limehouse by katharine eastman
Yes thank you a friend and I had a nice day in London yesterday, tootling off to Wapping and Limehouse and Shadwell and Canary Wharf and all that stuff and it was a nice time because we didn't have to be anywhere particular at anywhen particular - I'm not really into doing "touristy stuff" but my friend is much less up herself than I am and just does what she wants and so we went into the two old pubs down Narrow Street including The Grapes owned by Ian MacKellan who was in that boring terrible film The Critic recently and his staff from the Gandalf films was (is) behind the bar and it was all so boring and I went for the only edible-looking thing on the menu (fish and chips) while my friend had "Sir Ian's Shepherds Pie" which was absolutely horrible - it tasted like some random thing you'd find all dried up in a student bedsit that had been on the draining board for two weeks and then hastily zapped into the microwave for 20 seconds and presented with a flourish for your delectation.
But I loved it all - we both did - I loved how quiet everywhere was - there's only about two tables in The Grapes and we'd arrived late and still managed to bag one. And all right I was very touristy and was a bit moved to think that Captain Cook and Captain Kidd had been all round here and the pubs were in Dickens and I loved that Francis Bacon had lived and had his studio down Narrow Street for ages. The best food we had in London was the crap in MacD at Waterloo and some Italian cakes in some soulless but friendly place in Canary Wharf.
As usual, the most wonderful thing about the day, apart from the perfect weather, was the contrast you feel after hours in a clean friendly London to then stepping out of Southampton Central into the hideous littered shouty drugged craziness of this poor pathetic unhappy city. Optimists will think that London is the future. Pessimists will think that one day everywhere in Britain will be like Southampton, and yesterday I was optimistic.
No I'm not at all excited or anything about this hastily hammered together music but the longer I go on the more I realise that a muso's opinion of her music doesn't matter, a novelist's opinion of her novel ditto, and a person's opinion of their own life is just as crazily askew.
recd this morning, photo Limehouse yesterday and yes the water over there really is bright green
