Back from three days in the Smoke where we were delighted to meet up with chum Ruth.  We had originally planned to go to both Cambridge and London but Paul’s operation made us take a more realistic approach.   We saw two extremely good plays, Much Ado About Nothing with David Tennant and Catherine Tate, and War Horse.   We were buzzing after the first and I at least was a snot-faced wreck after the second.  Other than that we walked a great deal, what I liked was suddenly finding yourself in a street of specialist shops,  for example Cecil Court, which has a fascinating history and I see here on Wiki is rumoured to be the inspiration for Diagon Alley.  I have to report, I did say to Paul that I was having a Diagon Alley moment during that same walk.  More importantly, and not the subject of conjecture, the infant prodigy Mozart lodged there during a visit to England in 1764.

Anyway, this street had antiquarian booksellers, stamps, maps, coins and bank notes enough to keep any collector very happily occupied for ages.   On display in one window was a particularly poignant  trillion dollar bank note from Zimbabwe.  We also took the fast boat to Greenwich, there to meet Ruth’s brother Richard, who is Curator at The National Maritime Museum.  Some pictures below.

Other highlights included a large variety of garden squares to amble through,  including Soho Square where there is a bench named for Kirsty McColl, and Britain’s own Tin Pan Alley, Denmark Street.