Back from London

[shewhomust]

Back from a weekend in London, in the course of which we did more things than I will have time to write about as I would like. These include:

• Gradually we learn to use the technology. This week's lesson was downloading the Family Reunion radio show from the internet to the mp3 player, and rigging up the device that plays back using the car radio speakers. So we drove to London listening to Les Barker (among others) as broadcast by a community radio station from St Louis.


• Visited Pollock's Toy Museum, a treasury of toys crammed into a narrow house, up one staircase and down the other, and every inch of every wall hung with cases of boxed games and dolls and tin pigs and money boxes and... The display containing the teddy bears also contains one doll, with a note explaining that she and the bear she accompanied had never been parted.


• Went with my brother and sister-in-law (Neil and Jan, aka the Bears) to two restaurants. Lunch at TAS was mezze, lots of little dishes in light, airy surroundings, good food and relaxed - and I don't think I've ever (knowingly) drunk Turkish wine before, so that's a first.
  Neil's birthday dinner at YumYum was disappointing: what used to be an agreeable neighbourhood Thai restaurant has moved, expanded, become grander: the food is still good, but the service was hopeless - the staff were all sweet and seemed eager to please, but were overwhelmed by the difficulty of serving, for example, cocktails to four people.


• Walked around the area of Highgate and the Archway which is the route we habitually drive through as we come in to London. I have wanted for a long time to stop and look at things I see too briefly from the car - bookshops, the view from the Archway, that sort of thing. This was even better than I'd hoped, as the Bears introduced us to Highgate Woods, a small patch of woodland in the middle of the city, but large enough that in places you can see nothing but trees all around (though you can still hear the traffic).


• Took photos, some of which have already been uploaded to Flickr, and more of which will be!


• Participated in one of the Bears' summer singarounds - while the folk clubs take their summer break, the Bears host a series of Sunday afternoon singarounds. They are always fun: good music, good company, old friends and new, and very encouraging about joining in, or reading something instead of making music. I read some poems, and will probably do that again, given a chance...


• Interred durham_rambler's mother's ashes, next to his father's; I can't write about this briefly, and I don't want to write about it now at length, so I'll say only that it was satisfying to achieve what we set out to, and that the cemetery staff were kind and helpful.