Holiday snaps – London

Holiday snaps – London
The weather over the four days we spent in London was glorious, but for some reason, I mostly took photos of drain lid covers, and don’t have many other London pics to show. How embarrassing.
One thing I did notice and take a snap of was a bike, but not a very interesting one. It’s been about 13 years since I was last in London, and I was so thrilled to see how many people are riding bicycles out on the streets these days, and the amazing array of bikes being ridden.

The other thing that struck me was the number of positive messages around town, encouraging people to be polite, helpful and friendly. I kept seeing the word “smile” on posters on the Tube. It’s kind of odd, but also nice. We don’t get much of that around here much – our positive messaging is pretty much limited to “Have Safe Sex”, really.
So, apart from drain lids, bikes and cheerful posters on the Tube, I did loads of cool stuff, but was a bad blogger and didn’t take pics. Here’s a list anyway, for posterity’s sake:

• We saw Jim James performing at St James church in the half-dark to a rapt audience. Goose-pimply stuff. Read a review here.
• On Francesca’s excellent recommendation, we visited the fabulous array of shops in Brick Lane and nearby Cheshire St. The stores were gorgeous but I had almost complete buyer’s paralysis, only buying this little notebook for Jesse, but was sorely tempted by some gorgeous enamel Japanese coffeepots at Labour & Wait.
• We spent another day in Islington Upper Street, enjoying all the amazing shops, like Twentytwentyone (more shoppers paralysis), After Noah and Abigail Ahern, whilst being tortured by the spikey pollen from the plane trees.
• Of course, I visited Orla Kiely in Covent Garden, and managed to get my mitts on this long-desired mug. Man, I love that thing!

More holiday snaps soon. I promise I hardly photographed any Italian drain lids.