And All The People Rejoic'd...and Had Cannoli

On Saturday, I went with JY (The Infinite Browser) to Portobello Road because he'd missed the first trip in order to attend his Spinners, Weavers and Dyers meeting.  Ahem.

We stopped at Kitchen & Pantry after the antiques stalls for the Full English.

We then continued into the mayhem of the food and "new goods" stalls toward Ladbroke Grove. 

"New Goods," includes an awful lot of things to poke in various piercings, for those that have 'em, and (I don't know where PETA is but they don't have much of a foothold among our eastern European brethren) fur pieces. 

Someone once said that, no matter the likely duration, an English person greeting someone will ask, "How was your journey?"  So I will report that the Ladbroke Grove station was closed due to planned maintenance, and we therefore took a bus along Edgeware Road (accidental discovery of the highest per capita incidence of Lebanese restaurants), Bond Street, Oxford Circus and Regent Street to Trafalgar Square.  It was very touristy for those of us who did not take the opportunity to nap. Incidentally, from this vantage point, the economy seems to be doing fine.

We went into Covent Garden for dinner at Giovanni's.  The walls are covered with "celebrity" photographs - some are people you've actually heard of, many others are possibly English reality show participants - and it was slightly worrying to spot one of David Hasslehoff.  However, the owners appeared to be truly Italian, and we ordered something named for Pavarotti, and everything was fine.  (CR: We both had papardelle with broad beans, peas, and parmesan, followed by cannoli). 

Then to St. Martin in the Fields for a concert including choral works by Vivaldi and Handel, finishing with a second half of Handel's Zadok the Priest and Mozart's Requiem.  It was pretty...um...rousing.  While we had quite nice seats, can I just point out again that you can hear very well from anywhere in the church, and the cheapest seats are about 2/3 the price of a movie ticket?