The away day.

English cakes aren't the same as French ones. They have more of an Anglo-Saxon stolidity to their  design ( and contents ? ).

At the hotel reception desk the pretty young Dutch lady takes my card, checks the reservation and then announces '' Congratulations. It's your eighteenth stay here and we want to make it a very special one ".  The reward for staying eighteen times is a plate of cookies and three golden delicious apples on a plate on the table by the bedroom window.

Angus passes his favourite chocolate shop .... but it's closed. How the fates conspire against a chocoholic !

At the corner pub - which has gone upmarket - breakfast eaters have little woolen blankets they can throw over their knees to keep out the early morning cold. I'd seen this in Berlin but never in London. How many blankets go missing every night ? The pub charges me ten quid for breakfast that would have cost fifty five in the hotel. Not that I could have eaten in the hotel. Despite the early hour the restaurant is jammed chockablock with energetic American couples of a certain age. You know they're American because when they get in the lift they say '' Good Morning " and want to engage you in cheerful small talk. Conversing with strangers in lifts is something that Europeans don't do - ever.

A picture in a shop window. The artist has made the Delft Ware look as though it's on a real shelf. Not a brilliant work but a bit of fun .

A house that was once very grand and stylish now converted into offices or perhaps doctors or dentists surgeries.

Further down the road a Methodist church that must have appeared to be quite the thing to the congregation that paid for it to be built. Angus considers have many architectural styles there are but gives up. A non-conformist folly.

As always I just miss the train to Heathrow. Twenty minutes before the next one. Standing on the platform a chance to look around and see that Paddington Station really is a wonderful piece of mid 19th century engineering.

At Heathrow a French auction house has put a huge dinosaur on display in the check in area. It will be sold in an upcoming auction in Paris. Busy travellers rush past it without so much as a second glance.

On the plane. A young long haired woman - Danish perhaps - pulls out a cigarette case and a small red velvet pouch. She removes marijuana from the pouch and cigarette papers from the case and carefully rolls ten splifs. No one else seems to notice. This is perhaps another sign that Angus has turned into his father. Satisfied with their uniformity and consistency she then puts them in the cigarette case which she slams shut with what is clearly a degree of satisfaction.


The gentleman in this photo seems to live in cholesterol heaven. I can count ten eggs on his plate, maybe eleven : https://twitter.com/revrrlewis/status/1126103892591296512