Thereby hangs a tale, no doubt

 Seen on Dean Street..

and round the corner, on Wardour Street:

That time of year again..

 And Limehouse churchyard as floral as ever:

Mirror, mirror on the wall...

.

 

I wonder what their story is....

When the sun came out for a day or two last week, there was (unlike today's grey cold and damp) every encouragement to go for a stroll down the river to the Island Gardens and its café. 

It used to be a utilitarian brick shed, so utilitarian as to be easily mistaken, from a distance, for a disused air raid shelter or public lavatory, although it was apparently built in 1980. Eventually the construcrion turned out to be failing, and someone in the Town Hall decided it needed a complete rebuild. Quite some time and the best part of a million pounds later (from the money property developers elsewhere in tbe borough have to pay up for local improvements), we have a very smart Rotunda, with wrap-around windows - essential for giving customers the best panoramic view of the historic buildings of maritime Greenwich.

Pretending that spring is on the way

 

Not bad for a few quid from the supermarket

That's the trouble with sunlight - it doesn't half show up the windows needing a clean. 

L'Après-midi d'un phone

 The years I've been hoping for an opportunity to use that as a title, though when it came, it wasn't initially the best of moments. 

On a spur-of-a-moment weekend away in Amsterdam, I lost my phone. It was a sickening realisation at the time, but as it happened, I had back-ups -  my old phone to access at least the internet, a separate bank card in a different place, and a helpful hotel reception for the necessary phone calls. It seemed most likely that I had somehow dropped it on a tram: Amsterdam transport authority has an online lost-and-found system, so I could put in a report straight away, even though they wouldn't be checking over any found items till I would be well on my way home on the Monday. 

Sure enough, on the Monday, they posted a photo that looked like my phone, and they sent an email suggesting it matched, so I filled out the claim form with as much identifying detail as I could recall. On Tuesday, they emailed to say it all matched and provided a link to book and pay for it to be delivered back here. And so it was that it came back on Friday, none the worse for its adventures. The wonders of the internet - and the honesty of whoever turned it in!

As for the weekend - well, the weather could have been better. I did manage to take a few photos at the Maritime Museum before the phone went its merry way:

The 18th century royal barge, used for special occasions until the 1960s

Some figureheads