The Smoke

You'll infer that we've been having a quiet time of it lately, catching up with interesting stuff like an undramatic trip to the dentist, ditto to sundry car fettlers and testers, researching whom to hire to replace our current gas and elec suppliers, replacing the kitchen rubbish bin, etc. 

A trip to London yesterday, then, made a nice change.  One of Martyn's Canadian cousins was in town for a night, so we arranged to meet in the evening.  We took the opportunity also to go to the Royal Academy summer show, opting to take the train up from our semi-homophonous neighbouring town, which has a more frequent service.  The journeys were mercifully uneventful, though in each train we got seats at the end of the carriage, and rattled around like peas in a drum.  At this time of year, the lavender fields just north of Sevenoaks are in full bloom, looking like gigantic swathes of blue corduroy.  [A parenthesis on fares: my old-geezer return ticket came to £8.65.  Martyn's, with an add-on for the London buses (which I get free) was £18.80.  So there is some modest compensation for aching joints.] 

We arrived in Charing Cross to find a lot of people on the concourse clad in spray-on lycra and propping up bicycles.  The streets were fuller still, since yesterday was the day of the Ride London cycle race.  It all looked like great fun - the West End was heaving with cyclists.  The knock-on was that our already paid-for bus route up to Picadilly was closed, and we had to leg it.  Not unpleasant, I admit, and the walk helped to slacken off the stiff, painful hip and knees that have been bothering me for a day or two.  Lesson: don't grizzle, walk!

The RA summer show was fascinating.  The main reason for our going was that Martyn's niece and her husband each have pieces in the show, and Fiona's is sold.  There was a lot that I liked, and in particular the architectural models and some of the drawings.  But I can't get enthusiastic about huge, lurid abstracts and portraits by people who can't draw a face any better than I can. 

Thence to Upper Street, N1, near which Martyn's relatives were staying.  We'd a bit of time to kill, so first went for a glass of wine.  The first free outdoor seats we found were at a restaurant called Meat People on Essex Road at Islington Green.  They were very happy just to serve us drinks, and we spent an enjoyable half hour sitting in veiled sunlight, sipping Sauvignon de Touraine and watching the world go noisily by.  In due course, we went and found the relatives' hotel.  They having been out and about in London needed showers etc, so we had another hour to fill.  A stroll round to K&J's house (which looked fine in their absence, except for a couple of pizza menus half-way through the letter box - no longer), then back to Upper Street for tea and muffins at a chain coffee shop.  A group of people came and sat at the next table.  One of them, an enormous, muscular black man, leaned over and said 'do you mind if I ask you a question?  Are you two gay men?'  (I reckon Martyn's cappuccino was the giveaway...).  Turns out he was hoping to write and film a programme or series about the gay 'community', looking at differences of perceptions and attitudes to life, love, sex, drugs etc seen in various contexts of time, age, geography, economics and demographics.  At first, Martyn was afraid we were about to be proselytised at; I thought rather that the sub-text had to do with funding.  In the event, we became a sort of mini focus group on what we might or might not find interesting in such a programme. 

Well, the main event was meeting the relatives, and that was really enjoyable.  (Sorry about the waiter's shaky hand...)  Susan, Kelly and Alessandra were visiting from Canada, and have been setting themselves a typically punishing schedule, including a trip to Paris.  As I write, they'll be on their way to Victoria Coach Station to join a bus trip to Stonehenge, then aiming to visit a couple of London markets this afternoon before getting the train to Manchester for their flight back home.  They took us to the Cuba Libre tapas bar on Upper Street, where I was not alone in struggling to follow the conversation over the ambient noise.  Still, the food was quite good and sensibly priced, and the Prosecco (when it finally arrived) ditto.  We were celebrating the engagement of Nick and Kelly (L and R), and Alessandra's (2L) recent nursing qualification.  Susan (3L) and Martyn are second cousins, and had met once before in Canada, so had lots of stories of family to exchange. 

Back in sleepy Disgustedville, we'll get back to our usual pottering pace now.  The thunderstorms of the past week or so have wrecked the roses, the fuchsias have appreciated a bit of extra water, and the tomatoes are coming along well.  The wildlife has been slightly wilder than usual: Martyn awoke to crashing noises the other night.  It transpired that one of our neighbourhood beasts - probably a fox, possibly a badger - had upset a drum of poultry manure pellets, spilling its contents across the terrace (stand by for industrial-strength weeds later...).  Perhaps the same visitor had managed to get the lid and the trap off the compost bin, and doubtless had a good rummage.  No accounting for the tastes of the local fauna.  Meanwhile, a juv blackbird is running his father ragged, chasing him round the garden and demanding to be fed.  He can in fact feed himself now, as we constantly remind him, but he pays no attention.