Friday, 6 December 2024

Curry in Brick Lane

We decided to go to Chelsea this morning, specifically to visit the Cricket Art Gallery which displays the work of an artist that I like. They only had a couple of her paintings but they added me to their mailing list. We wandered along the High Street where many of the shops were really quite upmarket, even the hardware shop where we bought a cute wee “Visitors” key tag for Ally and Cat, and a rather expensive nail brush. Then we had coffee and orange polenta cake in a trendy wee café called Kiss the Hippo. We were definitely the least trendy people there! We walked down to the river and onwards to Battersea Power Station, through Battersea Park with its Peace Memorial, and I spotted semi celebrity Spencer Matthews who was out running. It was a beautiful sunny day so we thought it would be a good opportunity to ascend the 109 lift to the top of one of the power station’s chimneys. This involved a bit of queueing and then we had to go into a sort of holding pen which had a fairly interesting exhibition about the history of the power station, before finally entering the lift which took us up to the top of the chimney. It was well worth the wait! The lift is made of glass and rises up above the top of the chimney to reveal 360 degree views of London. It was fabulous. The views of the city and river were great and we could see the Chelsea Barracks nearby, and even Canary Wharf in the distance. 
James expertly navigated us back into the city where we met Andrew for a quick coffee in Paul’s, just off Paternoster Square. We had a very pleasant chat before he headed back to work and we appreciated that he had taken time out of his busy day to meet us. 
We felt the need to go back to Ally and Cat’s flat for a rest before meeting Ally in Brick Lane for a curry. This evening was Cat’s office Christmas party so it was just three of us. Brick Lane was vibrant and buzzing on a Friday evening and Ally took us to Aladin’s where we had an absolutely delicious meal. Ally had promised us many celebrities in the restaurant but this evening there was not a one! However the food and service made up for it, the waiter even insisted on removing our poppadoms to replace them with more crispy ones! We had a great time and then Ally took us by underground to the Queen’s Head pub back in Limehouse which was a very traditional old-fashioned London pub. I loved it. There were many portraits of the late Queen on display and on the wall there were a couple of photographs from the 1990s of the Queen Mother pulling a pint at the pub and drinking it! We had a good old chat before heading back to Ally and Cat’s flat where James and Ally had a wee dram before bedtime. 

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