Text 3251, 69 rader
Skriven 2010-10-30 16:32:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: trip 676
================
More walking, but with a destination - the V&A, where we
saw the Raphael cartoons and went through much of the
permanent exhibition, until we were kicked out at closing.

Bus to Victoria, then a stop at a nearby pub (noisy, and
we stayed just for the one drink), the train, and home,
where G and B had prepared a nice roasted chicken. We had
a few laughs at the expense of Lilli and white food, though
I enjoyed the white food as much as anyone.

Another day pass day. At last I got her to Little Venice,
where friends used to regularly put up with me at their
townhouse on the Blomfield Road. Lilli enjoyed walking along
the water and looking at the quaint canal boats; we went a
bit farther west than I was accustomed to, and the walk
looked less attractive, and the weather was getting a little
windy and threatening, so we walked around Notting Hill and
back to Paddington. Stopped off at The Dickens (the longest
pub in England, something like that). I had the pretty
normal sausage and mash; she had what was billed as a rump
steak burger but was much more like meatloaf. We drank
Fuller's London Pride and Young's London Gold; I preferred
the latter.

I'd always wanted to go to Sir John Soane's Museum, one of
those eccentric phenomena, the house museum: Sir John was a
collector of antiquities, and after his death, his home at
Lincoln's Inn Fields was opened to the public. There's some
cool stuff - the sarcophagus of Seti I of Egypt, the Hogarth
Rake's Progress, a Fuseli of some guy mooning over a dead
girl (name of which I've forgotten) - and lots and lots of
interesting but lesser merchandise - bits of pulled-down old
Roman buildings, 18th and 19th century first editions, a
couple Canalettos (I don't see the appeal). An interesting
but odd way of spending a couple hours.

We had time to visit to the Wallace Collection, one of my
old favorites, where we spent more time in the armoury
collection than I had spent before but still got upstairs
in time to see the old old masters of which I am fond.

Bus to Victoria, where we found the plebeian pubs way
crowded, but there was a place with a pretentious Oxford-
referenced name (again, I've forgotten) that had places
free and a wine list. We had a bottle of Veneto Merlot
Cabernet that was reasonably well made and did the job.

There was a breakdown of some kind on the Victoria line, so
we hauled upstairs and got a bus to the station; then after
another small delay at Clapham Junction, we made it back for
an authentic Sri Lankan meal, which I'd requested.

Tuna curry with coconut, chicken curry, eggplant relish, and
onion relish, all properly spiced, thank the heavens, with
stringhoppers for starch - these last being a soft red rice
flour vermicelli. B had made Gordon Ramsay's recipe for
pasta salad with chicken for Lilli; it was cluttered but
good, the across-the-pond counterpart of Wolfgang Puck's
chicken and mandarin orange salad that has so often been
imitated, especially by the airlines.

As it had been the appropriate number of days, and we had a
morning plane to catch, it was premature goodbyes and an
early turn-in.


___ Blue Wave/386 v2.30
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5
 * Origin: Doc's Place BBS Fido Since 1991 docsplace.tzo.com (1:123/140)