Sunday 5th May 2024

Woke around 0900. Aki got up to ready herself for Rowing Club. Porridged and teaed. Aki cycled off to Stamford Hill. I did some exercises then headed into town to walk one of the Dickens Walks from the book Aki had given me for Christmas. Took a Piccadilly Line train to Leicester Square and walked up to Foyles for a coffee in their airy cafe. Had to queue for the Gents...the bloke ahead of me complained that someone was hogging the cubicle, and was probably reading "War & Peace"...I replied that it was more likely to be "War & Piss", which got me my first laugh of the day. Caught a No.24 bus down to Parliament Square, and walked over to St James's Park to start the walk at Horse Guards Parade. Victorians used to take a detour here to get the time from the clock tower above Horse Guards, which, prior to the erection of Big Ben, was the most accurate clock in London. I then walked up to Pall Mall to seek out some of the early Victorian gas lamps, and on into a little Victorian courtyard named Pickering Place, which would have housed people in the four-storey tenements. There's a rare Georgian shop front next door for a wine merchants who have been there for over 300 years. Walked down Jermyn Street to look at the Victorian shop front to Paxton & Whitfield, purveyors of cheese by Royal Appointment. Bought some young Comte and a pork pie. Wandered through Wren's church opposite, St James's Piccadilly, and stop to listen to a free soul and gospel concert being given in the churchyard, and ate my pie. My walk then took me through Mayfair, via the Burlington Arcade...still guarded by the beadles of old...and then through Noho via Cavendish Square, ending the walk at Manchester Square, outside the Wallace Collection, housed in a large Victorian villa with semi-circular driveway. Ambled down Duke Street and tried a Martin guitar in the London Guitar Studio, but they didn't have much in stock. Took a bus down Oxford Street, and changed for the Piccadilly Line at Holborn, getting out at Holloway Road and walking up to Waitrose to get some chicken to cook this evening. Cooked harissa roast chicken thighs, with roast zatar potatoes and vegetables.