A Whirl Through Central London

Clouds ahead threatened rain – as they often do in London, especially in the Spring – but the private garden in Markham Square, surrounded by colourful rows of houses, was full of bright blooms.

(This one’s in my shop)

I stopped to snap a few photos on my way to Paul for my morning tea and to grab the 22 bus to Piccadilly Circus.

I was going to spend my bank holiday Friday afternoon walking around Soho, popping into shops, trying on clothes, drinking tea, pointing my camera down empty alleyways and at anything I found that looked interesting.

It was a welcome day off (as all days off are) with time to myself, free to wander through the puddle-strewn streets of central London, exploring. It fascinates me to no end, just being out and about in the city, watching life unfold, seeing the street style, the new restaurants that have recently popped up, the interactions between strangers.

I passed a group of poeple giving away free bags of food, three street style shoots in progress – possibly bloggers, but I didn’t recognize any of the girls who were posing – and plenty of tourists posing in red phone boxes.

In Golden Square, people filled the wet benches, enjoying the dull but warm-enough-to-unbutton-your-coat weather. A little girl with curly hair and a red raincoat balanced along the wooden edge of a flower garden while her parents sat in silence and watched.

Nearby, a man with grey hair and good intentions approached a body in a sleeping bag and told him he brought a coffee and a sandwich. Many expletives later, the man slumped back to his wife in Cafe Nero, dejected with a bag of food still in his hands.

I stopped in the Photographer’s Gallery behind the madness of Oxford Street and spent some time in the bookshop, browsing. There was an intense curated exhibition called “Human Rights, Human Wrongs”, full of black and white images as well as a solo exhibition by Dutch photographer Charlotte Dumas about tracking wild horses in Nevada.

(This one’s in my shop too)

And of course I popped into one of my favourites – Sacred Cafe – for a break, a tea and a savoury spinach and feta muffin followed by a shopping expedition along Regent Street (where I bought lots of pretty stationery-related things in Liberty and this, with Summer days in mind) and a long browse through the huge Waterstones on Piccadilly where I added lots of things to my wishlist like this, this and this)!

A day well spent.