Saturday 2nd September 2023

Woke late and lay in bed reading for a bit before getting up for a hefty brunch. Decided to take a walk, as the weather looked good. Caught a bus to Camden Town, and walked up Parkway, past the first Ladies public lavatory built in London...only after the strenuous campaigning of George Bernard Shaw, apparently! Walked past the Dublin Castle public house, where I and a few pals used to go on Friday nights to dance very drunkenly to the gigging bands...in our surveying suits! The walk took us down onto the footpath of the Regents Canal, and past Lord Snowden's aviary at London Zoo, now used to house gibbons! They stared at us as we passed below. Then it was across Regents Park, and a circumlocution of the boating lake, before we cut down to York Gate and Park Crescent. From thence on to Fitzroy Square, where we stopped outside the former residence of GBS, and ending our expedition in the once famous Fitzroy Tavern with a badly needed glass of lager! Got a bus home. Popped in to the new food court above Nags Head Market...it opened only a couple of weeks ago, but looked sadly empty, though we were a little early for dinner. Bought some tortellini from the Italian food stand, and promised to return for dinner soon. Aki baked hake with tomatoes and cheese for dinner, followed by apple crumble and oat custard. Watched Scorcese's "Cape Fear" on the iPlayer...not one of Martin's greatest, despite the presence of an all-star cast...it had a strangely theatrical feel, unlike the gritty realism of his earlier films.