Penultimate outing

Just over a week ago to London, for what turned out to be our penultimate outing before the big freeze. A bright, cool day, but talk of rain on the television, so we took folding umbrellas.

A charging point has arrived in the car park at Sutton Station

Figurative public art

The offering for Prince Charles at Highgrove

Epsom Station completely out of action for engineering work, talk of flooding at Mitcham Junction and the usually reliable Network Rail Journey Planner was behaving very badly - so we took a chance on all being well at Sutton. Which turned out to be the case.

Rather an old-speak bit of sculpture outside a building I thought used to be occupied by Reed and is now called Quadrant House, which might also be the name of the people who put out our free newspapers. Bing tells me that Reed International do indeed occupy at least part of the building and the statue is called 'The Messenger' by one David Wynne, so it all fits. A well connected chap, having done Stowe, Royal Navy and Trinity College, before going on to specialise in what mostly looks like fairly anodyne and inoffensive animal sculpture - with his human work for Prince Charles' garden of whimsy at Highgrove, snapped above.

Misunderstanding

Interesting views of odd scraps of land and lots of sheds both odd and old from the train, particularly around Carshalton.

Opted to change at Clapham Junction and change at Vauxhall rather than take the long walk at Victoria, where I had time to puzzle about what was holding up the canopy snapped above, with the only substantial beams that I could see being hinged at the vital point. Must be something up above, out of sight.

Pink pot

Out at Oxford Circus and into the All-Bar-One at the top of Regent Street to take tea and coffee. With smarties with the coffee for her. Where we noticed the pink ornament snapped above, at close quarters a bird cage decorated with plastic flowers. The waitress assured me that it had been there for at least six months, so odd that we had not noticed it before.

The programme

Into Wigmore Hall which, contrary to expectations, was more or less full for this Sunday morning concert, Schubert's string trio D.471 and Beethoven's evergreen septet, Op.20. Given by the Nash Ensemble, last heard last November and noticed at reference 1. We had been relegated from our usual row I back to L but it was all very good. Slightly odd sensations during the trio, perhaps the result of too much strong tea, perhaps some relic of the slightly elevated temperature of the night before, itself some relic of an infantile snuffle. While the septet, on this occasion, worked really well, unlike on the occasion noticed at reference 2. So not 100% reliable. Greatly struck on this occasion by the pleasing variety of tones and textures to be drawn from an ensemble of this sort.

The wine

The still

Took our sherry afterwards while we wondered what they did with the large amount poured but left over. Presumably the staff whacked in back. While we went out to find that 2 Veneti, a restaurant which we like but had not visited for a while, had taken to opening Sunday lunchtimes - so in we went.

For me, some crispy breads, a fancy version of mozzarella, then a piece of cod - which looked as if it had come from a very large fish - which the waiter said had been delivered entire on the Friday, then an unusual tiramisu - the main ingredient of which we thought probably came from a tub in the fridge, but the actual assembly took place, to order, on the kitchen table. A good division of labour. That aside, all excellent, and BH was equally pleased with her choice, starting with mussels. Served with an excellent Lugana from Sirmione, seemingly a very small peninsular jutting north into the southern end of Lake Garda from the Lombardy side of the border with the Veneto. All mixed up with Catullus. Plus a fine grappa amarone from their extensive selection of same, the colour of whisky rather than the yellow I was expecting. All in all, we were very pleased with our lunch.

Harcourt House being restored to its former - if not original - glory

Perhaps not quite what we were looking for

Demonstration

From there into Cavendish Square where the scaffolding was coming down from the refurbishment of Harcourt House on the western side of the square. I suspected one of the scaffolders of inhaling on a joint. Also where there was a ladies demonstration, involving, in the middle, a modest amount of singing and dancing. The flag right is that of Palestine, although I had not picked up any Palestinian flavour on the day, thinking rather somewhere Latin. But I have learned that quite a lot of national flags are of this general form, involving a triangle at the pole end.

From there into John Lewis for a spot of lady's shopping, being reminded how much bigger and pleasanter this shop is, certainly on a quiet Sunday, than the shop at Kingston.This despite the large number of franchises, which I had not noticed before, perhaps because we don't do lady's shopping that often - with a plus being that the franchise girls try to please. We supposed they were on commission. All of which reminds me that we also bought two white shirts, the sort of thing I used to wear to work and which you used to be able to get more or less everywhere - not so now - plus the price has crept up to £40 a pop. The lady that took our money was called Shannon from Boston, MA and her brother was called Brendan. We were reminded that the river where I had once seen huge students rowing - making the chaps at our Boat Race look pretty puny - was called the Charles River. We also saw our first black burka of the day.

Rainbow from the house

And so back to Clapham Junction where I was able to score a two and a one from a bad position by the stairs before we caught a slow train to Sutton. Half a rainbow at Sutton, which was a full rainbow by the time we got home, although the mobile could not manage all of it in one go. On the other hand it did pick up the outer rainbow, visible top right on this laptop, which I had missed at the time.

Managed a sighting of the full moon when it appeared in the east about an hour later.

PS: stop press: I have just heard that by 1530 this afternoon our Tier 1 Sainsbury's had been stripped bare...

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/11/ut-majeur.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/10/beethoven-failed.html.

Reference 3: http://www.2veneti.com/.

Reference 4: http://www.luganaavanzi.it/. Which features the very bottle snapped above.

Reference 5: https://www.marzadro.it/. Possibly the home of the grappa. 57 varieties of the stuff.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harcourt_House,_London.