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Aug. 16th, 2010
To the V&A with Dave's parents who are visiting for the weekend. We venture into the jewellery section where we get told off for taking a photo - of the shiny stairs - and where I make a virtual ring (you can tell that a future in fashion design does not await me). Interesting that the exhibition is merely the story of jewellery trends through the ages with no mention of blood diamonds or South African gold mines or fair-trade jewellery. I also like the reproductions room - the giant David, the Trajan's column, the over-wrought cherubs and angels - and the tiny Japanese house on stilts and the full frontage of a 17th century house in the architecture section.
We walk up to Sloane square through pretty Brompton mews and spend far too long in Peter Jones. Tourists never get this far; this is the John Lewis for posh people who're slumming it. One woman tries on ten cardigans, for each one she comes out of the changing room and shows it to her two daughters, the assistants and the (im)patient queue, until I want to remove her credit cards.
Later, we go out to eat rather nice food at the Daniel Defoe and then to our local pub for their 60s night. I like the Royal Sovereign, it's just this side of grungy with the pink hair & pink DM booted barstaff, the sweet roll up smell in the back yard, people eating pizzas whilst their sprogs run around, it's the sort of place your local should be; outside the rules of the chain-pub or the jurisdictions of the gastro-pub.
Sunday, we meet Rob and Aline in the Coach and Horses to watch some football match or other, although I abscond to go sit in the sandpit in Clissold Park (a place hitherto feared) with Charlotte, Did, their small restless child, and their Enfieldian friends Stu and Jo that later turns into a walk up and down Church St to look for "overpriced child wellingtons" which remain unsourced (although he did get a toy monkey) and then jugs of Pimms in Ryan's Bar and Dr Bike fixing Robert's bike on the common. Stoke Newington is pleasantly empty; I'd like to say the N16-ers've all gone off to Tuscany or the Dordogne but I know it's more likely to be Aldeburgh/Totnes/Broadstairs nowadays. Holidaying abroad is for the plebs. Once people from Rochdale have done a year in Provence, it's not worth going.
We walk up to Sloane square through pretty Brompton mews and spend far too long in Peter Jones. Tourists never get this far; this is the John Lewis for posh people who're slumming it. One woman tries on ten cardigans, for each one she comes out of the changing room and shows it to her two daughters, the assistants and the (im)patient queue, until I want to remove her credit cards.
Later, we go out to eat rather nice food at the Daniel Defoe and then to our local pub for their 60s night. I like the Royal Sovereign, it's just this side of grungy with the pink hair & pink DM booted barstaff, the sweet roll up smell in the back yard, people eating pizzas whilst their sprogs run around, it's the sort of place your local should be; outside the rules of the chain-pub or the jurisdictions of the gastro-pub.
Sunday, we meet Rob and Aline in the Coach and Horses to watch some football match or other, although I abscond to go sit in the sandpit in Clissold Park (a place hitherto feared) with Charlotte, Did, their small restless child, and their Enfieldian friends Stu and Jo that later turns into a walk up and down Church St to look for "overpriced child wellingtons" which remain unsourced (although he did get a toy monkey) and then jugs of Pimms in Ryan's Bar and Dr Bike fixing Robert's bike on the common. Stoke Newington is pleasantly empty; I'd like to say the N16-ers've all gone off to Tuscany or the Dordogne but I know it's more likely to be Aldeburgh/Totnes/Broadstairs nowadays. Holidaying abroad is for the plebs. Once people from Rochdale have done a year in Provence, it's not worth going.
To the V&A with Dave's parents who are visiting for the weekend. We venture into the jewellery section where we get told off for taking a photo - of the shiny stairs - and where I make a virtual ring (you can tell that a future in fashion design does not await me). Interesting that the exhibition is merely the story of jewellery trends through the ages with no mention of blood diamonds or South African gold mines or fair-trade jewellery. I also like the reproductions room - the giant David, the Trajan's column, the over-wrought cherubs and angels - and the tiny Japanese house on stilts and the full frontage of a 17th century house in the architecture section.
We walk up to Sloane square through pretty Brompton mews and spend far too long in Peter Jones. Tourists never get this far; this is the John Lewis for posh people who're slumming it. One woman tries on ten cardigans, for each one she comes out of the changing room and shows it to her two daughters, the assistants and the (im)patient queue, until I want to remove her credit cards.
Later, we go out to eat rather nice food at the Daniel Defoe and then to our local pub for their 60s night. I like the Royal Sovereign, it's just this side of grungy with the pink hair & pink DM booted barstaff, the sweet roll up smell in the back yard, people eating pizzas whilst their sprogs run around, it's the sort of place your local should be; outside the rules of the chain-pub or the jurisdictions of the gastro-pub.
Sunday, we meet Rob and Aline in the Coach and Horses to watch some football match or other, although I abscond to go sit in the sandpit in Clissold Park (a place hitherto feared) with Charlotte, Did, their small restless child, and their Enfieldian friends Stu and Jo that later turns into a walk up and down Church St to look for "overpriced child wellingtons" which remain unsourced (although he did get a toy monkey) and then jugs of Pimms in Ryan's Bar and Dr Bike fixing Robert's bike on the common. Stoke Newington is pleasantly empty; I'd like to say the N16-ers've all gone off to Tuscany or the Dordogne but I know it's more likely to be Aldeburgh/Totnes/Broadstairs nowadays. Holidaying abroad is for the plebs. Once people from Rochdale have done a year in Provence, it's not worth going.
We walk up to Sloane square through pretty Brompton mews and spend far too long in Peter Jones. Tourists never get this far; this is the John Lewis for posh people who're slumming it. One woman tries on ten cardigans, for each one she comes out of the changing room and shows it to her two daughters, the assistants and the (im)patient queue, until I want to remove her credit cards.
Later, we go out to eat rather nice food at the Daniel Defoe and then to our local pub for their 60s night. I like the Royal Sovereign, it's just this side of grungy with the pink hair & pink DM booted barstaff, the sweet roll up smell in the back yard, people eating pizzas whilst their sprogs run around, it's the sort of place your local should be; outside the rules of the chain-pub or the jurisdictions of the gastro-pub.
Sunday, we meet Rob and Aline in the Coach and Horses to watch some football match or other, although I abscond to go sit in the sandpit in Clissold Park (a place hitherto feared) with Charlotte, Did, their small restless child, and their Enfieldian friends Stu and Jo that later turns into a walk up and down Church St to look for "overpriced child wellingtons" which remain unsourced (although he did get a toy monkey) and then jugs of Pimms in Ryan's Bar and Dr Bike fixing Robert's bike on the common. Stoke Newington is pleasantly empty; I'd like to say the N16-ers've all gone off to Tuscany or the Dordogne but I know it's more likely to be Aldeburgh/Totnes/Broadstairs nowadays. Holidaying abroad is for the plebs. Once people from Rochdale have done a year in Provence, it's not worth going.