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.