Why hello Monday, I believe you're a little early...

Swain's Lane, Highgate, London, December 29th 2010.

Today I need this sort of breakfast. Monday morning, grumble grumble.

Little Venice at dusk

When passing through London a few weeks ago, I had some time to kill at Paddington Station. Just behind, is the Regent's Canal and ten minutes walk away is Little Venice. Some photos of the prettiest narrowboats.

Emma, just behind Paddingon Station. Follow the canal to the left...

Past the Floating Boater restaurant...

A tang of smoke in the air, passing the houseboats...

A floating balcony...

 

The light falls over Little Venice...

Jason's Trip leaves from the basin, and takes the Regent's Canal up to Camden in the Summer, a gentle way to see London.

London, interrupted

...by a few days with family on an extended stay back in the UK waiting for a visa for India.

A grey morning behind Marble Arch, the start of ten days during which my suitcase became a natural extension of my body, melded with my right arm.


A weekend in the East End and after a lazy morning at the York Hall Spa in Bethnal Green, cream tea at The Albion in Shoreditch to start the carb-loading a week early for the half marathon.


Carrot cake, chocolate brownie, fruit cake, a scone the size of a saucer, enough cream and jam to cause diabetes and my sister pouring the tea.

A vintage weekend

Brick Lane, so painfully trendy, so vintage it's mainstream. But much fun, with great bars and restaurants. Hunky Dory vintage is a favourite, where I left my gloves behind briefly, flung down in a fit of excitement while trying on a sixties little black dress that fits perfectly; inevitably Rokit; and harcore hunting ground Planet Vintage, which threw up some nargain-basement finds including a seafoam scarf, a red plastic envelope clutch and a sixties scarlet shell top, with a floral Peter Pan collar, all to be listed on pink milk vintage in a couple of weeks when I'm back from India. There is also a wonderful shop for real vintage hunters, the name of which I have forgotten (- about half-way down on the right-hand side I think?). Not an asymmetrical haicut, shabby demin hotpant or striped tight in sight, this is a calm world of fifties lingerie, thirties gowns, and forties suits where you can browse in peace to a soft jazz soundtrack.

I like London in the rain...

Maybe strange on a sunny Sunday morning in Paris, but Variety Lab's London in the Rain is stuck in my head, inspiring today's treasury.