hundred grams - so £19.50 ($33 CAD) a kilo, though they wisely don't advertise it that way. And we note that this is regardless of the dishes chosen. It's one thing to pay that price for rosemary lamb and another to shell it out for mashed potatoes, even granted they're buttery. Fascinating place, though, with spices, cheeses, a wine bar, almost anything you might want. 

By now it's a bit late to look for a bus to St James's Park. We're on the south side of Kensington Park, though, and it's sunny, if a little cool, so we walk back past Kensington Palace and stop for a while on a park bench to watch the ducks and swans on the pond. Plenty of retirees, mums with little children and young lovers. Walk home from there. Pass Bayswater tube station about 5 - Circle and District lines still not running.

Tuesday, April 18/2017

We assume that the English school holidays are over - certainly Jenny and Doug's grandchildren will be back in class today - and think it's a good uncrowded museum day. But when we get off the tube at South Kensington, nearest stop to three of the best museums there are throngs of people, many of them children. So we opt for the Victoria and Albert, as less likely to be a child magnet than the Science or Natural History Museums. 

As usual, we confine ourselves to a couple of areas rather than trying to take it all in. So we admire altarpieces from the early 16th century. And near them a set of stair ends from Florence, circa 1500, with various animal carvings, one showing an indeterminate beast biting the tail of another. 

In a nearby room are antique Iranian carpets, interestingly including one showing several pairs of animals with one attacking the other. Particularly surprising as most Muslim art avoids the representation of animals. The largest carpet here takes up the centre of a large room and is (dimly) lit only ten minutes out of every thirty to protect it from deterioration. Known as the Ardabil carpet, it was commissioned by the shah of Iran in 1539-40. It has white silk warp and weft and a pattern of knotted wool, with an astonishing 304 knots per square inch. 

The V&A has an inner courtyard with a shallow pool and today it's sunny, though there is a cool breeze. Not chill enough to deter a couple of children who are paddling - which is allowed, though a sign tells us that sitting in the pool and taking off one's clothes are not. We're not tempted, but the kiddies seem to be having a good time. Evening meal at Roses in Kilburn. We're torn between fish and chips, which we know are excellent, and chicken curry (the Tuesday special) which we haven't had before, so order one of each and trade bits. Both are keepers for future reference, and either could easily have fed us both, accompanied as they were by large (and v good) salads. In fact we can't finish. £13.45 ($22.60 CAD) for the two of us, including tax as all UK prices do.

Monday, April 17/2017

Stroll down Oxford Street and look - but don't actually buy. Looking in Selfridge's Food Hall is an exercise in appreciating food porn. Everything from a moving sushi bar to game to pastries. Surprisingly there is a special display of Heinz beans, obviously part of a brand promotion. We check the price - £2, exactly four times the sale price at Tesco's at the moment. Pop in and out of stores as far as Regent Street- then back by tube. 

Last window shopping is in the little warren of shops in behind the store fronts at the south end of Queensway. These have changed over time, with the latest being a shift from East European to Brazilian (though there is a very small Uzbek restaurant). And the little curiosity shop is still there, with its sign prudently warning anyone who may be looking for a fence that goods will be bought only from sellers with valid passports.

Sunday, April 16/2017

Invited to Jenny and Doug's for Easter. We've done this many times before, and it's started to feel rather like what Easter should be. Leave just before nine, which turns out to be as the flower sellers at the corner are finishing setting up. We buy a bunch of purple tulips and wonder if they subscribe to the old superstition that the first sale of the day is lucky. Easter weekend is, unfortunately, the traditional time for repairs and upgrading on the transportation system, with changes and cancellations. District tube line to Wimbledon is fine but it takes two, not one, trains to Thames Ditton, changing at Surbiton, where the carriage is suddenly full of Germans, tourists on their way to Hampton Court, the stop after Thames Ditton. We've thought sunglasses a bit too optimistic, so of course the sun comes out full on the flower gardens we pass along Station Road. Lovely. 

Jenny and her daughters and granddaughters have made their family's traditional Palestinian Easter fare, the date rings and semolina cakes. There are also the hard boiled eggs with traditional onion skin colouring, and a conker style competition to see whose egg can crack the most shells - or survive the most hits. There are twelve of us, so lots of battles. Jenny's mum, now in a nursing home is here, and Emma and Laura and families. Emma hides small chocolate eggs for the youngest children, Cody and Jasmine and Leila. Much hilarity and then they're rehidden outside in the garden. When they've been found again the children kindly decide to hide some in the dining room so Grandpa can find them later. After the others have left, we stay for catch up talk and supper with Jenny and Doug. Lovely. 

Trip home should be straightforward - and nearly is. Except that when we're waiting on the usual eastbound platform we do notice that the sign announcing the next (eastbound) train from Hampton Court is on the far (normally) westbound side of the tracks. Just as the train approaches a man on the other side calls to ask if we're going to Surbiton and says "It's over here!" I say shit, we'll never make it, and the three of us - there's also a young man whom it now seems we have misinformed re the train's arrival - all run like crazy down the path from the wrong side, under the train bridge, and up the path to the right platform. And make it only because our kind informant has delayed the train a couple of minutes by standing in the carriage door so it can't close. Rest of trip uneventful.

Saturday, April 15/2017

Stop at Marylebone to collect train tickets for Stratford on Avon for a week Monday. J's been there before but I haven't. Now all we have to do is hope there's no rain. 

Carry on to Greenwich, where the tall ships are here for a festival gathering. The pier by the Cutty Sark is crowded and festive, with food, drink, a merry-go-round and throngs of sightseers. Some of the ships are here and some at Woolich, a little to the east. A bit disappointing visually, though, as the sails aren't up so they're not really in full regaliag. 

J has another destination, though. St Elfege's Church, the Greenwich home church of James Wolfe, conqueror of Quebec in 1759. This weekend the church is open to visitors, as always, but they're also giving tours of the crypt on this occasion. The church people are very welcoming and point us to the corner where the Wolfe information has been gathered. In fact James Wolfe's father, also a general, is buried in the church as well. And there's another Canadian connection. Thomas Kelsey, the first European to reach Saskatchewan, lies in the churchyard. 

I'm curious about the church for a more personal reason. My German ancestors sailed to Greenwich or nearby Deptford from Rotterdam in 1709 and spent the winter at one of 1709-1710 at one of three encampments in the area. Two years ago we went to Blackheath but what we guessed to be the nearest church wasn't old enough. So the question is, was St Elfege's here then? The timing is critical. This church was the first to be built under the auspices of Queen Anne, and it was Queen Anne who allowed refugees from the Rhineland to become British subjects in return for becoming labourers in (what was still) British North America. I can't remember their dates of sailing, but later, with internet access, realise that the church on site at the time would have been the medieval church that preceded the present building - a church that had to be rebuilt after its roof fell in during a storm in November 1710. 

Some of the foundations of this church are still in evidence in the crypt, which we are lucky enough to get a tour of. A small group of us are guided through the stone underworld where there are a number of tombs, including the Wolfe family vault. I'm not a huge Wolfe fan for various reasons, including his contempt for his Scottish enlisted men, but it's still interesting, and J is much more philosophical - not regarding Wolfe as notably worse than other English officers of the period. Other vaults hold the bones of other St Elfege's families, often seafaring families because of the church's proximity to the Greenwich docks. The crypt was also in use more recent times as a shelter for local families during the blitz, and one woman who returned recently to see the place she had spent wartime nights as a young girl was taken aback to realise that the place she had slept was not the bed she had supposed it to be but bedding on top of a tomb.

Friday, April 14/2017

Good Friday but most things open - shops, museums, etc. It's overcast and cool, but not raining, so we head over to the war museum. We're not alone. It's very busy, which makes sense, as it's the kind of place that children like as much as grandparents. There's a fairly good exhibit on espionage, from the First World War (and slightly earlier) to the present. Everything from impossibly heavy looking code transmitters in clunky suitcases, difficult to hide or deny if caught, to bits of humour. The old MI5 headquarters was in an unmarked building on Curzon Street - unmarked but someone remembers a bus driver calling out "Curzon Street and MI5." 

We find a window ledge to sit on, seating being almost non-existent and the exhibit having required longish bits of standing. This leads to some reflection on beneficial changes that might be made, J mentioning that many of the exhibit labels are not only ill lit but unreasonably low on the wall for even a child to read them. Moreover there is virtually no reference to the contribution of Commonwealth countries, even when, J points out, their rôle was critical to British success. It is, after all, the IMPERIAL war museum, as in empire. Have begun mentally composing letter of suggested improvements, including replacement of seating unaccountably removed during installation of new staircases. Possibly an intent to encourage more time and money spent in tearoom, but there are several floors of exhibits and presumably no one wants more than one cup of tea. Then spot remembered benches half hidden behind new staircases and dismiss thoughts of letter. 

In any case we never do view all the exhibits. We're here once or twice a year so usually focus on a few things each time, so it's ok. And, actually, we really like the place.

Thursday, April 13/2017

Meet with Alexander for lunch at Roses. We're lucky in the timing, as Thursday is Roses' kleftiko day. Mindful of the fact that they only make fifteen portions - nothing frozen and no leftovers - I phone at nine to ask them to save us three kleftikos for 1:15. They have remembered, and do us proud, which is nice. 

And the place lives up to our description of it as a working man's café (pronounced caff in this instance) when the man eating at the next table, who has overheard Alexander's observation that the minimum wage has gone up, apologises for intruding, introduces himself as a Marxist, and decries the failure of the traditional parties, Labour included, to prevent people going hungry or sleeping on the streets. We all assure him we agree that even the new minimum wage is totally inadequate to survive on. 

Interestingly, in this little skit on the working man (could make the cast more gender inclusive, but in fact the man's wife continues silently eating her meal throughout, perhaps having survived similar embarrassments in the past) the very British question of accent arises. Twice the husband, whose name, he tells us, is Chris, tells Alexander that if he had A's accent people would take his views more seriously. And when the question of occupation comes up A says that he is a piano tuner (true, though modestly short of the whole truth, as he tunes and supplies instruments for concerts and symphonies). Chris responds, as only an Englishman could, doubting the information - "You don't sound like it." But they part as friends, with good wishes and Facebook information.

Wednesday, April 12/2017

To Saatchi Gallery. There's often a good exhibition, but today there are several that are really fun. The dominant theme is the age of the selfie, and there's a lot of wit and playfulness. Some, perhaps, happily accidental, like Victor Obsatz's portrait of Marcel Duchamp, a striking double exposure resulting from the camera's failure to advance. 

There's humour, as in Antoine Geiger's Mona Lisa, a satirical view of rubbernecking selfie photographers in front of da Vinci's painting in the Louvre. And there are, appropriately, interactive works, drawing the viewer in and playing with the resulting image. Like Mirror No. 12, which makes use of a small camera and the manipulation of straight lines to create a blurred image of the viewers, or Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, whose project, 

This Year's Midnight also draws in the observer. Here are a series of three frames where the viewers are not only filmed but become characters whose eyes are consumed by smoke. Disturbingly, "live and recorded eyeballs extracted from the video accumulate on the bottom of the display." 

While many of the displays deal with self portraiture (and not always photographically - there is the full frontal nude painting of Lucian Freud) there are a few other exhibits. One that is both surprising and moving is a series of photographed sculptures of refugees produced by Cypriot students, their link with the sea central to the portrayal.

Tuesday, April 12/2017

First time back at Indian Veg since their renovations. Hasn't changed much, but spiffed up a bit, and the buffet has gone to £7.95. Which is still pretty decent, of course. Salad part of the buffet is more extensive, and everything is labelled now. All vegan except for one curry and one sauce. And now the sign is on the wall saying that they feed the homeless. In fact one probable candidate comes in while we're eating and gets a foil box full. 

Small Asian girl on the tube going home singing for miles.

Monday, April 10/2017

Bits of shopping. Get, in change, our first of the new pounds. The coins are bimetal, with silver centres surrounded by gilt. They're not quite round, although they almost look it, but twelve sided. The centre features a rose, leek, thistle, and shamrock. Can't help wondering whether, once Brexit has finished playing out, it will be down to the odd couple - the rose and the leek.

Sunday, April 9/2017

Summer weather, all the more precious because there's a ten degree temperature drop predicted for tomorrow. We decide on Greenwich - we and half the rest of London. There's a steady stream of people out the exit at Cutty Sark Station. Sundays are good in Greenwich anyway, with the covered market and outdoor markets almost too crowded to walk through. 

We head up to The Junk Shop, one of our favourite spots, on Greenwich South Street. It's difficult to move through as well, but here it's because the wares leave little room for the customers. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, most things here are too heavy to take back. I love the little antique medicine bottles, dark blue and green and brown. They remind me of the village doctor's when I was little. He prescribed and filled the prescriptions himself from the mysterious bottles lining his walls. J laughs on the way out when he sees the sign under the Junk Shop's letter slot - no junk mail. 

A few doors down is the Halcyon book shop. The signs in the window say every book for a pound. Closing? Maybe, although there are plenty of shops with closing sale/last day signs that have seen quite a few last days. Inside is book heaven - or chaos - depending on your point of view. Some traces of original cataloging remain, masking taped to the shelves, but really anything could be anywhere. And there's a terrific variety of anythings - from a book on canoeing for the disabled to one on the history of Scottish religious services. Quite astonishingly, I actually find a book I'd been looking for - The Reason Why, copyright 1953. Not so surprising that it's in the shop, but quite amazing that I spot it. 

Stop for a pie at Goddard's Pie Shop - over a hundred years in the same family serving meat pies and mash or eels. Haven't tried the eels, but we've eaten the pies and the fruit crumbles for over twenty years. Some of the signs on the wall are reproductions from a much earlier time, in line with food traditional in Victorian days.

Saturday, April 8/2017

Meet up with Jenny for a picnic in Regent's Park. Such a lovely spot. We haven't been for years and there's a lot of it we haven't seen. There's a lot to see - flowers, a lake, birds. The London Zoo is near the north end, and the canal just north of that. There's also a large mosque and acres of land. A reminder that London is a quarter green space? A busy Saturday with people in paddle boats, sunbathing, buying ice creams. We find a flowery nook with a bench and share buns, cheese, olives, tiny tomatoes, juice, wine. Leisurely meal and a good catch up chat about family and friends and then a stroll through the park. The birds have no fear of people, living as they do in a protected park. A wildlife man has cameras set up so people can see the heron nests - three large ones complete with baby birds. We also pass quite a few herons on the grass by the lake, standing catatonically still. 

Friday, April 7/2017

Take advantage of the good weather again and head to the London Museum, Docklands, where there's an exhibition featuring the ongoing archaeological discoveries connected with the cross rail excavations as a new rail line is put in, underground in mid London but ultimately extending all the way to Reading. The oldest of the finds are very old indeed, and include bones that have been identified as belonging to woolly mammoths! And there are bone fragments from reindeer and bison found at the Royal Oak tube station site, about a fifteen minute walk from where we are now staying, where 68,000 years ago the Westbourne River flowed through treeless meadows. Though life was not entirely peaceful. The deer and bison bones have been gnawed by carnivores like wolves. There are much more recent artefacts, of course. Pottery from Roman to Victorian times and coins, for example, and photos of earlier days. A fascinating display. 

We've noted on Twitter that the Stop the War Coalition has a demo planned for five o'clock at 10 Downing Street protesting the missile attack on Syria this morning. Not, of course, by the UK, but government has been making supportive noises. The group does outnumber the police, but it's not large. Possibly down to lack of time between attack and demo. We're not, of course, allowed on Downing Street, although J can remember a time when the public could go there, so the gathering is on the other side of Whitehall, next to what appears to be a semi-permanent anti-Brexit display.