Streets of London

A Portobello Ramble

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I am sure everyone would agree that a painted wooden owl should not be left out in the rain. It was because of this that The Head Gardener was delighted, when we took two more large bags of green waste to the dump, to find a wooden bin she thought was just the job for Winnie the Pooh’s friend, Wol.

Back home she nailed the container to the top of one of the dead stumps along the back drive, and, with the promise of easy morsels within, persuaded the owl to take up residence. The rose surrounding our new friend is Félicité Perpetué, which we rescued from the undergrowth last year. It will soon be in bloom.

I scanned another dozen colour slides from the Streets of London series. These were taken on one walk in May 2004.

The Market Bar stands on the corner of Lancaster Road and Portobello Road, W11. The name derives from the world famous antiques market in which it is situated. It is one of the many London Pubs that hosts a Thai restaurant. Note the ubiquitous pigeons perched to the right of the cherubic sculpture. A couple of miles away in Marylebone is the Seashell seafood restaurant. I think the artwork would suit that establishment rather better.

At the NW end of Portobello Road the food market, with some general stalls, is a daily event. When, a few years later, I took up residence in Sutherland Place, I would shop there regularly,

and enjoy many a plentiful fry-up in the delightful Eve’s Market Café.

A little more in keeping with most of the modern public conveniences in London, this one in Lonsdale Road, seeming more substantial, makes the user less afraid that the door will open while he or she is enthroned, or, worse still, not open at all until the automatic cleansing operation has done its job. Twelve years on, it is a rare London street that does not contain pedestrians engaged in mobile phone conversations.

I took this photo of Alice’s antique shop on the corner of Denbigh Close at the Bayswater end of Portobello Road, for my eponymous granddaughter, then aged four.

Simon Close lies off the Notting Hill Gate end of Portobello. This shop marks the end of the market. Further on are rows of delightful cottages.

On into Bayswater, this gentleman took a rest in Palace Gardens Terrace, W8.

Garden Mews, W2 is just one of the many enticingly elegant enclaves to be found in many parts of the capital. They tend, of necessity, to guard their privacy.

This woman, leaving Queensway so purposefully is probably making her way into Kensington Gardens, referred to in the Terrace above. Once we had gentlemen walking around the city carting sandwich boards. Now we see single boards on the end of a pole clutched by a stationary guardian, unless he has found a usual place to prop his ward. Whiteley’s is a world famous store at the far end of Queensway.

I well remember Stanley Green, seen here, in 1977 (commons.wikimedia.org), who tramped up and down Oxford Street for years, toting his own idiosyncratic message.

Many squares of grand terraced housing surround enclosed gardens, like this one alongside Porchester Road.

Much to the bemusement of the woman taking a cigarette break beside Celbridge Mews, the car in the foreground of this picture seems intent on forcing its way into the line of traffic coming off Lord Hills Bridge at the Westway End of Porchester Road. Beneath the bridge runs the underground railway leading to Royal Oak station, unseen, to the right of the distant pedestrians.

This evening we enjoyed Mr Pink’s fish and chips served with pickled onions and gherkins. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, and I drank more of the fleurie.

Who Is Lorna? Where Is She?

For those of you are new to this particular series, The Streets of London, are some 1,000 + colour slides of London which must contain the Street Name, and were all taken on walks through our capital.

Today I scanned another dozen, from May 2004.

This statue of Queen Victoria stands outside the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand, WC2.

Milford Lane, WC2 runs from the other side of that road down towards the Embankment. On a Friday, in the Edinburgh Restaurant on this corner, you can fortify yourself with Pie and Mash after having secured a mortgage.

Popular in the capital since the 19th century, genuine eel, pie, and mash shops are now in short supply. Wikipedia describes the delicacy thus:

‘a minced beef and cold water pastry pie served with mashed potato. There should be two types of pastry used, the bottom or base should be suet pastry and the top short. It is common for the mashed potato to be spread around one side of the plate and for a type of parsley sauce to be present. This is commonly called eel liquor sauce or simply liquor(although it is non-alcoholic), traditionally made using the water kept from the preparation of the stewed eels. However, many shops no longer use stewed eel water in their parsley liquor. The sauce traditionally has a green colour, from the parsley. Sometimes a gravy is served instead (normally Oxo or Bisto).’

One of the many attractions in the famous Trafalgar Square W1, here seen at its junction with Pall Mall East, are pavement artists. Here one engages the attention of spectators and photographers alike.

Thomas Goode is an upmarket tableware shop in Mayfair’s South Street W1. in my view one of its finest treasures is the terra cotta panels decorating its facade.

Jackie has enlarged these panels and revealed that the one on the right is labelled ‘the potter’, and its companion depicts the pot being painted.

More terra cotta tiling adorns the front of this building in Green Street W1, where a woman enjoys a snack, perhaps purchased from within. The foreground vehicle obscures her table.

A common sight in the West End is a blanketed beggar with his dog. This one sits in a side street off Oxford Street W1.

Continuing on to W2 we come to the elegant Delamere Terrace, alongside the canal of Little Venice. The narrow boats are sited on residential moorings. My counselling room stood on the opposite side of the water.

Chichester Road W2 is a turning off Delamere Terrace. This block of flats displays the uses to which people put their balconies, and a collection of TV satellite dishes. You can’t even park outside your own home without feeding a meter.

Further west along the canal lies Lord Hills Road W2. This bridge is one of the replacements that are gradually being constructed, replacing steps with winding approaches for wheelchair users.

Basing Street W11 takes us away from the City of Westminster to the neighbouring Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea. There was posted a message from someone desperately seeking Lorna. Now there’s a story.

Someone has decorated the walls of St Luke’s Mews W11 with a rather compelling mural.

Whilst drafting this post I watched Andy Murray’s thrilling Davis Cup tennis match with Kei Nishikori.

This Mother’s Day evening we dined with Becky and Ian at The Beach House in Milford on Sea. Given that this was a surprise and we weren’t feeling 100% I had to be a bit devious to explain why it was necessary to make ourselves presentable and go out. In the event we had a very enjoyable evening. My starter was fish cakes in a chili sauce; my main course a seafood platter; and my dessert Eton mess. I shared a bottle of montepulciano with Becky, whilst Jackie and Ian both drank Peroni.

History In The Streets

This morning Aaron continued work on decorating the bathroom. He was somewhat hampered by finding a section of the previous paintwork peeling off plaster that had not been sealed before the pigment was applied.

I scanned another dozen colour slides from the Streets of London series produced in April 2004.

Between Oxford Street and Soho Square in the heart of the West End lies Diadem Court W1. This building on the corner has been enhanced by graffiti. The bar looked closed.

A little further East, off Shaftesbury Avenue, we come to Grape Street, beside the Shaftesbury Theatre where the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie was showing.

Centre Point, the 33 storey office tower block in the background, stands almost directly above Tottenham Court Road tube station. Built for developer Harry Hyams, as a speculative project, the building remained empty from its completion in 1966 until 1975, following the weekend occupation the previous year by a Direct Action housing group. This successfully highlighted the fact that the potential accommodation was being deliberately kept unoccupied while thousands were homeless. It has passed through several ownerships since, and is now used for both offices and residential apartments.

In Holborn, South of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, we come to St Clement’s Lane. I was intrigued by the gentleman seated in the glazed bridge in the middle distance. Space is at a premium, but is that really where he keeps his office?

In Houghton Street, WC2 the paving outside the London School of Economics was being refurbished.

The figure in the niche above this doorway in Serle Street, between Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Temple, is the Catholic Saint, Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor, beheaded by King Henry VIII’s executioner for refusing to take the Act of Supremacy in order to facilitate the sovereign’s divorce from his wife, Catherine of Aragon. The painting is by Hans Holbein the Younger. A copy of this, and another of St John Fisher, hung on the walls of the refectory of Wimbledon College, my Jesuit grammar school.

Bell Yard, WC2 is a little further South.

The Evening Standard placard announcing the return of City Bonuses in Fleet Street, preceded the 2008 crash by four fat years. I’m not sure how the prisoners were treated. Some dogs, of course, are treated better than humans.

Crane Court is off Fleet Street. The All Day Breakfast is now ubiquitous in London, but I doubt if this one

matches that of one off Poppin’s Court. At one time the excellent value cafes in London were the province of Italians, the older generation speaking halting English and the second generation being bilingual in Cockney and Italian. The Eastern Europeans have picked up that particular baton. One such hid around this corner. I often patronised it after a session at Portugal Prints.

Whitefriars Street also runs into Fleet Street. Sir Christopher Wren’s famous St Paul’s Cathedral can be seen in each of these last two pictures. This is what Wikipedia tells us about it:

‘St Paul’s Cathedral, London, is an Anglican cathedral, the seat of the Bishop of London and the mother church of the Diocese of London. It sits on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London. Its dedication to Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD 604. The present church, dating from the late 17th century, was designed in the English Baroque style by Sir Christopher Wren. Its construction, completed in Wren’s lifetime, was part of a major rebuilding programme in the City after the Great Fire of London.

The cathedral is one of the most famous and most recognisable sights of London. Its dome, framed by the spires of Wren’s City churches, dominated the skyline for 300 years.^[3] At 365 feet (111 m) high, it was the tallest building in London from 1710 to 1962. The dome is among the highest in the world. St Paul’s is the second largest church building in area in the United Kingdom after Liverpool Cathedral.

St Paul’s Cathedral occupies a significant place in the national identity. It is the central subject of much promotional material, as well as of images of the dome surrounded by the smoke and fire of the Blitz. Services held at St Paul’s have included the funerals of Lord Nelson, the Duke of Wellington and Sir Winston Churchill; Jubilee celebrations for Queen Victoria; peace services marking the end of the First and Second World Wars; the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer, the launch of the Festival of Britain and the thanksgiving services for the Golden Jubilee, the 80th Birthday and the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II.’

Perhaps I should inform the website that it is also the cathedral in which my good friend, The Reverend Norman David Bird, was ordained almost thirty years ago.

Shoe and Bride Lanes, bring us nearer the River Thames. The latter features the transport of the modern London policeman. No set of London photographs should be devoid of scaffolding.

This evening we dined on chicken and bacon pasta bake; crisp carrots, green beans, and Brussels sprouts; and sautéed peppers and onions. I finished the malbec.

There’s Always Work Going On

Having, yesterday, mounted the Brick Path section in the first volume of garden album, I decided to leave the last four sheets blank for subsequent updates. Each of the previous sets of entries has been divided by a similar virgin page. Today I printed up the Phantom Path section with which to start volume two.

I then scanned another set of the Streets of London colour slides from April 2005.

It is not possible to walk these streets without some work going on. Examples of this include:

Scaffolding in Wyndham Place, off Crawford Street, W1,

and in Duke Street;

roadworks in Devonshire Place, W1;

and redevelopment of Warren Street Station subway on Euston Road NW1.

As far as I remember, that hole in the pavement remained for many months. I never saw anyone working on it. Similarly, I think Warren Street station users were actually inconvenienced for quite a while.

Perhaps this rubbish on the corner of Cabbell Street, NW1 was left legitimately by Panini Sandwich Bar around the corner.

On another corner of Wyndham Place stands the Duke of Wellington pub, with its eponym keeping watch from an upstairs window.

The Iron Duke is not exactly represented by a mural, but our capital does sport many, some commissioned, some not. The plaque affixed to the building in Noel Street, W1, informs us that Louise Vines painted its mural, ‘Ode to the West Wind’ on behalf of London Wall in 1980, when their phone number was still valid.

This street trader in Stratford Place, on the corner of HMV in Oxford Street is one of many tucked into this major thoroughfare. Even ten years ago, the mobile phone was much in evidence.

Among this batch of slides were some of the shrubbery in Lindum House garden, from that same month.

This one shows, on the left hand edge, the grid of a wooden arch I constructed with Mike Kindred, spanning the path through the orchard, seen her in full blossom. To the right is the roof of the bungalow John built himself on a plot of land that had once formed part of our garden. The story of how our neighbour saved our drawing room ceiling is told in ‘A Screwdriver Comes In Handy’.

This evening we enjoyed further helpings of the Hordle Chinese Take Away meal. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, and I drank sparkling water.

A West End Ramble

Jackie spent the morning planting and clearing beds; I chipped in with dead-heading of roses. This afternoon we bought some trellis from Everton Nurseries to go round the decking. The return journey had me bent and contorted in the passenger seat with lengths of stapled wooden strips over my head. Fortunately it was only about five minutes.

I scanned another dozen of the Streets of London series of colour slides from April 2004.

Judy Dench was then starring in All’s Well That Ends Well at the Geilgud Theatre on the corner of Oxford Street and Rupert Street, W1. Some may consider her portrait less than enticing. The vehicles, the rooftops of which can be seen on Oxford Street were probably going nowhere fast.

The ubiquitous Starbucks, that purveyor of weak coffee – unless you pay for extra, tasteless, shots – has a presence in Avery Row. This was clearly an unusually warm April.

South Molton Lane lies to the West of New Bond Street,

where Roosevelt and Churchill continue their conversation first featured on 20th July. Most of us couldn’t afford the entrance fee for the shops behind them.

Seymour Mews is not far from Marble Arch. The grid of little square lights on the pavement outside Nordic Interiors is a common sight. These glass prisms, fitted to an iron cover, were introduced in the 1880s to throw light into the back of dingy coal cellars. Following the Clean Air Act, the coal has probably given way today to many other materials. The passing woman is probably quite ignorant of the fact that she is walking on private land.

The facades of the buildings in Albemarle Street are typical of Mayfair’s splendour. Probably every second of every day in London sees some maintenance or other being carried out. Here, it may have been street lighting that was being attended to. The typical jack-in-the-box adjustable platform suggests this to me.

Davies Mews is another of these frequently encountered little back streets that once held stables, and now house residents who can afford to pay millions for a tiny dwelling. These date from the 17th and 18th centuries. Built in rows behind large city houses, they consisted of a carriage house on the ground floor with residential accommodation above.

From Davies Street can be seen the mews mansard roofs, demonstrating how modern residents have enlarged their living space. What would those coachmen of earlier times think if they could see today’s conversions and rebuilds?

This was Oxford Street in April. Imagine it at the height of summer, especially during the Sales season. Moving against the milling flow of people and their buggies in this famous shopping street is a nightmare. At every junction, such as this one with Bird Street, there is a stall selling bags, T-shirts, trophies, nicknacks, fruit, hot-dogs, and much more.

Moving slightly North West we find Ranston Street, NW1. I don’t know if this was once a mews, but the rows of houses look very much like the typical rebuilds, where many, but not all, of the homes have retained a place for their modern, horseless, carriages on the ground floor. These workmen are attending to a roof, it seems.

Venables Street, NW8 runs into Church Street Market. It is therefore most appropriate that there should be a Tesco Metro. That is because Tesco was founded in 1919 by Jack Cohen as a group of market stalls. He had, himself, begun by selling surplus groceries from a stall in the East End of London. It would have been similar to those we see in Church Street today. The Tesco name first appeared in 1924, after Cohen purchased a shipment of tea from T. E. Stockwell and combined those initials with the first two letters of his surname. The first Tesco store opened in 1929 in Burnt Oak, Barnet.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s choice cottage pie, new potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, and ratatouille. The Cook drank Hoegaarden and I consumed more of the malbec

Up West

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This morning I scanned another dozen colour slides from my Streets of London series. These are from May 2005.

Sussex Place W2 leads into Hyde Park Gardens Mews where these two young girls enjoy the company of a small pony. Ross Nye and Hyde Park Stables are two nearby riding schools, so such scenes are commonplace in this street just minutes from the park.

Oxford Street W1 is a famous shopping street. Accessorize is part of the Monsoon Accessorize empire started in London in 1973 by Peter Simon, a market-stall trader. As suggested by its name this outlet specialises in accessories considered to blend well with the feminine styles that remain popular to this day.

Jessica and Ann are both wearing Monsoon garments in this photograph produced in France in September 1982. I’m not sure about Sam.

There are probably not many periods when there are no maintenance works going on along the street. Here the pavement is receiving attention. The shop on this corner is The Body Shop, like many others, no longer British.

According to Wikipedia: ‘The Body Shop International plc, trading as The Body Shop, is a British cosmetics, skin care and perfume company that was founded in 1976 by Dame Anita Roddick. It currently has a range of 1,000 products which it sells in 3,000 franchised stores internationally in 66 countries.^[2] The company is based in Littlehampton, West Sussex.

The company had been owned by the French cosmetics company L’Oréal between 2006 and 2017. In June 2017, L’Oréal agreed to sell the company to the Brazilian cosmetics company Natura for £880 million, subject to Brazilian and US regulatory approval.^[3]’

A less ambitious trader sells fruit at the corner with Woodstock Street.

Bill Kenwright’s revival of the musical pictured showing at the New London Theatre at the corner of Parker Street and Drury Lane ran for two and a half years from 2003-2005.

Wikipedia tells us that ‘The modern theatre’ completed in 1973, ‘is built on the site of previous taverns and music hall theatres, where a place of entertainment has been located since Elizabethan times. Nell Gwynn was associated with the tavern, which became known as the Great Mogul by the end of the 17th century, and presented entertainments in an adjoining hall, including “glee clubs” and “sing-songs”. The Mogul Saloon was built on the site in 1847, which was sometimes known as the “Turkish Saloon or the “Mogul Music Hall.” In 1851, it became the Middlesex Music Hall, known as The Old Mo. This in turn was rebuilt as the New Middlesex Theatre of Varieties, in 1911 by Frank Matcham for Oswald Stoll.^[1]

In 1919, the theatre was sold to George Grossmith, Jr. and Edward Laurillard, refurbished and reopened as the Winter Garden Theatre.’

Mary Poppins ran from December 2004 to January 2008 at The Prince Edward Theatre on the corner of Old Compton Street and Garrick Street W1.

In December 1967 and January 1968, Shelton Street, just outside Old Brewer’s Yard, was one of the locations for the Doctor Who series ‘Web of Fear’.

This window in Earlham Street, Seven Dials, has the look of a fairground hall of mirrors.

It was clearly break time in Wardour Mews W1;

people chose to eat in at the Café Roma in D’Arblay Street. Gypsy Stables, the tattoo parlour at 37 Berwick Street, with its entrance on D’Arblay Street, must have been in the vanguard of our contemporary passion for permanent pellicular pigmentation.

www.eyestorm.com is an on-line art dealer selling a wide range of works. Having moved from Pollen Street, its physical gallery is now in Clerkenwell Road, EC1.

Scattered throughout London remain a number of small green huts. They are cabmen’s shelters introduced in 1875 to offer drivers of horse drawn hackney carriages an alternative to pubs in an effort to ensure they would not be drunk in charge. Captain George Armstrong, editor of The Globe newspaper, enlisted the help of the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury and several other philanthropists in order to form the Cabmen’s Shelter Fund which provided these. Today’s black cab drivers can still avail themselves of them. This one, in Warwick Avenue, W9, is in Little Venice, near my former counselling room.

“Up West” is a phrase indicating a trip to the West End of London, which is where most of today’s streets are located.

Paniza 2000 is an extremely good Spanish wine that was one of the contents of Ian’s Christmas case. It was an excellent accompaniment to Jackie’s lamb jalfrezi and onion rice with Tesco’s pakoras, onion bahjis, and vegetable samosas. The Culinary Queen was content with her customary Hoegaarden.

Around West London

Feeling a little better today, I dozed away the morning, got up for lunch, and scanned another dozen slides from the Streets of London series. These were all made in April 2004.

This young mother, speaking on her mobile phone in Avery Row W1, to the west of New Bond Street, blended perfectly with her surroundings.

Further west, Westbourne Terrace Road Bridge crosses the Regent’s canal in Little Venice. As the plaque indicates, this was once in the Borough of Paddington which was absorbed by Westminster in 1965.

The Bridge House pub lies at the corner of Westbourne Terrace Road and Delamere Terrace. The pub was fortunate enough to survive World War 2 bombing, which is more than can be said for many of its neighbours.

The Little Venice area lies within the parish of St Mary’s on Paddington Green, visible in this view of St Mary’s Square.

The A40 flyover overlooks a bricked up end of the square, and in 2004 the now- completed apartments for sale in Paddington Walk were still being built.

Church Yard Walk provides a route through to Edgware Road.

Sussex Gardens W2 forms a T junction with Praed Street, which is always as congested as this.

Marylebone’s St Christopher’s Place looks like an alfresco dining room.

Maintenance work was being undertaken at The Churchill Hotel in Portman Square.

Ashland Place W1 is one of the many streets that enjoys a view of The Post Office Tower.

Saint Michael’s Street W2 houses one of London’s many Starbucks coffee houses. I wondered whether the man on the chair was waiting for coffee, or simply having a breather. So many food and drink outlets place seats outside that are very tempting to people who simply want to sit down.

The historic Mason’s Arms pub in Upper Berkeley Street was founded in 1778 and rebuilt in 1870.

This amble round West London was probably carried out on one particular day.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s famous sausage casserole; crisp carrots, broccoli, and green beans; and mashed potato, followed by treacle tart and custard.

London Reflections

We have begun to collect rose petals for confetti for Danni and Andy’s wedding next year. Last night Jackie researched methods of drying them, and began experimenting. So far it is a toss up between the microwave, and leaving them to crisp on kitchen roll. The problem with the microwave is timing. Anyone who has a dodgy toaster will know the extremes between under- and over- cooking that can be experienced.

My contribution to the garden maintenance today was a bout of weeding and another raking the gravel on the back drive. Among Jackie’s planting and other activities, she found time to front her shed with a kick board and a strip of gravel. Where was the gravel to be obtained? From the back drive. When? Just as I stood admiring my bowling green level shingle.

I helped a bit with the project, then got the rake out again.

In between my spells in the garden I scanned another dozen slides from my Streets of London series, all produced in April 2004.

I will begin with one shot that I can’t quite locate, and does not legitimately belong in the series, because the street sign is illegible. I have a feeling it is in the developed area near The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. Maybe someone will recognise it. (On 21st July, Geoff Austin sent me this information in an e-mail: ‘Is the building opposite a restaurant? There’s something that looks as if it might be a menu on the wall. I ‘googled’ Teca, and found there was a Teca Restaurant in Brooks Mews W.1, some years ago but it seems to be closed now.’)

Whilst a young woman surveys an antiques shop window, an older gentleman avails himself of modern technology.

Glass on another scale, fronts so many newer, taller, buildings throughout London.

A massive structure on Euston Road offers a reflection of the Post Office Tower. When the tower was opened, by Harold Wilson, on 8th November 1965, it was, until 1980, the tallest building in the United Kingdom.

Still a major communications hub, the tower was officially opened to the public on 16 May 1966 by MP Tony Benn, and holiday camp entrepreneur Billy Butlin, who was to open an ill-fated enterprise. In addition to the communications equipment and office space, there were viewing galleries, a souvenir shop, and a rotating restaurant, the “Top of the Tower”, on the 34th floor. It made one revolution every 22 minutes.

A bomb, responsibility for which was claimed by the Provisional IRA, exploded in the roof of the men’s toilets at the restaurant on 31 October 1971. This eating place has never re-opened.

Sometimes, the glass-sided buildings can offer confusing information. Eleven years on, studying this print of Luxborough Street, W1, I thought I must have printed it in reverse.

Other windows hold different attractions. Ann Summers, Wikipedia tells us, ‘is a British multinational retailer company specialising in sex toys and lingerie, with over 140 high street stores in the UK, Ireland, the Channel Islands and Spain.^[1] In 2000, Ann Summers acquired the Knickerbox brand,^[2] a label with an emphasis on more comfortable and feminine underwear, while the Ann Summers-labelled products tend to be more erotic in style. The chain had an annual turnover of £117.3 million in 2007-2008.’

Naturally, there is one in Soho’s Wardour Street. I wonder what the smiling woman thought I was doing.

Most gentlemen looked the other way, while one woman examined the hem-lines displayed in Bruton Street.

A book shop in Dean Street was undergoing a face-lift.

Another stands at the corner of Brewer Street near the entrance to Raymond’s Revue Bar, which closed later that year. A signed 1951 photograph of the Festival of Erotica’s proprietor features in http://derrickjknight.com/2014/04/12/the-three-scrubbers/

New plantings of London planes were to be seen in

Fitzroy Street,

and on the corner of Warren Street.

Bronze statues of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Sir Winston Churchill sit conversing on a bench in Mayfair, where Old Bond Street meets New Bond Street. Called ‘Allies’ this artwork was a gift from the Bond Street Association (the shops and businesses of Bond Street) to the City of Westminster to commemorate 50 years of peace. Lawrence Holofcener, a sculptor with dual nationality created this landmark which was unveiled by Princess Margaret on 2 May 1995.

The flower seller at the corner of Clifford Street has a less comfortable perch. This must have been one of the very rare occasions on which I have passed this spot when no tourist was posing between the great wartime leaders.

For this evening’s dinner, Jackie created a delicious new dish she termed Downton Hotpot. This consisted of lean minced beef baked with a topping of sliced potatoes and a later addition of peppers and onions. Cabbage, cauliflower, and carrots completed the menu. I drank more of the merlot, while Jackie quaffed her beloved Belgian Hoegaarden beer.

P.S. My friend, Michael Watts, made this comment on Facebook: ‘Derrick I thought you might like to know that ‘The Post Office Tower ‘ restaurant is opening on the 25th July for two weeks, to celebrate 50 years of communications. Entree is by ballot, which unfortunately I have missed !!
Be interesting to know if it still has the same decor.’

Again, the early morning sun, casting shadows across the gravel to meet grasses on the other side of the path, worked it’s magic

on the peonies;

on new rambling red roses;

on rose tinted aquilegias;

on the clematis Doctor Ruppel;

on a somewhat nibbled geranium palmatum;

and warming the stone of a frog’s back on which a bluebottle hitched a ride.

I have mentioned before, my, as yet unpublished, Streets of London Series. From March 2004 until some time in 2008, I conducted this exercise, wandering around during breaks in my working day. The constraint I set myself was that the street signs should appear in the shots. There are many hundreds of these colour slides taken with my Olympus OM2, so I decided to embark upon scanning them. I entered the first dozen, from March to April 2004, today.

From Hanover Gate, NW1 can be seen the burnished dome of Regent’s Park mosque.

Warwick Place W9 stands on the corner of Warwick Avenue. The mind boggles at the van’s signage.

The ubiquitous McDonald’s has an outlet on the corner of York Way N1. Perhaps Securitas is coming to collect the takings.

A spindly young London Plane comes into leaf on Castellain Road W9.

Maida Avenue W2 runs alongside the Little Venice stretch of the Regent’s Canal, forming a junction with Warwick Avenue which spans the bridge. The white building on our left is The Bridge House, featured in ‘Time To Go’.

This corner of Gray’s Inn Road, WC1 stands diagonally opposite Kings Cross Station. The area is always clogged with traffic.

The station itself stands on the corner of Euston Road and York Way, N1.

The subject of the witty window cleaner sculpture in Chapel Street, NW1, scratches his head in contemplation of the task of cleaning Marks and Spencer’s glass fronted tower standing alongside Edgware Road Metropolitan Line station.

From this corner of Warwick Avenue, W2, narrow boats on the Regent’s canal are visible through the railings.

In Sardinia Street WC2, Angelo advertises his hairdressing, whilst thespians trip the tango.

The eponymous Church Street Market runs from Edgware Road. At this far end it is joined by Penfold Street, NW8.

The sign for Gracedale Road, SW, is now many miles from Furzedown, so I have inserted it in a more appropriate post.

Margery and Paul popped in for a very welcome surprise visit, ‘to check up on’ me. This was, as usual, great fun. Paul put me right on the jackdaws I had recently incorrectly identified as hooded crows. I amended the post accordingly. Thanks, Paul.

Jackie returned home early this evening, and we dined on her superb chicken and egg jalfrezi with special fried rice. She drank Hoegaarden whist I opened another bottle of the Madiran and drank some of it.