London visit

My aunt kindly let us borrow her flat in London this May Bank Holiday weekend so we went up on Saturday to stay for a couple of nights. I have worked and studied in London in the past but really we aren’t there that often so we had lots of places we wanted to visit on our wishlist.

We had never been to Borough Market, the famous food market, so we headed over there for some lunch. A glass of prosecco and a burger is a nice way to start a mini holiday.

The variety of food and drink on offer was fantastic, I hadn’t realised quite how big it would be and it was really busy.

I had remembered visiting the Old Operating Theatre many many years ago, I think on a University trip, and as it is right by Borough Market I wanted to show it to Simon. It is in the ceiling of a church and had been sealed up and forgotten about until 1950s. There was a lady giving a very interesting talk about how the operations used to work and about the history of the place.

We then headed over to the Barbican to see the Céleste Boursier-Mougenot work where finches fly about and land on guitars, it was great, both interesting and entertaining. You can see a video of the work here. As only 25 people are allowed in at a time the queue took *literally* hours, I think if we had realised how long it would take we might have given up but it was worth it in the end.

After all that queuing and seeing the birds it was dark and the promised rain had arrived, we got the bus over to the Southbank Centre to meet a friend in the Benugo Bar upstairs at the BFI.

After that we went to the Scooter Cafe near Waterloo which is a quirky little place. It used to be a scooter workshop and cafe, now the workshop part has moved elsewhere but the cafe remains and is a characterful place tucked away down a side road.

The next day we met up with my other aunt and went to the V&A to see the Quilts exhibition which had many examples of quilts from 1700 to now (no photos allowed). After some lunch we said goodbye to my aunt, and headed over to Tate Modern for a look around. The thing that Simon had wanted to see wasn’t there but it was good to visit again.

By this time our legs were getting a bit achy from all this tourism so we went to seek out a cinema in Leicester Square, we ended up at the Curzon Soho. It’s a great cinema with a Konditor and Cook in the lobby. The film we watched was The Ghost (Europe title, called The Ghost Writer in USA) which we both enjoyed.

After this it was getting quite late so we popped around the corner to the Tokyo Diner which is a no-frills Japanese place that I have been to every now and again over the years, it is easy for a quick hearty bite.

The area that we were staying in is now quite fancy, it’s the bit of Westminster between Sloane Square and the river. The nearest grocery shop is actually Daylesford Organic. The next morning I popped out there for some breakfast supplies of sourdough and yoghurt. The bread was delicious but I am not sure I would bother getting the yoghurt again.

It’s a nice quiet area to potter about in.

Later we had good tapas in Goya with my aunt.

And then finally we packed our bags and headed back to Oxford. Our wallets are emptier but it was a very nice weekend, I hope that we will be allowed back to stay again.