Seen while passing along Shoreditch High St (en route to Columbia Road for some belated re-stocking of my sad-looking window-boxes), these two shopfronts seem to sum  up the area beyond parody:

 

Should we be worried?

Quite why a Viking longship should be making its way upriver today, I don't know - but the glinting sun made it clear they were wearing their helmets.

Remarkable how you don't realise just how much you needed new glasses until you put them on.

The bright sunlight helps, too. This ceanothus in a local garden has always put on a good display, but the intensity of colour was really striking yesterday.  Pity my phone camera wasn't quite up to capturing all the fine detail.

And this morning, the sun made the leaves of a quite humble pot-plant something rather more noticeable: