London colour

We walked up to Fitzrovia from Waterloo. The restaurant claimed it was in Soho, which it clearly wasn’t as you had to cross the Tottenham Court Road and pass the Fitzroy Tavern to get to it. But we enjoyed the walk. The city was throbbing, it was a proper Saturday night heaving pavements job until you hit Soho Square, then it thinned out.

Maud and The Rogster were on fine form and there was a lot of banter, in fact at one point we ended up in the rib crunching, eyes watering howls of infectious laughter that has the rest of the restaurant staring at you in amusement. 

Ended up in the surreal world of The Bricklayers Arms which is tucked away in a corner on Gresse Street and next door to an office building where TSM worked as a young temp in an office furniture company. She could still repeat the sing-song telephone answer she had to give which I found very funny. The furniture in this pub is a strange mix so you all end up sitting at different heights. I preferred The Black Horse on Rathbone Place where we went for a drink before the meal, which had some good music and a little upstairs cocktail bar.

The train home was heaving. When we got off at Woking there was a bunch of lads on the floor by the door, drunk but friendly enough. They staggered to their feet to let us off and I ended up in conversation with them. They seemed to like me and one insisted on shaking my hand as the doors opened. "Man you’ve got a good grip for an old guy" he said, which made me laugh. 

I ended up sitting in front of the TV with Stranger Things and not getting to sleep until 2am; having had a snooze on the train and a bagel when we got back I was ready to carry on for a while.

The picture is an installation on the South Bank.

Good night.