A late family lunch for five at Wan Chai Corner on Gerrard Street, Soho, marked several celebrations – both for The Diamond Jubilee and things personal. The restaurant had been recommended by a colleague of John’s. She loves it and is a regular. She told me she sometimes goes alone. I never mind sitting alone in a restaurant as long as I am enjoying the food … you can concentrate on the taste better solo – although having a lively conversation with somebody does sort of make up for that! Not wanting to appear anti social here but both states of being appeal!
View from our table …
One of the things – excluding the delicious and bon marché food – which really appealed to me, was to see the Union Jack and the Chinese flags, fluttering in seemingly symbiotic harmony. Maybe it’s just my ever hopeful and heartfelt wish that different cultures can live side by side – independently, yet in relative harmony with one another … but it did make me feel optimistic to see those intertwined flags. And as we are, more than ever, a global people, it surely means we should be working towards a common good? Fat chance but there’s something waking up out there…
An Englishman enjoying the delights of Chinatown …
Entrance to Gerrard Street from Wardour Street, Soho
Side by side …
Going our separate ways after lunch – via the meraviglioso Gelato di Lupo shop on Archer Street – a visit ensures the best of treats – John and I said farewell and the two of us made our way along Brewer Street to the Royal Academy to see the Summer Exhibition.
It’s a good year. We both found it very enjoyable – for different reasons. John very much liked the ‘architecture’ room. I bought a print of an old fashioned looking dog called Louis.
David Mach is a favourite with both of us and the cheetah this year didn’t disappoint. I still have a card up on the shelf of the lion he did from a previous year. Phenomenal! Mach is definitely in ‘genius’ category! For the rest, my nature likes to search through the general melée, hunting for hidden gems, so I’m in my element at the Summer Exhibition.
Leaving Chinatown on a high …
Guardian at the gate …
A star turn – Shaftesbury Avenue
Leading off Brewer Street …
The shop below has been there since the 1970s – one of my old landmarks on Brewer Street, near the bottom end of Berwick Street market, along with the now renovated Italian ‘Lina Stores’. But this is the first time I’ve seen the Queen in the window!
Still going after all these years …
Colourful reflections …
A very English pub, just off Piccadilly
Crossing Regent Street, stuffed full of Union Jacks …
Telephone boxes in triplicate by The Albany …
Gieves of Savile Row offer up a suitably svelte and streamlined Queen …
Lulu Guinness shopfront in Burlington Arcade
Penhaligon perfumes celebrate The Jubilee with fragrant crowns
Old Bond Street …
We finally make it thru the photoshoots to The Royal Academy and the Summer Exhibition.
Entrance to Royal Academy and Linnaean Society
Close up of herons – prolific on the Thames today …
Sculpture RA courtyard
John found this sculpture more rewarding to the senses than I did. So I cloned him enjoying it. I can be seen looking somewhat anxious at the bottom of the picture, maybe because I now have two (identical) husbands to contend with! Not at all what I intended! I don’t know how I managed to take a picture of myself either!
Cloning John …
As we left and were about to cross the road with Fortnum and Mason on the opposite side, I saw a couple, who rather reminded me of the American, Duane Hanson’s lifesize/ lifelike sculptures, especially of ones known as ‘tourists’. This is blurred because I didn’t want them to see me taking the photo! I was pretending to take Fortnum’s window show.
It took me a long time to find out Duane Hanson’s name. I had seen this sculpture some time ago but I couldn’t remember where or who it was by. I tried Google with various bits of clued up information – obese couple, American, stripey T shirt, large camera, bags etc. Hawaii? but in the end I found the answer in one of my art books – along with the very illustration I was looking for. I said to John that Google hadn’t really come up to scratch here – however, it is wondrous to find most things out so quickly so I will forgive them. Also, I was rather pleased with myself that I had remembered the details of sculpture so well.
Duane Hanson’s tourists come to life outside Fortnum’s …
We filtered down the side of Fortnum’s to Jermyn Street …
Bates The Hatter, Beau Brummel and company on Jermyn Street, Jubilee style …
Beau Brummel, behatted …
Jermyn Street Jubilee window
I don’t find mens’ clothes shops very inspiring but Jermyn Street certainly came up to scratch on their Jubilee window dressings. Although this one above gives me a sense of the 1950s – rather dated – but at the same time that is when the Queen ‘ascended the throne’, so redolent of past times! I could say that the next photo shows John on his way to cocktails at The Ritz but we were actually making our way to the bus stop at Green Park. I was once invited to cocktails at The Ritz by a charming gentleman dressed in 1940s style. A happy memory …
Homeward bound …
Cool London fashion on a bike …
with Jubilee highlights
‘Beam me up, Scotty’, or whatever … it’s bus rather than bicycle for us and we are soon back over Hammersmith Bridge and bowling down Castelnau. I snap ‘The Red Lion’ pub, from the bus window, as we wait at the lights. There are two lions keeping watch, either side of the front door. They are now red but for a long time were painted gold, for some unknown reason. The pub owner had not thought to change the name when he changed their colour. ‘Les Lions d’Or’ sounds more tempting to me than ‘The Golden Lions’ – no matter, as they are red again after the latest makeover.
The Red Lion Pub, Barnes
A breath of fresh air by Barnes Pond …
Lovely Saturday … time for a glass of wine in the garden before the rain sets in …
POSTSCRIPT:
The royal barge, made at the boathouse in Brentford, was moored by Richmond bridge, in readiness for the Jubilee festivities. I walked over there after my French lesson, to get a glimpse of it.
Royal barge in readiness at Richmond on Thames
Fish shop dressed in Jubilee colours, Twickenham
The royal barge was used again for The Olympics and I ran down to the river at the last minute, alerted by our postman and just caught it on its way to central London.
Barge coming under Barnes Bridge …
Happy oarsmen
Passing the boathouse – Chiswick bank
Ploughing down river to Hammersmith and beyond …
Bringing up the rear …
END