No Place Like Home!

 I've been spending the week visiting family in Cornwall, which is about as beautiful a place to spend a week as one can find. But I had to take a couple of days out for a spot of business in London (I was never good at taking time off!). But what a pleasure my two day trip is turning into!

A successful meeting with a veteran's group in Westminster yesterday, then a pint with Tom Wise in the Victory Club followed by a nice dinner. Today I have only to drop off some copies of 'Putins Legacy' with a bookseller in the West End, and then I am off duty until the 1903 from Paddington, and a four hour slog down to Liskeard. Why are English trains still so slow? On the train up yesterday I felt like I was on the set of an old Will Hay movie.

But the day ahead is a blank canvas, and what a rare treat that is for me.

This is where I guess my roots start to show through. With all London spread out in front of me, my plans involve - breakfast in Bethnal Green, a stroll along Brick Lane to pick up some stuff I can't get in Belgium (or indeed anywhere other than Brick Lane), and then a pint in the Blind Beggar. Unless any other diversions present themselves, down to Bermondsey to call on a few friends in Jamaica Road, and probably yet another pint at The Boatman.

Now I know that the East End is not everybody's idea of a beauty spot, but to me it has no rivals. To me, the bustle of Brick Lane, or Columbia Street flower market on a Sunday morning, have as much of an appeal as the Cornish coastline, or the lovely gardens in Paris where my son and I spent our day a couple of weeks ago.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.