Birthday Bond
It was Howard's birthday at the weekend, and he joined me for some London-based fun whose exact nature I concealed until the big day. Things got off to a slightly rocky start when he phoned on Friday night to say his bike had broken down about a mile away and would I come and help push, but although the weekend involved slightly more messing about with AA vans than anticipated, it otherwise went well.
The only activity I'd planned for which bikes were necessary was a ride with our friend John on Saturday afternoon, and for this Howard allowed himself to be conveyed on my pillion. We made it without mishap to the Riverside Tearoom in Eynsford. (Eynsford has both a ford and a bridge; we all opted for the latter, cue much "I thought you were going to take the ford" "I thought you were going to take the ford" banter afterwards. The depth marker indicated two feet, which is a bit much really.) Tea room highly recommended, especially the herbal teas designed to taste like childhood sweeties; I had a Sherbet Lemon one.
In the evening we walked to a French restaurant in East Dulwich, Le Chardon. Food porn alert: I had haddock in a cream sauce with mushrooms, bacon and parmesan, followed by crème brûlée, followed in turn by a latte and a raspberry eau de vie. It was on the way there that I spotted the delightful launderette cat of my earlier post, and on the way home that I photographed her having an after-hours kip.
The big event, though, was Sunday's James Bond-themed walking tour of London, spotted on Groupon and obviously an entirely unselfish gift on my part. There was a lot of walking, but we saw some interesting locations as well as the better-known ones, including the lamppost overlooking Westminster where George Lazenby posed for publicity photos, and the doorway which supposedly leads to the garage where Pierce Brosnan collected his invisible car. The tour concluded with vodka martinis in the Spying Room at the Morpeth Arms.
The only activity I'd planned for which bikes were necessary was a ride with our friend John on Saturday afternoon, and for this Howard allowed himself to be conveyed on my pillion. We made it without mishap to the Riverside Tearoom in Eynsford. (Eynsford has both a ford and a bridge; we all opted for the latter, cue much "I thought you were going to take the ford" "I thought you were going to take the ford" banter afterwards. The depth marker indicated two feet, which is a bit much really.) Tea room highly recommended, especially the herbal teas designed to taste like childhood sweeties; I had a Sherbet Lemon one.
In the evening we walked to a French restaurant in East Dulwich, Le Chardon. Food porn alert: I had haddock in a cream sauce with mushrooms, bacon and parmesan, followed by crème brûlée, followed in turn by a latte and a raspberry eau de vie. It was on the way there that I spotted the delightful launderette cat of my earlier post, and on the way home that I photographed her having an after-hours kip.
The big event, though, was Sunday's James Bond-themed walking tour of London, spotted on Groupon and obviously an entirely unselfish gift on my part. There was a lot of walking, but we saw some interesting locations as well as the better-known ones, including the lamppost overlooking Westminster where George Lazenby posed for publicity photos, and the doorway which supposedly leads to the garage where Pierce Brosnan collected his invisible car. The tour concluded with vodka martinis in the Spying Room at the Morpeth Arms.