London

We've been away visiting Daughter 2 in London. This is her living room...

 

... and this is the block where she and her husband have bought their flat. It's nice, but quite far out of central London; and yet very expensive compared to Edinburgh.

 

This is the apartment block that she's been refurbishing - in Kensington - much more central. The three-bedroom apartments are rented out, per month, for about six times my monthly salary when I left work. She showed us round one that's not taken yet.

They're admittedly rather grand...

... and set in a lovely square with beautiful gardens.

Then we went to the Victoria and Albert museum, where they had a notice up in lights: "All this belongs to you". In which case, I'd like these little wooden heads: a man's and a woman's, beautifully carved. They would fit nicely in my dining room.

Another day we went to Dulwich Picture Gallery, which has a very nice restaurant - see above - where we had lunch.

In the garden outside was this beautiful tree - according to its notice, a Judas tree.

Dulwich is really lovely and again very expensive: a fairly ordinary-looking house in a pleasant street would cost two million pounds or more. We know this because there are a lot of estate agents in the main street - and also an independent bookshop, posh clothes shops, shops with desirable decorative items and cafés with tempting cakes. Maybe Daughter 2 can move there once her actor husband hits the big time.

The purpose for our visit to Dulwich was to see the exhibition of Eric Ravilious watercolours. He was a war artist who was killed in a plane crash in 1942 at the age of 39. He was a wonderful artist; Daughter 2 and I agreed that we'd be very happy to have almost any of his paintings on our walls. He left a wife and three children and, to add to the sad story, his wife died of cancer in 1952.

Dulwich Park is beautiful too. I imagine that this oak tree will still be there when we're all gone from this world. I always find this a comforting thought: we have our little troubles but trees just grow steadily on, dropping their leaves and growing new ones; as they must.