Anthony Bourdain once said, “Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.”
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OUR FIRST visit to Mc & Sons was actually by chance. We were walking out of Vauxhall station and passed the pub along the way, P thinking it was the one he’d been telling me about that serves Thai food...
WE STOPPED by The Kings Arms in down-to-earth Bethnal Green after P‘s hair appointment, which was nearby. It may have been one of the pubs that was on the list compiled by the Substack that he subscribes to, so I think that’s how we found it.
WE HAVE BEEN watching the tennis. Normally don't join in until the end of the second week, but we wanted to see the Andy Murray/Tsitsipas match, which began on Thursday night, and continued the next day. Since we were in town on Friday, we had to keep checking in on our phones to see how things were going, in between pub visits in Belgravia and drinks on hot terraces of quaint new-to-us pubs...
BEFORE P’S brother came to visit last July, he asked for London tips, and one of the places we recommended was Gordon’s Wine Bar on Villiers Street. We hadn’t even been yet, but we heard good things.
WE WERE actually really looking forward to visiting Horse and Groom a traditional English pub in the heart of Belgravia, as we’d come across it on Instagram and thought it looked positively idyllic...
MY FAVOURITE earrings are these solid gold threaders that dangle prettily and glint in the light when I move. They were my lucky earrings because I've nearly lost them a million times, but they always turned up again, often in the most inexplicable places.
ACTUALLY (finally) saw Blow-Up (1966) just last summer. It was one many “classic” cultural films on my list, and the first I’d seen in which Jane Birkin appeared. The Michelangelo Antonioni directed film was one of her first roles and while it was a minor one, you could already tell back then that she had screen presence ...
ON FRIDAY evening we had that pub thing in Vauxhall that had been telling you about. It turned out to be less of a business meeting, and more of a quick dinner and some drinks, all over in an hour and a half. Afterward, we wandered around, ended up in the quirkiest little Spanish bar with a juke a box playing Strawberry Fields and a hilarious clientele in various stages of drunkenness.
ON SATURDAY we stopped by the Farmers Market on Maple. It only happens once a month, and since we only moved here in the first week of May, we missed that one. It was charming and lively and there were dogs everywhere and stalls selling topiaries and Scotch eggs, craft beer and handmade soap, and oysters and Prosecco.
READ IN BRITISH Vogue yesterday that Londoners are all in their autumn uniforms already⏤wooly jumpers and jackets and I can confirm that we are. That's because it's been raining for weeks on end and has been unseasonably chilly.
THIS WEEKEND was all about the tennis: the Women's Final on Saturday (heartbreaking), and the Men's on Sunday (thrilling). Before all of that, on Friday, we made our way to Kensington to meet a old mate of P's from another lifetime.
A LITTLE COUNTRY pub tucked away in a corner of Chelsea is how The Fox & The Pheasant describes itself. When we first arrived in mid-May, we hadn’t realised that it was match day...
THE HEATWAVE has subsided, and now, instead of hot sticky air seeping through the walls, cool breezes are making gauzy white curtains flutter in every room and it's a little easier to breath at noon, when the sun is at its highest. It's also much easier to workout out now...
THE LAST TIME I did a Life Lately was way back in February, and a lot has happened since then. Here is the latest photo diary⏤a few snippets from the past days and weeks, from the pink peonies and tulips in Fulham (just before we stopped in at the charming Fox & Pheasant pub) to sailboats on the Thames, the Tate, chestnut trees in Bushy Park, and more...