Saturday, July 18, 2009
London

I awoke at 6. 30 am, switched on my PC and received the disappointing news from Sylvia in Canada and Chriselle in New York that Llew’s flight had been delayed –by four hours!!!! I was devastated–not just because it meant that he would now only arrive at Heathrow at noon, and, therefore, at my flat after 2. 30 pm, not just that it would mean a complete disarray in my intended plans of going to the theater to see The Mountaintop (a new play about the last days of Martin Luther King, Jr), but because it was such a gorgeous day and I could not believe that all of it would be wasted–when we had such few days together in London. Well, after I got over my disappointment, I figured it was just as well.

The delay left me time to take a shower and clean my room as well as finish work on my Oxford lecture to which I put the finishing touches. Needless to say, I was greatly relieved when this was all done as I am now ready to face my audience of graduate students at Exeter College this coming Wednesday. I put myself through part of a practice run with it when I realized that I had to go and pick up the tickets for The Mountaintop as I had told Chaichin to hold them for me and didn’t want to disappoint her. The trip to Charing Cross and back took over an hour and by the time I reached home, I barely raced Llew (arriving from Heathrow) by about 15 minutes.

Then, at 2. 30, he was ringing my doorbell downstairs and then, finally, he was with me and my year-long solitude came to an end. Of course, he was equally disappointed and fatigued and sleep-deprived when he came in and after a glass of grapefruit juice and a late lunch of pasta with asparagus and ham and peas, he felt better. It was time for him to shave and take a shower and because neither one of us wanted to waste a spectacular day, we got dressed and went off for a walk.

I took Llew around our new neighborhood, showing him the sights that are most notable–St. John’s Gate and Museum, Smithfield Meat Market, The Church of St. Bartholomew the Great, the home of Sir John Betjeman and the cafe that is named after him at Cloth Fair, The Church of St. Bartholomew the Less, St. Bart’s Hospital, Charterhouse Square and the Cloisters and the marvelous variety of architectural styles around the square including the Art Deco building which was used as the location for the Hercule Poirot TV series–Llew is a big fan!

On our way past the Charterhouse Monastery, we spied a mulberry tree just laden with luscious ripe fruit and it was all I could do to resist stripping it down completely. Well, we requested permission of the guard and the next thing you know, rivulets of red juice were running down our fingers and on to our elbows as we plucked the jewel berries from the tree and popped them straight into our mouths. When we had our fill, we left, having dragged the guard into our mischievous pursuits as well.

Then, we walked briskly up to Fleet Street and took the Number 15 bus to Trafalgar Square when we alighted into a slight drizzle. As neither one of us had the foresight to carry our brollies, we had little choice but to shelter under a protruding roof line that offered quite a good view of Anthony Gormley’s Plinth that is supposed to be a form of Live Art in that it offers human beings the chance to climb upon it and hold the fort for a fixed period of time. Passing in the buses over the past few days, I have seen all sorts of entertainment being presented from the vantage point though this evening while we were there, all we saw was a rather dour man sitting and facing the square and doing absolutely nothing at all. It was quite boring and made the entire concept seem more bizarre.

Since the rain continued unabated, we figured it was best to take the bus and get back home so that we could rest for a bit before starting to get dressed for our evening dinner appointment with Tim and Barbara. Back home, I brewed us a pot of tea and over steaming cups and a pack of French macaroons which Llew really enjoyed, we caught up as there were so many things we had to talk about–it just did not stop.

Finally, we got dressed and awaited the arrival of my former neighbors who arrived promptly at 8. 40 pm. We sat down and chatted for a while over a glass of rose wine and some roasted almonds and left our flat at 9. 05 to walk to Moro for our 9. 15 reservation.

Moro has become a legendary restaurant in Exmouth Market in London’s Clerkenwell area, a ten minute walk from my flat. Its chef is the son of Kenneth Clark of Civilization fame, who, when I was fifteen years old and watched screenings of it on Bombay TV, became madly involved in the study of Art History–something that has remained a passion for me. So I was pleased to be dining in the restaurant of the son of the man who made an art historian of sorts of me.

Tim and Barbara were great company, as usual, as we poured over the menu and decided to start with glasses of dry sherry (well, when in Spain…). As we sipped our sherry, we awaited the arrival of our appetisers–we chose a Serrano ham served on a bed of well-seasoned rocket, a pasta dish with seafood (there were prawns, cray fish and langoustines in the earthen dish in which they were baked) and a paper thin dried tuna (mojama). All of this was very interesting with the seafood pasta being the best of the lot. Bread and olive oil had been passed around for nibbling on. We ordered a red Spanish Rioja to be enjoyed with our meal and it was served just a few minutes later.

Llew went for the grilled lamb (as did Barbara), Tim chose a roast pork which was finished by the time he made his order (leaving him to have the bream, instead while I chose the mixed vegetable mezze. Everything was superb and the mezzes took me right back to Greece where Llew and I had enjoyed some of the most memorable meals we have ever eater.

Despite the fact that we had done justice to our meal, we did opt to order desserts–Llew and I chose to split a chocolate and apricot tart which was very good, Barbara ate the Jerez cream with fresh raspberries while Tim went for the Malaga rum and raisin ice-cream. Overall, we had a very good meal but it was certainly not the best we have ever eaten.

Tim and Barbara came back to our place after dinner (we walked home taking a more complicated route so that I could show Llew the building in which Karen had stayed) and when we arrived at Denmark House, I put the kettle on to brew coffee which we sipped as we continued to chat. There is always so much to catch up on and it was after 12. 45 when they got up to leave after what had been a rather exciting first day for Llew.

I am so happy to have him back with me and to be able to share with him every hidden corner of this beloved city with me. We will be hard pressed for time in the next few days, but we intend to enjoy it as much as we can and to squeeze the maximum pleasure out of it. We are glad we began by sharing it with some of our closest friends in the city.