Last weekend was the Thames Festival, my usual marker for the end of summer. I was too fed up to go last year, so made a point of it this year. It was a truly lovely evening, warm and clear, with a beautiful sunset. With the god-son, I wandered about a bit along the river-bank (high tide this time, so no fossicking for relics on the shore), ate ( Read more... )

My plans for the Thames Festival have been derailed. Last week's threatening sore throat has blossomed into a full-blown horrible fluey cold with all the trimmings. I managed to get my usual Saturday shop done yesterday, including flowers (fuchsia-coloured asters*), a nice new shirt and some fabric for the fabric mountain, but when I got in I ( Read more... )

This is definitely a day when I can be grateful for being unemployed. Yesterday evening I was at the Thames Festival, with my niece and some friends, and we stayed for the carnival procession and the fireworks, consuming cider all the while, so I have a slight hangover this morning, and don't seem to be able to bend my knees ( Read more... )

Just discovered to my immense pleasure that this year, for the first time in ages, the Thames Festival and London Open House weekend (no catalogue available yet)won't clash, so it will be possible to get to both of them. Every previous year I have had to pass up Open House for the festival, which is my ritual end-of-summer weekend. This year I ( Read more... )

Another busy and frivolous weekend, this time with my niece. I met her at Euston on Saturday, and we had lunch at the Wellcome collection, then saw a group of musicians from Fes at the British Library. Today, after much struggling with buses and tubes, we got to the Thames Festival, which seemed to be bigger and more crowded than before I was ( Read more... )

The g-d's boyfriend, Andrew, came round last night to help fix the flashing over my French windows, which he did without the use of a ladder, impressing both of us greatly. He also tried and failed to replace the bulb in my landing light, which is ( Read more... )

Spent all day yesterday at the Thames Festival, staying on for the whole thing this year. First of all, having met Lauren, we sat in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, drinking tea and listening to an unidentified early music/jazz group with a lovely counter-tenor. Coming out, we saw a complicated-looking fountain on one of the terraces outside the Royal ( Read more... )