A different side of the city

We spent Monday afternoon in and around Spitalfields, then.  Tuesday morning began in the City but we meandered westwards to take in Marylebone High Street, Daunt Books and VV Rouleaux.  On Tuesday evening we enjoyed a fantastic dinner at Galvin La Chapelle, which was a real treat.

We saved the pageantry for yesterday.

We had tickets to see the Victoria and Albert in Love exhibition at the Queens Gallery, having heard good things and watched a fascinating TV programme when it first opened.  It didn’t disappoint.  From the minute we stepped inside the viridian green room with Winterhalter’s family portrait there in front of us, we found ourselves fascinated by the paintings, the jewellery and the odd curiosity such as the ivory throne.

My favourite was the cabinet of sketchbooks and the “souvenir journals”, so reminiscent of the kind of thing I enjoy creating myself.  It was easy to imagine evenings spent looking through this very personal record of places visited and rather touching to think that they too valued this kind of souvenir of a special day.

Yes, there’s bling – not everything there was to our taste – but we felt that the exhibition offered a real insight into the couple and left feeling very pleased we’d been to see it.

As we left, we turned the corner to find something going on.

Crowds assembled, in the usual places. 

Police horses were petted and thousands of photographs must have been taken to record the event

but I’m afraid this is the best I could do!

We left the crowds behind and strolled up Birdcage Walk, showered in lime tree debris as we went, to meet Edward for lunch and an afternoon in his company.

He went off for his singing lesson and left us to enjoy an evening of fun.  Well, it doesn’t have to be all high culture, does it?

Hot hot hot

London isn’t the best place to be when the temperature soars and a hot Monday afternoon in Spitalfields required frequent stops for cool drinks and ice creams.  This is such a fascinating area of the city, though, and we felt lucky that we could enjoy the sunshine and not have to return to an air conditioned office.

Such a mixed area, with modern glass and steel towering above small brick houses, interspersed with art installations and plenty of interest at street level.

We love the surprises which appear in between the office buildings.

A daylight visit to Dennis Severs House offered an altogether different experience to the December candlelit evening we spent there last year.

After a long and sticky day, though, Aperol Spritzers chez Jamie at Fifteen were just the ticket.

And when we returned to our apartment, a few fans were waiting to greet us!

Disaster averted

Last week, whilst shopping for Aunt Lucy’s skirt fabric in Country Threads, Bath, I spotted a jelly roll of this gorgeous “Rouenneries” fabric and couldn’t resist bringing it home, especially since I’d seen one or two string quilts appearing here and there recently.

Using a ready-made selection fabric is a breeze and I’d soon whipped out twenty blocks (twenty one actually…don’t know how that happened!)

Joined them altogether in no time, too.

I felt rather pleased with the result.

For the first time I can remember, too, I bought backing and border fabric at the same time, and since I had wadding at home already, there was no reason why I couldn’t simply go right on and finish it.

I decided to use my “signature” quilting method (!) tying the layers together with a shell button and red perle thread from my stash.  I decided to quilt circles in perle thread too, using a fairly long stitch which would be a feature of the design.  I traced a few randomly sized circles and began to stitch in red.

Whether it was the sunshine, I don’t know, but my mind wandered and I recalled Georgina’s story of Binky’s Quilt. 

Hmm.  I’m using red thread.

Where did it come from?  Was it one I dyed myself?

I thought that I’d better check before doing much more stitching.  So far, I had sewn on 30 buttons and stitched three circles using it.  Not too late to stop.  I grabbed a little of it and ran it under the kitchen tap, placing the wet thread on some white kitchen towel.

Georgina, thank you for sharing your experience so that I could learn from it! 

I whipped out all that red stitching, replacing it with the taupe colour in only just over an hour.  I’ll get some “real”  red perle thread, colour fast and trustworthy next week but in the meantime, I’ll heave a sigh of relief and thank goodness that I thought to check before it was too late.

I really didn’t want a pink quilt.

The sun has got his hat on

Hip hip hip hooray!

The second morning this year that I’ve been able to enjoy my breakfast outside; the first morning I have finished my breakfast outside and didn’t have to go back in, shivering, half way through.

I might even say it was “hot” out there, at 8.30am.

Of course, I had to keep an eye open for coiled up things near the pond.  Still haven’t got that one sorted, sorry to say, but at least the waterlily leaves are beginning to cover enough of the surface to reduce the amount of blanket weed in there.  We used to fight a losing battle against it, until we heard a professor of biology admit that this single-cell organism had got the better of him, in spite of all his advanced knowledge.  So, it’s ok to give up the challenge and simply trawl through the water with a stick from time to time!

It was lovely to enjoy the sunshine at last, to see shadows and look up to a clear blue sky as the Air India flight from Mumbai to Newark flew overheard, having made a stop in Frankfurt. 

(oh my, what a time waster that website is….)

Most of all, it’s good to finally shed those long sleeved clothes, to feel a little warmth on the skin and enjoy being outside in the fresh air.

Sit quietly and no one will notice you

We have a small circular pond in the garden, which brings us pleasure way out of proportion to its size or complexity.  We have no ornamental fish in there, no fountain – though there is a pump which circulates the water down a gentle rill from elsewhere in the garden creating enough of a watery sound to be soothing but not enough to cause any sudden urges to dash indoors.

We’ve never actively populated the pond with any form of wildlife but somehow, a bunch of newts have found their way in there and other passers by sometimes stop and enjoy the sunshine.  One year we had a mass of dragonfly larvae and usually we have a clump of frogspawn and the odd frog or two, but this year they appear to have deserted us.

Usually, on a sunny day, one of us can be found drinking our coffee, taking in the glorious view and simply enjoying the comings and goings.

But last week, the pump stopped working.  Not only that, but it blew all the house electrics when we tried to get it going again.  Time to bring in an expert who drained most of the water out to see what’s what.

Revealing another inhabitant we didn’t know about, who had been quietly sitting underneath the pump.

Guess who was a little jumpy when she went out there this morning to drink her coffee?