Chelsea morning

Armed with 20 GBP on each of our Oyster cards we set off on Monday morning for a day's exploring around Chelsea. We're starting to adapt to our jet lag and waking at a reasonable hour now (far better waking up ready to go at 5.30am than at 2.30am!). This is our early morning view from our SW facing bedroom window.

We find it easy to negotiate the public transport system: bus no 26 from Mare Street Hackney to Liverpool St station then the underground to Sloane Square. We plan to walk the length of King's Road Chelsea, from Sloane Square, all very Hugo Boss and the opulence of Peter Jones department store, right down to the more seedy World's End, favourite haunt of the Rolling Stones in the 60's.

I do a bit of a scan of the shops and realise those in the

Sloane Square end seem affordable by high end Australian standards. We sit and reminisce about our Chelsea experiences back in 1975 as we enjoy a coffee at Paul's on King's Road.

Everyone we talk to you is looking forward to the wedding next week (all Londoners get a day off work after all!). There are big street parties planned and costumes to be devised. This window display at Peter Jones is the most tasteful promotion I've seen yet.

We wander off into some of the pretty Chelsea side streets filled with 18th century mansions and lined with parked Aston Martins and Beemers in every shade of black.

.....and find St Luke's church in Sydney Street. The writer Charles Dickens was married here in the garden.

We walk down Edith Grove to Cheyne Walk on Chelsea embankment, one of London's most desirable residential addresses. We work out which of the townhouses belonged to Pre-Raphaelite artists, JMW Turner, Ian Fleming, George Elliott and Sylvia Pankhurst. Number 96 is up for sale for 25 million GBP. It belonged to the artist James Whistler at one stage.

I've just finished reading Keith Richard's autobiography Life so I was interested to see number 3 Cheyne Walk, which belonged to him at one stage. Not anymore; his principal residence is in Connecticut in the US. Number 3 looked quite modest compared to the others.

We walked across Albert Bridge to Battersea Park and got a lovely view of some Cheyne Walk houses from across the muddy grey Thames.

Battersea Park is a relatively new London park (only about 160 years old). It looked beautiful on this fresh Spring morning though not very crowded being a Monday.

The big tower in the background of this view of the lake in Battersea Park is often seen in shots of the iconic Battersea Power Station (made even more famous as the cover image of Pink Floyd's 1977 album Animals and the notorious flying pink pig incident). Unfortunately I didn't get a full view of the power station on this visit.

We walked back over the Thames on the Chelsea Bridge, then past the Royal Hospital, site of the Chelsea Flower show and the hospital for the Royal Chelsea Pensioners. We even saw a couple of the pensioners, all shiny shoes and military ship shape, even in their wheelchairs.

By now we'd been walking around 10-12 klms and no lunch! We were relieved to find the gorgeous old Zetland Arms pub on Old Brompton Road, South Kensington and settled in for a pale ale and a rest for our hard working feet. We ended up in an extended conversation with Theresa, the pub manager, originally from Newcastle Australia, but 14 years living in London. We had a great chat and she ended up presenting us with our own London Pride mugs and matching key chains - very nice!

After a very late in the day but very reviving sandwich at Pret a Manger in South Kensington we made our way up to Cromwell Road to the Victoria and Albert Museum. With its late closing time (5.45pm) we were left with a good one and a half hours to check out a few things in its amazing collection.

I remembered the amazing Chihuly exhibition of glassworks at the NGA (was that in the nineties?) so this hanging piece in the foyer of the V&A immediately looked familiar.

Our overwhelming impression was of Britain's incredible wealth - being able to amass an amazing collection of applied arts like this from all over the world from all periods of history. The collection also highlights Britain's own art & craft legacy. I particularly enjoyed the ceramics collection - but we only got a brief oversight in this short visit.

This oak staircase from a 16th century Italian townhouse was pretty impressive!

Although I experienced the trip back home in a haze of exhaustion I remember being daunted by navigating the very large, but oh so well mannered peak hour crowds, at Sth. Kensington Station and the sight of every second commuter reading their tidy editions of the London Evening Standard. They don't do that over in the East End.

Sunday Roast

First stop on this brisk but sunny Sunday was the flower market on Columbia Road. We are amazed at the size of the crowds and the East Ender flavour of all the flower sellers: get ya tulips.. 2quid a bunch..why take less when you can get the best etc etc..very Cockney yeh!

And it made me realise how different the preferred colour palette is in Britain compared to Australia. Those exquisite bunches of palest pink tulips only cost around $AUS13

The little side streets around Columbia Road were filled with people lining up for their coffees - a ready audience for musicians. This one had a distinctly Irish flavour-just wonderful.

We kept walking further South West towards Shoreditch, around the tranquil and classy Arnold Circle......

to the eclectic and (somewhat) seedy Brick Lane.

The Sunday market had attracted a huge crowd of local hipsters and arty types, bargain hunters, crooks and shysters and everyone else in between. This area was once a Jewish enclave. There are two famous bagel bakeries that date from those times. We had to try the famous Brick Lane hot salt beef bagels with (British) mustard!

We loved the Brick Lane markets. There were young designers markets, vintage outlets, craft stalls and a huge focus on food and music.

I captured a magic moment in this shot. The woman on the right of the frame had just joined the performance with an unbelievably good soul sister voice.

The crowd loved it!

So much great food on offer.

There is nowhere to sit and eat so everyone takes over the kerbs to tuck in. Great for people watching!

We were lucky enough to be invited to Sunday lunch back at Victoria Park and our first opportunity to meet Mal and Pat. It took us about 45 minute to walk from Brick Lane.

Davey had prepared roast pork, rhubarb and plum relish, roast beetroot and a gorgeous fresh coleslaw salad. It really was a party when the bottle of Majella appeared.

Eddie being the perfect baby he is slept through lunch and then woke up afterwards ready to charm everybody and be cuddled by his (other) grandparents. I have heard that this bib came from Harrods!

Davey and Cath are gorgeous hosts and Mal and Pat are lovely company. The time passes very quickly so it is late afternoon by the time we get going for Eddie's daily walk (and an icecream in the park for us). Victoria Park is crowded but so genteel, green and pretty in the late afternoon light.

It's getting close to 7.00pm by the time we walk back to London Fields. As we neared Broadway Market (a few minutes from our place) we could see an enormous gathering of people at the corner. It turned out to be the Cat & Mutton pub crowd "going off" as a final celebration of this warm, sunny London weekend.

Cath says the Cat & Mutton is considered a focus of the London street fashion scene. We didn't capture it in this photo but there were some amazing outfits to be seen on the corner.

Saturday in Hackney

Davey's theory is that Londoners never take warm weather for granted so a sunny 20oC Saturday in April was a perfect excuse for the parks and street markets of Hackney to be filled with thousands of (mainly young) people enjoying themselves.

It started quietly enough with Rob and I joining the early birds at the Broadway Markets; Rob congratulating himself at being able to score a roasted kransky and sauerkraut for breakfast before the queues started.

Davey, Cath and Eddie joined us for coffee at Climpsons; no seats left by this stage so Davey wasted little time in starting his first kransky of the day too, with the crowds building around us.

The Broadway Markets are not a farmer's market. There's a few fresh food stalls but the emphasis is on value added, prepared food using the highest quality regional ingredients: handmade breads and cheeses, fine baked goods using the freshest farm produce, hand processed meats and seafood etc. All part of the foodie revolution that has occurred in Britain in the past decade or so.

We left the crowds at the market, walking the full length of Goldsmith's Row to the Hackney City Farm for a cup of tea in the rustic garden of the farm's community hall.

Cath regularly walks Eddie to the farm to explain to him about chickens and goats and ducks and things. He likes farm life already.

Davey gave us a good lesson on the intricacies of butchering a pig and selecting the various cuts for different cooking styles. The Hackney farm pigs remained particularly huge and happy despite this conversation in their hearing.

We explored the much quieter streets around nearby Columbia Road, site of the famous flower markets on a Sunday. Cath explained that these cobbled streets remain the most perfectly preserved of pre-war London and are often used as film locations. The narrow streets are filled with tucked away little vintage and homeware shops, bars and cafes. The young people look even more cool and trendy than in North Hackney.

We had a tea break at our apartment. I took the shot below of our view from the front door of our block of 3 apartments (we're on the top floor). London Fields by lunchtime was crowded with picknickers (often with little portable bar-b-ques) drinking beer, playing ball games, listening to music, sunbaking. A group of young things in an apartment just up from ours had set up huge speakers on their front steps and were blasting reggae tracks as an accompaniment to the party happening across the road. Even though we are old and totally uncool, to us it seemed an absolutely appropriate way to soundtrack the day.

Feeling like more food we made our way back to the markets. But by now it was so crowded it was difficult to make headway. The food is amazing but there are long queues now everywhere. Davey and Cath seemed to know every second person. It's obviously a great community.

Today we were able to give Eddie all his presents from the family. He loved his special T-shirts and lunchbox from his cousins and Davey particularly was very envious of his Batman costume. We had a great laugh at his cool uncle T-shirt - good one, Jeremy!

We ended the day back at Davey and Cath's flat, enjoying a London Pride and some lovely time with Eddie who was in a remarkably good mood after his day's outing.

London day one

We arrived in London Friday morning 8 April as the sun was rising on a perfectly clear, sunny, warm Spring day. Ray (of Ray's Airport Transfers) met us as arranged and provided us with a running commentary on everything imaginable (including his choice of four wives) on the one and a half hour GBP59 trip from Heathrow to our apartment opposite London Fields in Hackney.

He drove us past a lot of the London icons along the way: Buck Palace, Westminster Abbey, The Tower, Big Ben, the London Eye. The city looks brilliant: sparkling clean, prosperous, so many trees and parks, cyclists and Spring flowers everywhere; and everyone looked to have a spring in their step on this gorgeous London morning.

We were very excited to meet Cath and Eddie at London Fields. They'd collected our keys for us. Although Eddie was not as excited as we were at this stage as he had some sleep to catch up on. Cath and Eddie completed their morning walk while we showered and settled into the apartment.

First stop then was Climpson's on Broadway Market (literally, just around the corner from our apartment) for a wonderfully reviving coffee and our first chance to have a cuddle with Eddie, who by this time had woken up.

Cath is such a happy Mum, and she looks fantastic, glowing with good health and understandably proud of her beautiful baby Eddie. We loved catching up with all the changes to their lives in the last few months.

We walked together to their flat in Victoria Square. Cath took us the long way so she could show us the bus stops we'd need to know for exploring London later in the week. This part of London is lively, full of young people, buzzy cafes, character filled pubs, beautiful parks (filled with Mums and bubs on this beautiful morning), overlaid with a significant population of Bangladeshi's and Middle Eastern groups for whom the Hackney area was a drawcard for many years. It all feels very relaxed and laid back, not like I remember our Kensington, Notting Hill haunts of 30 years ago.

The approach to Davey & Cath's apartment above the Empress of India looked wonderful this morning. Davey had taken an early mark from work and met up with us on the street a few minutes after this shot was taken.

The street view from their balcony shows how lively (and stylish) this part of Hackney is (Friday lunchtime).

Eddie was very excited to see his Daddy of course and gave us all an excellent display of his smiling ability and all round sociability (as well as a view of his Bonds singlet collection - perfect apparel for a baby with a strong Australian connection on this warm English day).

Cath had some pre-arranged girl time scheduled for the afternoon so she left Davey and us in charge of Eddie for a few hours. Davey had chosen the wonderful Brittannia Pub on Victoria Park Road as our lunch stop. We settled in for a few hours and happily Eddie seemed to love it as much as we did, catching up on some nap and cuddle time in amongst the sun and flowers.

The perfect title for this shot would have to be "blokes babysitting". That 3rd beer (a lovely English ale served at cool room temp) is not Eddie's by the way, it's mine.

How civilized to be able to sit in this lovely lawn area at the back of the pub, surrounded by the gorgeous Victoria Parklands and other Mums and bubs (and some blokes too) and their well behaved English dogs, with lovely ale on tap and great pub food to order.

By this stage Rob and I had been awake for over 40 hours (apart from a few naps on the 23 hour flight from Oz) and we were starting to fade fast. We had to decline Cath's kind offer of dinner together and with a few last minute directions from Davey we made our own way back to London Fields catching some glimpses of this extension of the gorgeous Regent's Canal along the way.

Exhaustion and jet lag must have been kicking in because we took a few wrong turns on the way back and ended up walking about twice as far as we needed to. I guess it's all about getting acquainted with our area!

Cyndie in Sydney

We caught Cyndie Lauper's second and final show in Sydney last Friday night at the extraordinary old State Theatre in Market Street. Cyndie's still a dynamo at 57 years old, crazy red wig, eighties style leather outfit and clunky boots, which didn't stop her dancing like a wild woman. She has a new lease on life with all those wonderful Memphis Blues players backing her. Even Rob reckons she sings a mean Blues. But she gave her old hits: Time after Time, True Colours and Girls Just Wanna Have Fun a great run through too. We had great seats, third front row, the place to be in a live concert. and great to catch Casey Donovan again as the warm up act, especially hearing her rendition of the Aretha Franklin song: I've Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You which she did in The Sapphires in Canberra in February this year just before the show's London season. We were able to spend some time with the L. family on Saturday. Sophie was performing at the Opera House as part of her Suzuki piano program assessment. To celebrate her success that night we met up at the amazing Bavarian Bier Cafe on Campbell Parade, Bondi. Judy and I walked there from Coogee along the beautiful ocean walk so we were ready for our 600mls tasters of German beers. The platters of pork belly, bratwurst, schnitzel, sauerkraut and Sebago mash (with bier jus) were declared "wonderful". I stuck with pissaladiere with Crystal Bay prawns with my bier. It was wonderful too!

Great times

We've done nothing much else but celebrate and socialise over the past three days (and nights). We kicked off on Friday night with a wonderful meal with friends at the Lanterne Rooms restaurant at Campbell. These women are my amazing work colleagues and we call ourselves the RED group (Retired, Extremely Dangerous - just like Helen Mirren in RED). So no prizes for guessing how we would decorate our Lanterne Room for this party. Then it was time for my yearly birthday (theirs) treat with Sophie and Maddie: afternoon tea at the utterly lovely Hyatt Hotel Tea Lounge. This is something I really look forward to doing each year, and luckily the girls seem to enjoy it too so far.

Then last night we saw our third French film in just over a week: De Vrais Mensonges (Beautiful Lies) a great showcase for the gorgeous Audrey Tautou and another sell out show for Greater Union, Manuka during the 2011 Alliance Francaise Film Festival. I enjoyed the very stylish French ads for Tefal and Peugeot in the opening film for the festival - but I am starting to grow weary of them now, although that dangerous looking man with the grey stubble in the Peugeot ad is always worth a second (third, fourth) look.

Today we met up with extended family for a yum cha lunch at Noble Palace. There's 12 of us altogether so it takes quite a few steamed dumplings before everyone is satisfied - especially those growing, active boys. (I mean the young ones, not the grandpas in the picture below.) Life has got very hectic for everybody now so we are lucky to find opportunities like this for precious catching up (and delicious eating) time.

We're done with flying kites

For the first three weeks of the school year Ella happily juggled her busy new schedule of two sessions of Play School, swimming and dance classes and having her Mummy at work for two days a week.

For the last three weeks however she has found it increasingly difficult to keep up with everything. She's even had a few tears on the way to our house as we have driven away from her beloved Mummy on her work days.

Last week everything seemed to be back to normal: happy smiles, new red gumboots, a very successful session baking gingerbread biscuits and an equally successful outing into the city for a ride on Canberra's vintage Carousel.

We were congratulating ourselves on a very successful two days with Ella when we decided to finish off the week with a bout of kite flying in the park after lunch on Friday.

Unfortunately there was no wind so despite Rob's best efforts running all over the very large park (for ages) with a bedraggled little kite flapping behind him we could not get it airborne. Ella quickly became completely overcome by the injustice of it all and started to express her feelings in a very pronounced way. She started by proclaiming loudly that she "was DONE with kite flying", but that evolved into a full scale diva-esque performance which included much wailing and thrashing of arms: she was "never going to be able to fly her kite" and "it was never going to be windy again", wail, wail.

Faced with this performance we found it hard not to laugh. Luckily getting back home and splitting open a fresh coconut seemed to distract her from her kite induced misery until her Mummy came home.

Does anyone else's children experience the end of week blues? We might try a little bit of gentle ABC Kids TV watching next week!