Spent another lovely day with my childhood friend, Peggy Stone, in Brockley. Here's a photo from our VERY early days and a couple from today (the fellow in the later photos is Peggy's husband Ted):
t's our last night in London. We had a very nice dinner at the Blue Print Cafe -- part of the Design Museum -- which is right on the Thames. We were celebrating Chris' birthday as well as a wonderful trip together. Here are a few last photos from London.
Today Linda and I had a more relaxed morning and then met Chris and Marg at th eBritish Museum for lunch (BTW the Gallery Cafe has great food at reasonable prices). Then we piled in a cab to go to a Good Friday Performance of the Messiah in the Royal Albert Hall. The space was opulent and had surprisingly good acoustics
. We decided to splurge on a private box - lots of fun and made me feel like I was in a Victorian novel.The singing was uneven and the directing not up to Mragaret's, but we enjoyed ourselves and Marg and I actually spent some time discussing scripture - my Dad would have fallen off his chair.
Here are a few pictures:
Here are a few more Borough Market photos. As you can probably tell, we liked it a lot -- especially after eating the wonderful dinner Emily prepared with the ingredients she bought.
While walking to the Tate Modern yesterday I came across this handy public pit stop for bikes:
Hi again,
After my recent rant, I promise not to complain again.
This morning we got an early start and made our way via bus to a huge and fabulous farmers market. Everything from fish, food, and vegetables were in evidence with not a tee shirt or tube sock in sight. We celebrated a belated birthday lunch for Linda, sharing two tasty but very unhealthy cheese sandwiches (see picture).
We then spilt up with Emily returning to the apartment with the food she selected for tonight's home cooked meal and heading to the Old Operating Theatre. Linda and Chris headed over to the Tate Modern and Marg to the Globe. Plans were to meet "in the lobby" of the Tate Museum. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but in a huge museum with multiple entrances on multiple levels, gathering was a challenge.
Having finally found one another, we made our way home and
were treated to a delicious dinner by our favorite chef and plotted our remaining two days in this wonderful city.
We headed off to the Borough Market today for some exploration and Linda's birthday lunch - She requested grilled cheese sandwiches at Kappacasein, featured in a Samantha Brown piece on London. On the way we stopped in to see Southwark Cathedral where a young female vicar gave us one of the most gracious brush-offs I've ever experienced. She gave us a very brief orientation, offered a few interesting observations and the invited us to come back at 5:00. The reason was that they were having a special service for clergy to, in her words, "fortify them to go back to their home congregations for Good Friday and Easter".
Once we'd recovered from the elegant bum's rush, we headed over to the Borough Market where I picked up the makings for a delicious dinner. At Noon we met for Linda's birthday grilled cheese which was thoroughly enjoyed by all - three cheeses on Poilane sourdough, cooked in a sandwich press till it's crisp on the outside and thoroughly gooey in the middle.
Dinner later was pumpkin tortelloni with sage butter sauce and grated organic parmigiano, heirloom tomatoes with artisanal Sicilian olive oil, leeks and chanterelles sauteed in butter, and roasted local asparagus. Delicious if I do say so myself.
I seem to be having trouble uploading pictures so they'll have to come in the next post.
[Apologies to those following my facebook acct because this will be similar.]
Today I visited the Old Operating Theater Museum which was part of St. Thomas' Hospital in the early 1800s. Certainly makes one glad for our current state of medicine, imperfect though it may be. The operating theater was tiny, lit by a skylight in day or by a two candle holder candelabra at night. The patient was given alcohol to sedate them and restrained during the procedure. The operating table was a wooden plank and the surgeon wore the same blue topcoat to every procedure. The "Rules" in some ways presage managed care in that you had to get well or get out..... And washing your hands before
operating was a novel idea
