Winter weekend
Its hit really cold here, suddenly. Beautiful and crisp, with the slanting sun seemingly permanently shining into your eyes, but so freezing that this weekend, wandering around the city with a visiting friend from abroad, we had to stop every hour for a pint or a cup of tea.
Apologies for not yet blogging about the London Met conference that was last week - very interesting, but I need to set aside an hour to write it up - and everything else. Having visitors tends to do that to one, it being generally more interesting to talk to someone who you never normally see than to sit in front of a computer for a couple of hours. In the mean time, here was our weekend:
Wonderful exhibition installation by Francis Alys in Portman Square (if you missed it, tough...it ended yesterday) including the now-famous video of a fox running wild in the National Portrait Gallery, and the amazing piece 'Guards', where 64 Coldstream Guards march around the City of London in a strange and suspenseful version of the game of sardines.
Then wandering rather by accident into the Wallace Collection, where we felt rather like the fox - creeping round peering inside suits of armour and up at portraits of the famous, the rich and the long-dead decadents. St James' Park, home for a power nap, then out to my friend Tom's night at Clockwork in Angel, and finishing with bagels at (nearly) dawn.
Late rise, wander through Brick Lane market and Spitalfields (how its changed there since I left - with the market reduced to half its former space due to the building of monstrous glass boxes, its too crammed and crowded, and sadly, less enjoyable).
Riding the Daredevil London Rollercoaster (aka the DLR) over the East End to Canary Wharf, real English roast-beef-and-yorkshires pub lunch in the Grapes by the river, a mosey on down to my fantasy London residence (on the tip of Island Gardens) and through the foot tunnel to Greenwich for more tea and cake...then back home for a comforting pasta supper and an early night.
It's really fun having guests in town. I never have such a lovely London weekend normally.
This is what my fantasy house looks like...and the view I would have...
Apologies for not yet blogging about the London Met conference that was last week - very interesting, but I need to set aside an hour to write it up - and everything else. Having visitors tends to do that to one, it being generally more interesting to talk to someone who you never normally see than to sit in front of a computer for a couple of hours. In the mean time, here was our weekend:
Wonderful exhibition installation by Francis Alys in Portman Square (if you missed it, tough...it ended yesterday) including the now-famous video of a fox running wild in the National Portrait Gallery, and the amazing piece 'Guards', where 64 Coldstream Guards march around the City of London in a strange and suspenseful version of the game of sardines.
Then wandering rather by accident into the Wallace Collection, where we felt rather like the fox - creeping round peering inside suits of armour and up at portraits of the famous, the rich and the long-dead decadents. St James' Park, home for a power nap, then out to my friend Tom's night at Clockwork in Angel, and finishing with bagels at (nearly) dawn.
Late rise, wander through Brick Lane market and Spitalfields (how its changed there since I left - with the market reduced to half its former space due to the building of monstrous glass boxes, its too crammed and crowded, and sadly, less enjoyable).
Riding the Daredevil London Rollercoaster (aka the DLR) over the East End to Canary Wharf, real English roast-beef-and-yorkshires pub lunch in the Grapes by the river, a mosey on down to my fantasy London residence (on the tip of Island Gardens) and through the foot tunnel to Greenwich for more tea and cake...then back home for a comforting pasta supper and an early night.
It's really fun having guests in town. I never have such a lovely London weekend normally.
This is what my fantasy house looks like...and the view I would have...
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