London Day 3

I woke up feeling a little tired after my wanderings the previous day. But today I was meeting Laura and we were heading down the Southbank for the day. We exchanged a few texts about meeting times and places then i headed down for my first breakfast in the hotel. It wasn't busy which is just the way i like it. I perused the menu and ordered boiled eggs and soldiers and a pot of tea. Yum. They were brought out by a nice girl waitress and the eggs were just the way I like them, runny.

Eggs and soldiers, fuzzy iPhone picture

Whilst sitting at the table I took part in my second favourite sport, people watching. There were a couple who came and sat at the booth next to me. Papers in hand they never uttered a word to each other. I didn't notice at first but after a little while it was strange. Both heads were down engrossed in the papers. Not even when their bacon baps were delivered did the take their heads out of the paper and focus on each other. Obviously married! I did wonder if that's the way couples behave, is it? There was another older couple who appeared and they seemed to be talking to each other. Perhaps the first pair had a row!...

It was nearly time for me to leave so i went back to the room picked up my belongings and headed on out into another glorious sunshine day. I totally lucked out with the weather, by the way. I was to meet Laura at Baker Street and as usual i arrived a little bit early. Turns out I only waited for a little bit as she arrived a short while later. We headed across the street to a photography exhibition that was on. I would never have found out about this but I liked it. Some of the pictures were tough but others were lovely. Different styles.

Sunny Southbank

Next up we headed back on the tube to the South Bank. It was lively. Well it was a bank holiday after all. There were painted beach huts, a sandy beach area with lots of children digging, water fountains with loads of soaking wet happy children running through them, bunting, tourists, locals, cameras and skateboards. I like this bit. I saw it on my last visit. It's quite dark and sort of underneath, there's graffiti everywhere and the sound of skateboards and BMX's whizzing past you. They were having a rare old time.

Love here. Could stand and watch the skaters and graffiti artists all day

We stopped for a much needed drink, some shade and a chat. I could get used to this I thought to myself. We wandered some more and taking pictures and chatting as we went and soon it was time for food. We found one of the less busy pubs and had a nice late lunch. Or was it late. Maybe it wasn't that late but anyway we ate. After our food we wandered some more passing Tower Bridge and City Hall. I hadn't been this far along before. It was quite impressive. Eventually we arrived at our destination, the Design Museum.

There was an exhibition on about Dutch designer Wim Crouwel called A Graphic Odyssey. Heaven for me! I loved it. It showed you lots and lots of his design work. You probably haven;t heard of him but a few of his famous logos hung up on the huge back wall; a famous one being Macro and one for the cyclists among you, Rabobank. Even graphic notepads with workings on how he produced new fonts. All the angles so intricately worked out to make the letter look its best. Wonderful. I really did enjoy it. We headed upstairs into another room, this time filled with gadgets and artworks and even a black plastic coffin. This was the Brit Insurance design awards 2011. There was furniture, fashion, cars, iPad apps, interactive and a Barclays bike. I think my favourite though was the Homemade is best cookery book for Ikea by Forsman and Bodenfors. I loved the pictures of recipes laid out in design, so much so in fact that I bought some postcards of them. Here they are...

What is this recipe? I wonder.

I really enjoyed my walk along Southbank with Laura. I was so pleased she made the effort to come from Luton to spend most of the day with me. But it was nearly 5pm and our feet were killing  us, the sun had sapped some of my energy and so it was time to head to the tube. Unfortunately I directed us to the wrong one and we walked for another 10 minutes. It was time for goodbyes after a thoroughly lovely day out with a great new friend.

I landed back at the hotel, opened the windows and plopped onto the bed. Knackered. Since it was Good Friday there was a Disney film on, Enchantment. I love that film. Amy Adams is perfect in the role. I watched it until it was time to get ready for dinner. Another twitter friend was coming to meet me at the hotel for some eats. We met just before 8 and ate in the grill. It was nice to finally meet John after months of chats Twitter chats. We had a nice meal and chat.

My big city living was starting to catch up with me and a little after 9pm I was back in my room, feet up having a cup of tea.

Angela x

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