New River Walk

I was still asleep at 6:00 A.M. this morning, but that's when life in London got a little bit better, because that's when the indoor smoking ban went into effect in England. We celebrated by heading to a nearby pub for a smoke-free pub lunch--it was very nice to go out for a bite and not have to find out in advance if and when the pub offered a non-smoking section (usually only offered during certain daytime hours). "It is illegal to smoke in these premises," the new sticker on the door proclaimed, and our lunch was better for it. As an extra bonus for Bob, the pub's guest ale happened to be his favourite (the last time he had it in a pub was some sixteen years ago), and the pub was only serving it for two days. (That explained the huge smile when he came back to the table with his ale and my lemonade.) After our generous lunch, sitting by the window (the non-smoking sections always seem to be at the back of establishments, and so we never got to enjoy window seats until today), we strolled down to Sainsbury's to get some groceries. Instead of taking any of our usual routes, we decided to follow the New River Walk for most of the way. Along the quiet, pretty path, we wondered why it took us this long to enjoy this lovely route:

Of course, all the idyllic sights of our walk were brought back to reality once we were in Sainsbury's a half-hour before closing on a Sunday. Unlike Canadian grocery stores, whose shelves always seem full unless there's some natural emergency (or it's the day before Christmas, which is sort of like an emergency), our local Sainsbury's always has an end-of-the-world mentality right before closing, with empty, raided shelves to complete the feeling. Now, contrary to what some of you may heard in the news about recent events in London and Glasgow, there doesn't seem to be much of this on London streets, at least from what I can see. Londoners don't seem "jittery" (a word some media outlets have used to describe the collective mood in London) and people have been going about their lives as usual all weekend. I'm not saying that the last few days haven't been strange and that we haven't been checking the news a bit more than usual, but daily life goes on.