Crawling Out the Window

London has a lot of great bookshops of all sizes and all inclinations, and although some big-box stores do appear now and then, it's nothing like the situation in Vancouver where independent bookshops often downsize or disappear altogether in the shadows of just one chain: Chapters. It's become almost funny here--whenever we spot a (new-to-us) bookshop and go in, it always has an excellent selection with a comfy environment for browsing. So many books; so little time! Anyway, we started out today browsing in one of our favourite shops, Marylebone's Daunt Books, an overwhelming travel bookshop with a beautiful back room packed with all the wonders of the world:

Then we visited the nearby Wallace Collection, a place we loved when we last visited in 2005, which lived up to our memories of being a wonderful setting for taking in art and interior design. The outside of the house doesn't hint much at the wonders waiting inside:
The Wallace's restaurant (which we don't remember from two years ago--perhaps it's new?) is also spectacular--set in an interior courtyard with fantastic-looking food, with astronomical prices to match, of course. In a way it seems only fair, since entry to the Wallace is free, but the food is still out of our price range. By now, we were hungry, so we headed down to Borough Market to assemble a picnic that did fit our budget! The market was busy busy busy on this Good Friday, and we sampled cheeses, dips, and breads as we shopped.

Away from the throngs, we sat by the Thames with a view of Tower Bridge (and all the tourists) while we pigged out on bread, cheese, sausage, and olives.
A little further along the Thames, we used a 2-for-1 voucher at the Design Museum, another place that we haven't visited since our 2005 trip.
Three exhibitions are currently showing: the work of 89-year-old Ettore Sottass; 25/25, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Design Museum--25 objects chosen by 25 designers that best represent each of the years between 1982 and 2007;
and Luigi Colani's relationship with nature. (That's Bob behind one of the displays.) After browsing in the Design Museum's excellent giftshop, we continued walking east along the Thames, where numerous warehouses have either been converted into expensive flats
or are still awaiting such conversion.
We walked for quite a while in the sun, and were pretty tired by the time we decided to head home. It was close to 7:00 P.M. by the time we got home, but the air was still warm from today's sun, so we decided to test out our patio for the first time since moving in:
Although you'll notice our distinct lack of outdoor furniture, squeezing out our living-room window to sit on our humble patio over coffees and books was actually quite lovely. It gives a nice extra dimension to our flat--all we need now is a table and some comfortable chairs!