Category: London Blog Posts

A whole lot of lunching going on…

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It’s been a week of lunches and a tea, a theatre trip, the Van Gogh big show, a photo exhibition and a singer. So here goes….

After a bit of lull recently, it was a good week for lunches. It started on Monday with a trip to Raymond Blanc’s new brasserie in the City. This was week one so we got a 50% discount which

really helped the wallet. It’s a good looking place (see these interior and exterior shots) and the food was good but not as special as I hoped from Raymond. The following day saw a trip to Hereford Road, Notting Hill where the menu is very gamey and shellfishy and we loved the potted shrimp and venison pie.

 

Hibiscus in the West End has 2 Michelin stars and thanks to another special offer *(3 courses and a glass of champagne for £29.50- what a winner) we could relax and enjoy the extra special cuisine. And finally, we took a lovely pot of afternoon tea at the home of fine teas, Fortnum and Mason, in their new Parlour cafe. The stairway is amazing with the butler in this photo and just being there makes you feel posh.

There was culture to be had at the Van Gogh exhibition at the Royal Academy which features many of his beautiful painting alongside letters between Vincent and his brother Theo. They chart his early days as a self taught painter and how he honed his craft to the wonderful later work and the support his brother gave him all through. He did most of his great work in about 6 years which is a mind boggling achievement.

At the Lichfield Studios in Notting Hill a marvellous exhibition of photographs by Malick Sidibe. He took photos in his studio of people who popped in to have shots taken in Bamako at the time that Mali was gaining Independence. He also went to night clubs to capture the exuberance of the time. 2 photos on this one – one of the Lichfield Studios and one of a wonderful photo of a woman from the brochure

 

This week’s theatre trip was to see ‘Polar Bears’ at the Donmar theatre. Great acting and a plot full of questions but few answers which was confirmed when we bumped into Celia Imrie at the bus stop on the way home. She was one of the stars – yes, she agreed it wasn’t very glamorous going home on the 390 to Notting Hill! She asked us whether we thought the lead man had committed the murder – I thought so and Celia said she wasn’t sure. Lovely lady to stop and chat with us.
One final bit of fun in London to report on was the chance to see Rebecca Poole singing at The Commander restaurant in Notting Hill. She does a great smokey jazz show and is certainly one to watch out for in the future.

 

Can’t wait for next week. Bye for now,

Sue

World’s longest toilet queue!

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This week started in a big toilet queue – the world’s longest queue in fact! No, there’s not a sudden horrific shortage of toilets in London but an event for WaterAid to highlight the appalling number of people in this world who do not have access to a safe toilet. We queued outside Parliament in Gordon Brown masks to make this point and queues formed all across the world to lobby their own governments – altogether we were making a Guiness Record attempt on the length of the queue. A very important cause so have a look at their website http://www.wateraid.org/.org and there’s a photo here from the queue.

The National Portrait Gallery has a couple of special exhibitions on at the moment. One is the glorious portraits of Irving Penn who had access to an amazing range of famous faces, from Wallis Simpson to Greta Garbo and Rudolf Nureyev. The exhibition follows the development of his work over the decades and you can see some people photographed twice. His early device of photographing people in the corner of rooms moved on to photos of subject somewhat hidden – by clothing or by the closing one or both eyes. Also there is a small show of photos by Jane Brown who worked in black and white and only using available light which I really admire. Here’s the poster shot of Irving Penn and a sneaky shot of Jane Brown’s Mick Jagger I took some while ago at a foyer exhibition at the Guardian. A second Jane Brown was the irresistible shot of Henri Cartier Bresson taking a photo of Jane taking a photo….

We had a bit of rain this week but there was a warm welcome at St Martins-in-the-Field church who had a Vivaldi concert including his ‘Summer’ concerto. Wonderful music in a fabulous setting. 2 photos to give you the idea – one inside the church and one exterior view on a sunny day to show it at its best.


We were looking forward to seeing ‘Little Dog Laughed’ but it was not all we’d hoped although Tamsin Grieg was brilliant and worth the trip. The play just didn’t add up to enough, perhaps it was the anticipation? Looking to go next week to see a matinee so am on the look out for some bargain tickets.

Not so much eating out this week but if you find yourself looking for a coffee on Portobello Road I can recommend Gails but only if you are strong enough to resist all the cakes! Good coffee and a jolly atmosphere. Then if you are near Notting Hill Gate tube station, head for Pain Quotidien for coffee and snacks and you’ll not be disappointed. Today I’m off to a soft launch of a new Raymond Blanc restaurant so watch this space next week for reviews…
Bye for now,
Sue
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Last week was British Tourism Week and there was a major show at the Olympia Halls called Best of Britain and Ireland, so I went along for the trade days, being the Director of a tour company for visitors to London (see website address at the end of the post). There were loads of stands from all over the country reminding us of all the great things to see outside of London. As ever food tasting was on offer and I admit to passing by the Melton Mowbray pork pie stand quite a few times and have several cream scones from the Susses by the Sea folk!
It was St Patricks Day and we were treated to a performance from a wonderful Irish Harp orchestra. There was a lot of talk of the Olympics and one of my sporting heroes, Jonathan Edwards did a turn (speaking not jumping!) Jonathan set a world triple jump recored in 1995 and it still stands today. So here are photos of Jonathan, the harpists and the Visit Britain stand looking very jolly.

A friend was exhibiting her glass sculptures one evening so I went to support her talents and see the other work on display but of course hers was the best! You can see for yourself how good the work is although apologies that the photo is not one of my best!

So, what about restaurants this week? Quite a lot going on….. I had lunch at the Cow, a local gastro pub run by Tom Conran who has a few establishments in Notting Hill area including a mexican, a diner and a deli. To celebrate the end of the week we tried out a new place called Dock Kitchen at Portobello Dock which is a new urban regeneration project of refurbished and new buildings one of which, the wharf is owned by a furniture and lighting design company, called Tom Dixon. A pop up restaurant started last year and is now a permanent addition. They have themed nights and we went for Iraqi night which was good and tasty, especially the slow cooked lamb which was super soft and infused with delicate flavours. It’s a wonderful setting as the photo shows with a leg of the Grand Union Canal coming alongside the building which is wondefully lit and decorated. Drinks beforehand were had at the strangely named Paradise By Way of Kensal Green! For those not familiar with the area, Kensal Green is a place in London north of Notting Hill and as for the name, it comes from a poem by G.K. Chesterton where he says: ” For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen, before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green”! It’s a fine bar with restaurant and private rooms which have seen several parties I’ve been to over the years.

Finally on the food theme was a meringue party at a friends where we consumed large numbers of plain, chocolate, hazlenut and almond merginues with cream and fruit. Not open to the public so a bit mean of me to mention it but I can highly recommend the idea with some crisp cava to wash it down!
Bye for now,
Sue

Days in and days out

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Picking up the extras that were bounced out from last week’s bumper full list, we have days out in Cambridge and days in at the Cabinet War Rooms.

 

A day out to Cambridge from London is a great way to see a bit more of England and really do-able as the train takes about 45 minutes. You can see the famous colleges and can even go inside some of them, you can get run over by the masses of students on bicycles, go punting on the river and mooch around the old streets to your heart’s content. Cambridge is full of wonderful old buildings and we really enjoyed the sunshine too! Another treat was to see the famous Harry Potter platform at Kings Cross as my train to Cambridge left from platform 9. Here’s a selection of Cambridge photos and one from Kings Cross!


 

Back in London, Sunday was another beautifully sunny day so we walked along the Thames and then visited the Cabinet War Rooms where they have restored the actual rooms used by Churchill and the military to battle out the Second World War. They are marvellously evocative of a time of national peril and the courage of those who battled for our freedom. They’ve added a major Churchill exhibition making it a big visit. Here’s one photo of the Thames at it sparkling best, one of the outside of the Rooms and one of the Churchill’s underground kitchen – not sure he had much time for cooking though!

A couple of cinema trips this week to contrasting venues. One to the very newly opened Vue cinema at Westfields with spacious seats and a huge high quality screen (The White Ribbon was the film) and the other was the Coronet in Notting Hill, a independent cinema which began life as a Victorian theatre in 1898 (Shutter Island was showing here).
Restaurants visits this week included my local favourite, Aphrodite, where the Greek food is really high quality and the welcome is always warm. A trip to South Kensington saw visits to Brindisi for their tapas and to La Cave a Fromage for their wonderful smelly cheeses!
Bye for now,
Sue

Busy week in London town!

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So much to tell you about this week that I’m going have to keep 2 things til next week or this’ll go on for far too long. So next week you’ll get a day out in Cambridge and a London walk as bonus items!

 

This week started with a visit to the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank to see a friend sing in the Bach choir in a wonderfully powerful performance of Verdi’s Requiem. We had Prince Edward in attendance as he is a patron of the music school who were also on stage. Here are 2 photos – one of the outside and one of the musicians’ final bow to a madly clapping audience and you can see just how many people were taking part in this magnificent piece.

 

 

Wednesday saw the lowest tide in the Thames for 5 years so I joined over 60 other volunteers at Hammersmith Bridge to collect rubbish for a couple of hours. It was a great thing to do as I hate to see the Thames with litter in it but was surprised to find how much cloth rubbish there was, I guess the plastic floats off to sea but I dug out 4 bin bags full of the stuff! It was fine but very cold and I needed a huge hot coffee to get myself warm afterward. Hopefully the Thames is just a little cleaner now. Here’s a photo of the gang hard at work…

 

 

The following day I was outdoors again (with more cold weather clothing on!) on a photography course at the London Wetlands Centre to try to improve my wildlife snapping skills. The centre is an amazing place as it’s within sight of London but is a great place for a whole range of birds to live or pass through these former reservoir waters. I took some good and some dreadful shots so here’s just a few of the better ones – I just couldn’t cut it down to less than 7 – sorry! Our teacher was Iain Green who is well known for his books of tiger photos from India, so our targets on this course were somewhat easier to find!

A big treat on Sunday evening was the chance to see Ngugi wa Thiong’o who is an internationally renowned Kenyan author. He was reading from his new book Dreams in a time of War, and being interviewed. He shared stories of his life and childhood and his fascinating views about the importance of indigenous languages over colonial languages. And here he is….

 

 

Phew – I’m off to enjoy this week which includes a trip out to Durham and some good London stuff too.
Bye for now,
Sue

Here comes the sun!

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It’s March 1st, St David’s Day (patron saint of Wales) and the sun has finally burst through after a seemingly endless winter of snow and rain. Optimism returns!

I’m still recovering from the big Africa trip and one annoying follow on from a great holiday can be the post return bug and I got a humdinger! So I’ve been stuck in a lot of the week so this blog will be a little thinner than usual but next week’s looking good already.

 

I sneaked out to one of my favourite shops in London, the Travel Bookshop in Notting Hill – yes the travel bookshop from the film ‘Notting Hill’. Well, the one it was based on – for real film buffs, the interior to exterior shots were filmed around the corner on Portobello Road itself and the interior shots were done in a studio but when you go into the shop it certainly has the feel of the real thing. As a travel bookshop it’s lovely and I rarely get out without a purchase as they have wonderful guide books and broader travel literature and even great CDs. They’ve just started a series of evening talks so we went to see Hugh Thomson reading from his book ‘Tequila Oil Getting Lost in Mexico’ and telling us a bit about how the book came about. Really interesting and entertaining and the title refers to a rather evil sounding drink which I will be avoiding for sure… And of course, here’s a snapshot of the exterior of this famous shop much photographed by visitors.
A local gallery, The Muse, were having a preview evening for Justin Piperger’s new works including cartoons, bold colours and some more functional pieces with household objects in his paintings such as clocks and tea towel holders. It brightened up a rainy evening of which there have been rather too many of late so we are all looking forward to the start of March. Apparently Justin will be painting in the gallery a couple of days a week, so I might just pop in and see how he works.

The Noisettes played at the Roundhouse this weekend and it was a show of huge energy and fun. This fabulous venue has great sound and the Noisettes’ lead singer Shingai Shoniwa is an amazingly stylish, eccentric, talented and friendly performer (see slightly blurred photo) and the show was a burst of sunshine on a Sunday evening. The show was sold out and the floor was jumping!

 

 

Bye for now,

 

Sue

 

Off to Africa!

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I’m off to Africa for a few weeks so blogs for a while will depend on the availability of internet cafes and enough spare time in our very busy trip to post anything. I’ll do my best but who knows….

It’s been a short week since my last blog so just a few things to report on. One was a visit to La Sauterelle restaurant in the Royal Exchange. We took advantage of the Evening Standard special offer and treated ourselves. It’s a lovely restaurant in an amazing setting and you can see both the outside and inside on these photos. The Royal Exchange now houses up-market shops and the ground floor bar as well as the restaurant. Fascinating fact time – why is it called La Sauterelle ? This is French for grasshopper which is in the crest of Sir Thomas Gresham who founded the original Royal Exchange and you can see one in the weather vane on top of the building.

 

I wrote about my art tour last week with Artfeelers and this week their had their official launch party out in Hackney in a pop up shop turned gallery. The artist Piero Arico had been living in the gallery (literally as he’s been sleeping in a cupboard) and making a huge painting – if that’s the right word – on the walls of the shop. He has incorporated his own designs and ideas and built in comments, stories and contributions from anyone passing by and visiting the shop. 2 photos to give you an idea of the evening – one of the art work and one of us all spilling out onto the street.


 

The rest of the week has been coffees with friends and colleagues before my holiday and a lovely meal at Cafe Boheme in Soho. I’ve been going there for years and it never disappoints – good French style food and I treated myself to steak frites bernaise with pear tarte tatin and it was as good as ever. They have a lively bar as well so worth a visit for drinks or food.
One more thing to mention on the theme of pop up shops is the Marmite shop on Regents Street. It’s gone now but it was fun tho I know, as the advert says, you either love it or hate it. They had great displays and lovely merchandise, even if it was a bit pricey. There was a small cafe for those who wanted to know what the stuff tastes like or were having withdrawal symptoms. How about these marmite bottles?
Well, I’d better return to the packing and will be in touch soon.
Bye for now,
Sue

Bye bye snow… we think…

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It was a strange week of contrasts in London weather wise and hopefully this will be the last weather report for a while as we’ve all got a bit more obsessed by it than usual! On Tuesday/Wednesday we had loads of snow, more than before, and here’s a picture of my garden to give you an idea of how it looked and how dark it was! Sadly my photography course in the London Wetland Centre of all places (!)was cancelled due to the snow but hopefully will be rearranged soon. By the weekend we were submerged by rain and then on Sunday at last, the sun came out. Perhaps more snow to come this week – enough! Today is grey and officially the gloomiest day of the year and we are all supposed to be at our lowest ebb, so I hope you are all feeling ok!

So, what to do to cheer ourselves up? I took an art tour in the east of London with a company called Artfeelers run by the wonderfully enthusiastic and knowledgeable Claire Flannery. A group of 8 of us set off with Claire to see some of the less well known galleries showing contemporary art around Bethnal Green and Claire introduced us to the artists. We went at our own pace and we had the chance to talk about the art as well as have great input from Claire. Here are a few photos to give you a flavour of our walk: a fabulous squirrel on the wall (and a one with Claire!) Then we have a wonderful bookshop and gallery called Kaleid where beautiful artists’ books are lovingly displayed along with large pieces as you can see on the wall behind the table. We went to A Foundation which had an interesting range of work, including this fabulous gold helmet, displayed in this wonderful airy white space. Finally onto Caveman Bob, a video piece of a cave where a man lives with a narration of his world in the cave. The whole thing is set in a container and the interior is cave like – amazing…. (Also visited but not photographed was Martin Sexton’s gallery)

 

The whole tour takes a couple of hours and I recommend going along to see new stuff in good company. http://www.artfeelers.com/ for more info.

 

 

 

 

 

Regular readers of this blog will know about BookSlam, a monthly night of fun in Notting Hill with book readings, performance poetry and music. This month’s was not a vintage for us as the book was heroin chic and the poetry was a bit all over the place but the singer was wonderful and worth watching out for in the future, Josephine Cnyama from Manchester has a great voice and good songs.

 

Restaurants to let you know about include Langtry’s where the history of the place was the key feature. Lily Langtry has an amazing story which saw her rise from an educated vicar’s daughter from Jersey to London socialite, to Prince of Wales’s mistress and an actress who took America by storm. She lived at 21 Pont Street from 1892-1897 in the Cadogan Hotel which now houses Langtry’s restaurant. As if that wasn’t enough for one hotel, Oscar Wilde was arrested in room 118 in 1895 meaning that he may have been arrested when she was staying there – what a night!

Back to the current times, we also popped into one of the many Persian restaurants in around Paddington. This one, Sadaf on Westbourne Grove, serves the typical stews and kebabs and has the tough task of taking over from one of my favourite restaurants (a Lebanese called El Fairuz) and sadly is not quite as good.

I’m caught up with plans to visit Africa as I go on Saturday for a 3 week overland trip from Cape Town to Victoria Falls. Can’t wait but loads to do….. So one more blog then I’m off.

 

Bye for now,
Sue

The big freeze…

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London is usually not too cold in winter and the last few year’s we’ve been spoilt with mild albeit often grey months. Then came the end of 2009 and the start of 2010 and we’ve had snow, freezing weather and ice, ice, ice! Central London, where I live, is always warmer so it’s not been too bad but further out there have been several inches of snow and very slippy pavements. Given that us Brits love to talk about the weather in normal times, this has taken over all conversation! So, as a picture tells a thousands words, here are a few photos of Notting Hill in the snow:

I’ve not stayed indoors too much and have 2 interesting art visits to report on. The Ed Ruscha exhibition at the Hayward Gallery on the South Bank was a great exploration of the use of language and graphics. The show reviews his 50 years of painting and with a few short paragraphs of background to guide us through we really enjoyed the wit and visual inspiration. One of my favourite was the word faith written large in a typeface invented and used by the Vatican for catholic texts, simple but evocative.
Our second visit was to an installation in the Tate Modern to see Miraslaw Balka’s big black box. It’s a huge metal and girder structure which fills one end of the massive turbine hall. As you walk in it’s a bit like walking into the lowered ramp of a space ship and as you enter further all the light disappears, you grab the hand of the person with you, sticking the other hand out in front of you and proceed very slowly into the deep, deep black. Eventually you reach a soft velvety wall and you’ve made it to the end. Turning round you see that there is in fact plenty of light behind you and you can easily see where you are! It’s a brilliant way of experiencing a journey into darkness and the unknown. Sadly it’s references are to 20th century Polish history of the Holocaust and Ghettos not spaceships.
Bars and restaurants still needed visiting and my new favourite bar is downstairs at Hix in Soho. Hix is a owned and run by the chef Mark Hix who has the very successful Hix Oyster and Chop House in the City and his original venue in Dorset. It was the bar we were after however and it was great fun, admittedly probably not as busy as on a non snow evening (there I go again about the weather!). It was cool, comfy and a good range of people and although you have to buy some food due to something about a licence, the home made parsnip crisps were a revelation!
One other evening out was to a local pub. I’m always being asked about good pubs and they are hard to find so I am very happy to recommend The Churchill Arms in Kensington. It’s big but cosy, full but not crammed, has loads of decorations but looks fun not silly, has good cheap Thai food and was the first British pub to offer Thai food to its, no doubt, surprised punters!. It’s also very famous for it’s massive hanging baskets so watch out for a photo of that coming soon.
Bye for now.
Sue

Happy 2010 – here’s to the new decade

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So, that was 2009 but before we let it go, have a look at my list of my 2009 favourites if you scroll down you can see what they were. It was a fun year but it went in a flash and I guess 2010 will speed by too so let’s see just how much we can cram in. You can see how I do by following my blog and hopefully the blog will give you an insight into life in London and what a good time you could be having if you were to visit us here.

As for the closing days of 2009, I spent these in Iceland which was even colder than London but not by much! We had a great time and saw some wonderful sights including the huge Gullfoss waterfall which was almost frozen over and so was I after staying on the viewing platform rather too long taking photos. We bathed in the Blue Lagoon which is a very large outdoor heated thermal pool and was a wonderful experience if a little weird as it was about -5 degrees outside making the dash back inside a major challenge. Although I did hire a robe to save my body freezing as I hurried back to warmth, they were not hiring out flip flops and my feet were so cold that I’m warning everyone to take some! But worth it….

 

We saw super heated water and steam shoot up into the sky at the original geysir (at Geysir of course!) which gave it’s name to all big spouts across the world. Then we stood in their rift valley where the American and European tectonic plates meet and are pulling apart with nature’s scary force – a treat to see for all geographers.

 

We ate lots of fish, tasted the lobster which was really langoustine, the hearty soups and had very few vegetables but fruit at breakfast helped balance this a little! Our hotel was trendy and warm but in a sign of their troubled times we only had 3 TV channels as the provider had gone bust. Icelanders seem resigned to the fact that they lived above their means and the crash must be lived through.

 

The days were short as the sun only rose at 10.50 giving the days an odd pattern but some wonderful light made up for this especially in the views across the harbour to the nearby mountains, a view which was amazing from their modern cathedral which looks like the space shuttle.

 

Here are a few photos to enjoy in the warmth of your own home…


 

 

So, now I’m back in London gearing up for 2010. But first a quick look back at 2009 with my list of some favourites:

 

Favourite event: Notting Hill carnival and 4th Plinth event in Leicester Square
Favourite restaurant: Wolseley in Picadilly
Favourite show: Matthew Bourne’s ballet of Dorian Gray at Sadlers Wells
Favourite bar: The Oak, Notting Hill
Favourite theatre: Inherit the Wind starring Kevin Spacey at the Old Vic
Favourite thing to do in London: take a Thames Clipper up the Thames on a clear day seeing Tower of London, Tate Modern, Globe Theatre, Houses Parliament, London Eye – can’ t beat that!

Favourite event: being on Centre Court Wimbledon for the first ever match under the roof

Favourite exhibition: Maharjas at the Victoria and Albert Museum
Favourite film; Slumdog Millionaire

 

Here’s to a wonderful 2010 for all of you!
Bye for now,