Something of the Contagious Countries

Some of you might want to have a seat.

After JY and I went to lunch at our second-most-local local, The Winchester (Certain Reader:  carrot and coriander soup for starter and lamb shank with mash for mains) - which, incidentally, bears no resemblance to the pub of that name in Shaun of the Dead -

I got to go here:

Loop Yarns!  Actually closer to where we are staying than the nearest tube stop!  Some readers -and You Know Who You Are, don't lie- will want to know that I bought this:

Welsh ribbon in the colourway "Frangipani," and Madeline Tosh sock yarn, Tosh Sock, in colourway "Cove."  Why yes, I did pose the yarn to take a picture of it.  I only narrowly avoided throwing the yarns in the shop to the floor and rolling around in them, and/or moving into the shop.  However, I am only here on a tourist visa, and I am pretty sure this is against EU policy. 

After the wild abandon of  Loop, I tried to demonstrate my sobriety, and went to see the workshop that the National Gallery has set up for the painter Ben Johnson and his team to complete a painting of the view from the roof over Trafalgar Square.  Then:  Earl Grey and treacle tart in the cafe.  I am not making this up:  I took a picture but the phone ate it.  Suffice to say that the tart was not a wodge, but the clotted cream was.

Here is my own view of Trafalgar at dusk when I left the gallery:

Met JY for dinner at a tapas restaurant the name of which has been erased from my memory by the vast amounts of garlic present in the patates aioli. Then Penelope Keith and Peter Bowles in The Rivals by Sheridan, directed by Sir Peter Hall.   A delightful balance to the political machinations and bloodshed of yesterday's Julius Caesar, and how I do love Mrs. Malaprop:

I would by no means wish a daughter of mine to be a progeny of learning; I don't think so much learning becomes a young woman; for instance, I would never let her meddle with Greek, or Hebrew, or algebra, or simony, or fluxions, or paradoxes, or such inflammatory branches of learning—neither would it be necessary for her to handle any of your mathematical, astronomical, diabolical instruments.—But, Sir Anthony, I would send her, at nine years old, to a boarding-school, in order to learn a little ingenuity and artifice. Then, sir, she should have a supercilious knowledge in accounts;—and as she grew up, I would have her instructed in geometry, that she might know something of the contagious countries;—but above all, Sir Anthony, she should be mistress of orthodoxy, that she might not mis-spell, and mis-pronounce words so shamefully as girls usually do; and likewise that she might reprehend the true meaning of what she is saying. This, Sir Anthony, is what I would have a woman know;—and I don't think there is a superstitious article in it.

Also, really luscious costumes, like something out of Hogarth, but without the syphilis.  They were almost the prettiest thing today.  Except for the yarn.