A delightful day with Ally and Cat. Cat had spotted a café on Instagram which had photos of amazing brunches, so she suggested that we try it. First we walked to Shadwell to catch the Overground, and Ally and Cat showed us the colourful Cable Street mural, which commemorates the battle of Cable Street in 1936, when anti-fascist protestors drove back a march by the British Union of Fascists. Very impressive, it covers the whole side of a building.
We continued to the café. It is in Hackney, near Homerton Overground station, a new area of London for James and me, and is called Beans and Bites. We were lucky to get one of the last tables before it filled up completely. Oh boy was brunch good! I could have ordered many options on the menu, but in the end I decided on the French Veggie which was beautifully presented and cooked to perfection. Not only did it have veg sausage, grilled halloumi, fried eggs, baked beans and hash browns, it had French toast with maple syrup, berries and cream, and even an Oreo cookie! The others had equally decadent brunches; James even had a whole ice cream cone upended on his! It was the best brunch I have ever had!
We decided to take our full tummies for a walk so Ally and Cat guided us via Well Street Common to Victoria Park, which we visited with them last year, this time entering from the north. It was good to see all the Londoners enjoying themselves in the park on this sunny day; a game of cricket was being played on the grass, children filled the playgrounds, people were having picnics, walking or sitting on the benches. It’s a good sized park and we strolled through it to Regent’s Canal where we saw a swan nesting, and walked on to Mile End, another new destination for James and me. We had some cool drinks at the Rusty Bicycle Pub before taking the underground in to the West End and having pre-dinner drinks at All Bar One in Leicester Square. Dinner was particularly early because our play this evening “Long Day’s Journey into Night” would be starting at 7 p.m. We met Gordon, Sheena and Peter at Brown’s, extremely handy for Wyndham’s Theatre. Ally and Cat had dinner with us but had decided not to go to the play after reading its very downbeat synopsis! Dinner was a convivial affair with everyone chatting away, and we even got free desserts for all because of a delay in two of the main courses. In the end we were cutting it rather fine for the start of the play so Ally and Cat swung into action; they persuaded the staff to let us out of the back door of the restaurant which saved us from having to walk around the block, escorted us through the lane and deposited us at the front door of the theatre with minutes to spare. I thought that it was very sweet that they took such good care of us oldies!
And so to the play. “Long Day’s Journey into Night” by Eugene O’Neill is regarded as one of the greatest plays of the 20th century. I came to it with no knowledge about either the play or the author, I had meant to read up on it but didn’t get round to it. I found it to be very intense, very raw, with the characters being quite brutal in their dealings with each other. It depicted the events in a family on one day, with a downwards trajectory during the course of the “long day.” The family is filled with bitterness and resentment but there is love there too. So when I did a bit of reading later about Eugene O’Neill I wasn’t too surprised to find that it was extremely autobiographical! No wonder that he didn’t want it to be published for at least twenty-five years after his death, although his wife overrode that request. Did I enjoy it? Yes I think so, even though it required a high level of concentration. Am I glad that I saw it? Definitely.
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