So Christmas has come and gone and the New Year is here. NYE was spent indoors I don't see why I should pay extra for something I can do any other time just because of a date. So the intervening time between the last update and this? Of course being out and about. The only sales we participated in were madame getting herself a new belt strap and buckle at Elliot Rhodes as she always does and visits to John Lewis and Liberties haberdashery departments. Madame managed to get loads of material at knockdown prices at John Lewis in particular their 150 year celebration fabric at a £1 a metre. Talking of which Liberties managed to do this......

I wonder which sort they were, Electric or Gas?

We took ourselves off to the London Alternative Market last Sunday, all prepared for our usual breakfast in Pret in St Mary Axe we found it shut! Off we trolled and found a new place on the corner of some alleyway and Bishopsgate called The Drift and very nice it was with prices comparable to Pret etc but a much, much wider choice. All sparkly and new it was with painters still painting. The staff were... a little taken aback with the pair of us, even more so when the remaining four of our party turned up.

A little trip out yesterday, a quick flit into Superdrug and Selfridges thence off to the V&A. No matter how many times I go there I always find something I haven't seen before...

Plus of course the odd self-portrait....

 

Trip to the country

So last Thursday I am off again to Oxford Street trawling the usual shops when I get a text from Madame, will I go to John Lewis to enquire about our flooring. Just as well as the previous day she had phoned them and after waiting 25 minutes they hadn't answered her call. Aaaanyway the upshot is our order had disappeared and they have had to order it all again and we will not be getting it until nearly xmas.

Friday see Madame and I off to Oxford Street to see if we can get my Christmas present in the M&S black friday sale and we do, a thumping 30% off which makes the difference between getting it and... not. We pop over to Primark which surprisingly is not busy and I get a new bra. I fancied being a bit bigger so go for a 36D :-) We pop to John Lewis and take lunch in Bond's in Dering Street and them home.

Saturday see us off to see friends in Kent. A nice drive down, 2 hours including a half hour stop at the dire service station just before the Dartford Crossing. A lovely time was had and we all got to bed around 12.30. Up with the lark Sunday although by the time everyone is ready its nearly eleven and we all go off to Faversham. A rather quaint place but as born and bred Londoners it is rather quiet. We take coffee in a rather nice cafe/gallery with the most lovely cheese scones. We wander the little market and its back to the car. We take our leave after a light lunch about three and are home in an hour and a half which was a miracle considering that forecast 50 mph draft and no rain thank god.

Culture Vulture

So Monday see me off to the British Museum, a stop over at Pret on the corner of George St for breakfast then into Selfridges. I've got madames camera today to see how it goes. I really cannot be bothered with my big camera, too much of an incumberance. Aaaanyway I get a few selfies in Selfridges, ooo poet and dont know it. The upshot is that it is difficult to keep the camera straight using it one handed but I'll just convince myself they are a bit arty-farty. It is one of things if they are slightly off it looks odd and you don't know what you are doing but if you make it a long way off it looks intentional.

So there I am on the bus trundling along Oxford St and we get to Oxford Circus, masses of people innit. It is not until much later I find it was all for the Balmain clothes at H&M, ah well. We get almost to Tottenham Court Road and the inevitable traffic comes to a standstill and some moaning Minnie who wants to get off starts having a go at the bus driver to let her off. I'm late she says. Well dear you should have left earlier then you wouldn't be would you. After a fair bit of arguing he lets her off so we can all have a bit of peace and quiet. Goodness that Tottenham Court Road is drafty so its down the side streets and into The British Museum via the rear entrance, just where I want to be.

Soon its time to go home so I wend my merry way back to Portman Street and the bus home. There I am stood standing there, as you do, waiting. My bus doesn't figure in the first 10 but not to be dishearted I've learnt that as this is the first stop on the route it could turn up any time. So there I am and I can 'feel' someone looking at me. I half turn and sure enough there is. Some bloke, eyeing me up. So as his attention is focussed on my legs I can see who can't I. Oh my! Is he a looker? Hardly. But much to my amusement I know him, well used to, a long, long time ago. We were childhood friends, he lived on the corner of my road, we went to junior school together, played football together. Yes I know but at that age I didn't know any better. Then he went off to grammar school and... I didn't.

Been having a clear out this week. The dump that was our son's room needs to be cleared as madame wants it to be a sewing room and all his stuff has been making the room damp. So skip hired we start. We are taking a breather and next thing we know a van pulls up and some guy starts nicking stuff out of the skip. Well he gets told to go forth and multiply for not asking first. It is on my property therefore it is still mine, if the skip was in the road I could understand but it isn't. He feigns no-speak-English, yes right but I bet you can speak it when you come to argue a price when you sell it.   A few days later while I am out another van arrives. According to madame a nice, polite Irish guy comes to the door and asks if he can go through the skip and take stuff. Madame says of course, help yourself and he does. See that is how you should do it.

A lush day out

So Tuesday I decide I need more photographs for backgrounds so off I troll to Covent Garden, nice summery frock and away I go. My goodness it is deserted, admittedly it is only 10 'ish but where is everybody? I troll round for about an hour and a half and wander over to Leicester Square for a sit down and watch the kids playing in the fountains. Its wonderful to watch their delight trying to escape getting wet until of course they get a little damp then it is a case of 'oh well in for a penny in for a pound' and they get themselves soaked on purpose. By now those fabulously comfortable Gabor sandals have raised a blister on my left big toe so its down to The Strand and into Superdrug for a plaster. I must have either got something trapped in there or as I found later a tiny bit of extra thread. Aaaanway as we all know once it gets bad enough to feel its too late. Freshly plastered I wander back to Charing Cross Road and think I'll be a bit naughty and dive into Byron's for lunch, a blue cheeseburger, fries and one of their vanilla shakes. Hardly any customers results in me getting far more attention than I deserve ;-).
Repast finished I'm off. Down to Charing Cross and catch a bus up to Oxford Street and a wander round Selfridges. As I'm examining a rather nice frock in Karen Millen I am accosted by a rather pretty young assistant and we get chatting about tattoo's and of course once she see the leg she just has to call over a rather nice young man. Go on show him she says to me. I don't flash my legs to any man you know I say. Well he says I noticed your legs just now, ooo sooo cheeky. So of course up comes the hem, well it would be rude not to. I take my leave and have a wander. A tour of the shoe department then up on the third floor where I see the most fabulous frock in Reiss, one that gets filed away for future reference. A tour of the designer fashion dept on the second floor results in me being accosted again. Goodness knows what label they were selling, very wierd and wonderful and black, we have a little chat and she says to me how she loves my necklace and asks where I got it. Zara I reply. No she says, well it must be the way your wear it. Now that is what I call a compliment !

Of course most of us have 'something' that calls attention to us, we may be tall, short, fat or thin but these things are with us all the time and we tend to forget them. So when I analyse what it is that causes people to stop and look I cannot say what it is. Of course I am a bloke in a frock but is that always why? I'm not exaclty in the first flush of youth but refuse be dowdy. I have tattoo's and in this weather they are plain for all to see. I have a tan that cannot be called anything else than dark so little wonder I get looked at and lets face it that is the name of my game. I don't want to hide in corners.

So there madame and I are wandering the west end the other day, a visit to Selfridges to show her the frocks in Karen Millen and Reiss and then down to dear old John Lewis for some haberdashery when she wants to pop over to Collectif in Spitalfields. So off we go. As we turn from Bishopsgate into Brushfield Street a slender young tall girl comes out of a building. It is obvious to me she is female even though she wearing a white shirt, tight black jeans and a rather nice pair of cream brogue shoes. I point out the shoes to madame as she has a panchant for them. When we have passed madame says to me, she was very male looking. Really I say. Very androgynyous she says, just like people think you look female.