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

When life gives you...

 

lemons - or so I thought from a quick glimpse at a nearby backyard. Going back for a closer look and some online checking, it appears those long dark glossy leaves don't necessarily belong to anything exotic (for London gardens), but that these may be plain old Golden Delicious apples (golden they may be, but I don't find them particularly delicious).

Speaking of lemons....

in other news, apparently today is being touted as World Gin Day so here's something appropriate to raise a G&T to:

Seen around town

Spitalfields

 

Soho

It only takes a day or two of warmth and sunshine and suddenly all the trees in the neighbourhood seem to have woken up together. This ceanothus has been there as long as I can remember, and has obviously had a tidy-up there used to be branches hanging down a lot lower.

Spring keeps on springing

As ever, the naturalised bulbs in St Anne's churchyard, in Limehouse, put out a brave display.

Small victories

 Over lethargy, lassitude and can't-be-botheredness, that is.  A couple of cupboard doors coming off their hinges (and built into a corner where each makes the other only approachable at an awkward angle), and a collection of old pillows and other things to take to the recycling centre: classic "round tuit" jobs louring in the background of whatever else has been on my mind. For months, I must admit.

But finally grasping the nettle, I find that those cupboard doors weren't that much of a problem - less flimsy screws fixed them firm again in half an hour. And a rare sunny day today was just right for getting out the bike to take those pillows and other things to their next destination. 

Quite why such things created such a fantigue - well, that's another question.

Now, about that bathroom...

Comeback

Most of the developments round here have plenty of hardy shrubs along the street frontage. One was getting particularly overgrown, and had a radical, even brutal haircut in the autumn (on the principle, no doubt, that managing plants means sometimes being cruel to be kind). Most of them are rather dull, but this one has bounced back with one of the earliest spring flowers (already!):

Meanwhile, a few streets away, on an equally blank spot that gets full sun (when there is any), there's a snowdrop out. Spring is on its way.

No thank you

Fortunately, I can't think of any bargain I particularly want or need.

 

Not so enthusiastic

 Random street art pops up just about anywhere

Now, there's enthusiasm...

 

On sale now!

 New arrivals at the paper shop (yum yum - or maybe not):

Cloud-capp'd towers

Appropriate weather for a walk to the dentist's, perhaps.

It was only a routine check-up, and the dentist pronounced all well: indeed, he said I had a young man's gums.

The poor soul must be missing them.

Not every impulse purchase at the supermarket is fattening.
 

I'm covered. Sort of.

On the left, my European Health Insurance Card, which allowed me access to local health services elsewhere in the EU, on the same terms as citizens of the country concerned (except that I notice - only now - that I didn't notice it expiring in 2018 and had a merry time not being covered at all in my European travels in 2019 - oops). 

On the right, my shiny new Global Health Insurance Card, which does much the same job, even after Brexit (except in the other EEA countries - Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein) - not that there's much prospect of foreign travel any time soon (though let's hope there will be before this card expires in 2026).

The "Global" monicker is a nod to reciprocal health agreements with some other countries around the world. These have existed for years already, and to take advantage of them, existing documentation seems to have been enough:  the government makes no actual claim that the new card is proof of entitlement under those agreements (and even says it isn't proof that one's entitled to use our own NHS). 

So what we have is a distinction without much of a difference. Except that the distinction is having a Union Jack on it. And that makes all the difference, apparently. Cheers, Boris. 

Last weekend, tempted by a newspaper piece on making orange curd and spotting some Seville oranges in the supermarket, I had a bash at making both the curd and some marmalade (well it helps to pass the time).

The curd turned out fine, but the latter was a bit runny, so to get on with using it up, this weekend meant making a marmalade cake, with some of the curd as the middle layer.

It wouldn't win prizes (not exactly the lightest and fluffiest of sponges, and signs of the dreaded soggy bottom) - but it tastes good. And that'll do me. 

It's on its way

It's sleeting outside today, but yesterday , the muddy grass in the park was brightened up by the first spring flowers.

Autumn on the way

 Temperatures down from over 30C a couple of weeks ago to under 20, rain and wind, and bright orange hips on the wild roses on the Mudchute. It all points one way. 

Passing the time

Among the little bits of life admin that nag at me are the accumulations of digital entertainment (that's recordings, not finger-puppets) in my video recorder and computer. I blame that "Series Record" button.

Slowly but surely I've been weeding out the recorder files, with some saved into a portable hard drive, for if and when travel abroad is possible again and the equivalent local services are - well, just not that entertaining. 

It can a be a tiresome slog waiting for the copying to be done and then renaming the files of some long-running series into some sort of comprehensible order (hence the slowness). And all too often some other little project suggests itself - this weekend, a cheerfully inconsequential piece of French swing music on the radio. I thought it would be something different to put into a video with the words. The wonders of the internet soon turned up a suitable photograph of the performers and the words, but experimenting with layouts, fonts and colours took a time: but stitched together it seems to work (well, it kept me amusedoccupied for a few hours):