That there London

I've come down to that there London to see L. He collected me from the local railway station, although I was a bit later than I should have been as I missed my connection at Blackfriars. Actually, to be accurate, it basically missed me as I arrived at 1615 and the train was pulling away (it was timed to leave at 1616).

We sat around in his lovely house for a while, drinking wine and admiring the family piano that he has had restored at great expense. It's fairly old and came from my paternal grandparents. Norfolkdoc has the one from the maternal grandparents. When I was growing up, we had both in our house - one in each reception room. This one passed to my brother, and thence to his daughter who emigrated to Australia just under two years ago. L offered to take it on, because otherwise it was going to be sold, as no one else wanted it (I guess my brother didn't want it back although he does do plenty of music). It needed very expensive restoration and now it is in beautiful condition, but no one is playing it. There is not a scrap of music in the house, and I don't know that I would be able to read music any more without quite a bit of practice. Another time, when I have my iPad with me, I will dig out some simple music online and see if I can play still... I was never very good.

We had dinner at a Georgian restaurant in East Dulwich, which was pretty good and didn't make me too cov-anxious. Plenty of room between the tables, and most staff wearing masks. The mask wearing was pretty good on the train, but there was one guy who was showing a degree of entitlement (see extra). As a friend pointed out elsewhere on social media, he certainly didn't have the excuse that he couldn't keep a mask behind his ears... Anyway, I steered well clear of him, and managed to stay well clear of everyone, pretty much, on the trip across London from Kings Cross. And obviously I'm wearing an FFP2 mask which, according to a German study, offer a high level of protection against COVID risk.