Good morning. There is no Guardian column today as I took a break (which manifests as today, but actually the break came a few weeks ago, we work quite a few weeks in advance, sometimes months).
I am hard at work on my other columns, and two lead features coming up. Both are, at least in the research, fascinating.
This week was spent working and writing on all of the above. I had three glorious days in London which I jam packed. Of course no-one can be writing all the time so…some notes:
Beauty Pie now has a stand in Liberty so if you are a member, but like to look at things (previously it was exclusively online as it’s a member’s club thing) - especially good to sniff the perfumes.
I went to the National Gallery again, this time I had breakfast and not just coffee in the Supporter’s House. It was very mid. The avocado was a sort of mush on the sourdough, like it had been whipped in a frenzy and submitted into a spread, and everything was a bit cold. (The actual bar space was wonderfully air conditioned, but bring a jumper if you plan to spend time there as I froze after a while.)
The coffee is still very good and it’s a wonderful haven but I feel they need to up their food game. The restaurant open to the public - Muriel’s - looked a thousand times more exciting.
I spent a lot of time around Marylebone, where I went to primary school. This area ripples with memories for me and it was bittersweet as it’s coming up to my mum’s third anniversary and I miss her. The last few years were so tough on me and my husband and children that it took a while for the dust to settle and for me - us - to really see her again.
I peeked into the entry of my old primary school, now largely closed up (there used to be a big long corridor through the gate) and I could see the floor was still the same. The big windows where I used to go up the stairs after assembly and wave to my mum who waited for me (and if we went up the back stairs I’d fret that I hadn’t seen her and would she be fretting?) are now coated with a mirror finish so you can’t see in. I guess a sign of the times. The roof, where the playground is, is now fully enclosed in fence - it used to be just the sides. And the vast expanse of car park opposite, a residue of World War II’s bombing, is now luxury flats. TBF they were only built a few years ago.
Opposite all this is La Fromagerie, a deli, cheese shop and restaurant, which is dark and cool (but no air con) and there are wonderful punnets of red currants and beautiful looking breads, and of course, lots of cheeses and artisan foods. I met a friend and ate there. The menu is a bit of a challenge for someone who doesn’t eat dairy or meat but I had a very nice salad and grated carrot with chickpea chips and an iced oat flat white which is all I could have wanted.
Marylebone is replete with chi-chi shops and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it all. When I was at school they were all independent shops that really were independently owned. My friend PC’s family owed the cafe on Marylebone Lane. My friend FV lived on Garbutt Road with no inside toilet. I used to sneak down Grotto Passage to see her. It was a very different Marylebone then. But I feel incredibly at home there - like it is my home and I can’t deny I love the shops up and down there if I don’t get too political about it all.
After school we all played on the swings and see-saws at Paddington Street Gardens. I still get a real jolt when I walk through there and see the bench my mum used to sit on waiting for us (what did she do, bless her? Stare into space, order her thoughts, read Woman’s Own?). There’s the drain just outside the Gardens where my mum held my chubby 3-4 year old thighs aloft whilst I peed down the drain on the way to pick up my sister. Little moments in time.
There’s a super deli, expensive of course, called Bayley and Sage with a lovely gift/plant section in the basement which many people miss. And then I went to buy some friselli from Prezzemole e Vitale on Wigmore Street. I used to eat these as a child although we called them something else (Italians often have various names for the same thing depending on where in the country you are). I was reminded of them because when I interviewed Valter Longo for my upcoming Series 13 he mentioned he ate them for breakfast. As soon as I came home I had some dipped in my morning coffee and they instantly took me back to child hood.
A quick recommend of Manufactum which I hadn’t shopped from in years. It’s the sort of place you go to, to buy “once buy well” for certain things, and I looked at it to find a garden hose that would last more than two summers. Until my husband came home and just tightened the whatsit and it was fine. **insert shame face **
I read a fascinating article in the New Yorker about guard rails, what we call safety rails, vehicle restraint barriers or Armco barriers in the UK. They are the low, long metal barriers on the sides of certain roads. I have no idea if the problems in the US are also an issue here but it was pretty horrifying reading so do go carefully if you or a loved one has been involved in a road traffic accident.
Finally I came home to find the bread I’d made on Tuesday (it was now Friday) was still proving in the fridge so we cooked it up on Saturday and it was glorious. This is the great thing about sourdough, up to a point it improves with age.
Wishing you all a good week.
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