Posh nobs

Seen outside Waterloo station on their way to the races. I’m not a fan of the top hatted classes. They reek of entitlement and privilege, even when they are hiding a packet of shop bought sandwiches behind their back as the guy on the left is.

I never tire of walking through London; the familiar is constantly changing and the unfamiliar is constantly emerging. It can be anything from small coffee shops to places I've just never seen before that have been given a new lease of life by the way they are presented or signposted. Today we walked through Gabriel's Wharf, which is a funny little collection of bijou shops just off the river Thames by the OXO Tower. It has obviously received an upgrade in recent months and has lost its tired look. It is brighter and more diverse and just a nicer place to be as befits something sitting on the banks of a famous waterway. 

Again we were blessed with a sunny day; it looks as if the good weather is here to stay for a few days. London in the sun is iconic provided you know the right places to go and the right icons to pick out. For instance I have never noticed that within a few yards of each other were The Ward of Bread Street and Old Fish Street; this obviously implies a visit from Jesus Christ at some stage. I mean loaves and fishes, it can't be a coincidence. 

And did those feet in ancient times …

Our annual visits to the Spittalfield area to eat at unity diner went as expected; if you don't know unity diner it is a rather wonderful vegan restaurant when they make things that look and taste like meat but aren't meat. We had bites and the Buffalo wings to start with followed by 3-D printed "steak" burgers in the case of TGR and tofish  and new potatoes and vegetables in the case of TSM..

All quite delicious and accompanied by alcohol free beer, cocktails and mocktails. After that we decamped to the vegan coffee shop across the road for flat whites and very tasty little delicacies called sugar damms. 

Having thrown food down myself in unity diner I decided to buy a cheap shirt in Spittlefields market and with TSM's assistance I found a rather wonderful one with the nodding and waving cat beloved of kitsch Chinese culture.

I also bought a couple of vinyl records for £3 each, more for the covers than for the music. One of them in particular has to be seen to be believed. A 1960s band called The Springfields - the men are in sharp suits, and the woman is wearing a bell shaped skirt that looks as though one puff of wind would send her up in the air. They don't make them like that anymore, thank God.

I popped into see the Angeluca Kaufman exhibition at the Royal Academy. She was a late Georgian painter and one of the only two female founding members of the Royal Society of Arts. It was a very small exhibition with some bright features and a lot of information coded in it about painters in that period but I had to walk up three flights of stairs when I was already tired to get to it. Unimpressed. 

The trains back to Woking were predictably  busy. It however remained a warm day going into the evening. Remarkably there was a queue for the tanning studio near where I live. Obviously getting near to the holiday period .

I of course am always beach body ready as I don't give a damn what my body looks like on the beach…

Excellent day.