postcard from London

I started the day at Maltsby Market with food and drink purveyors in the shadow of London Bridge rail link. Every now and then I thought there was thunder, until I realized it was just the train overhead.

First dessert: a delectable cannele. Next stop: a Scotch egg with exemplary fries.

I

The alley was packed with locals.

I stopped in at Jenson distillery for a boutique gin and tonic with cucumber soda. We need more g&t at markets.

 I succumbed to pricey but fresh oysters.

 Then it was time to see more of town.

 So many great buildings.

Today was London's Pride parade in Mayfair, and rainbows were everywhere.

 I headed to Bond Street and enjoyed the after gay glow.

Lots of happy people including many seemingly straight couples with young children. Great to see.

Then it was to visit the master: Tim at Postcard teas. I tasted so many exceptional teas: oolongs, black tea from Korea, Madagascar-scented vanilla tea.

A copy of a book Tim and his colleague wrote.

 The tea room is serene and soothing. We naturally got to know the other people who came to sample.

Then we raced across town to timed admission to the Sky Garden on the 35th floor of the walkie-talkie tower.

Inside you can see in every direction. That's St Paul's to the right.

 The cheese grater and the gerkin

 Looking east toward Tower bridge.

Last stop: a classic. We headed to St John's where the madeleines hark back to childhood nostalgia but make the recipes taste better.

I tried drinking sherry from the marrow bones, as we did in Vancouver.

Is the last dish of warm madeleines the culmination of everything so far? Downed with glasses of sherry, as a golden retriever blissfully chomped on bones on the floor. 

tea part two

On the east side of the city center, nature and development compete for primacy. Let's step back in time 100+ years.

The Willow tea rooms were a joint project of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Catherine Cranston.

Miss Cranston was a successful entrepreneur who commissioned Mackintosh to design a series of tea rooms inside and out.

Happily three of them are still operating in Glasgow after a good deal of restoration.

I visited two of them and the tea room museum, which tells the story of the tea trade and Miss Cranston's social enterprise. After Queen Victoria's death and the rise of the temperance movement, tea rooms were an alternative to bars.

I could spend more time on the design of the museum, which allows you to mix a virtual tea blend or these tea cup speakers...

Or the interactive quiz I took based on video projections of the dishes served in the tea room at the time...

But let's skip to Miss Cranston's activism. She hired orphans and young woman with no means and trained them.

She was an exacting client, and Mackintosh delivered on her demands. The museum is in the last of the tea rooms, which opened around 1904 and you can see the stylistic similarity to Frank Lloyd Wright. A lot of attention was paid to the chairs, and their velvet seats stuffed with horsehair. Sadly the seats in the tea room were something more modern, stylish but uncomfortable.

The original Art Nouveau doors

 A video showed the process of painting this gesso portrait

Finally, downstairs for tea.

Of course I got the afternoon tea, for 19 pounds 04 pence. I don't know why I keep doing this. 

I actually prefer to pick out my own sweets. But the tea and scones were excellent. Passionfruit mousse seemed a bit modern.

I don't know what this fork is for. Do you?

A quick trip upstairs to admire the top level and the glass details. They have dumb waiters, which makes the servers' job a little easier. And makes the trays of pretty food magically appear.

Every detail lovingly restored

As I continued on my way, I happened upon another Willow tea room, on the 3rd floor of the now discount Watt Brothers department store. Think Sears in near bankruptcy. It didn't seem promising, but I persevered.

The window display for Willow at Watt Brothers is much more modest. The prices are too. Who doesn't love merengues?

I wasn't hungry after the last stop. But the woman at the front was so welcoming, I decided to have a pot of the house blend. Prices were half as much as the other tea room.

The clientele wasn't all German tourists straight off a tour bus. It was a tea room in a department store doing what a tea room was meant to do: fill your stomach at a fair price and provide a place to catch up with your friends.

The tea was excellent. I finally got a bowl of Cullen Skink, which is basically leek and potato soup with smoked fish in it, served here with oatcakes. And a lot of cream. Still stuffed, I ordered a couple of simple pastries to pack for the plane.

Glasgow really does have good bones. Miss Cranston fell in love in her 40s and married. She lived a long life, and when she died, left the majority of her wealth to help the down and out of Glasgow. A truly pioneering woman.

Glad to find this fountain/environmental scold, although I wish I'd seen more of them around the country. It was a cold rainy day (versus steamy London).

Police have changed with the times too. At the city center, locals and UK visitors shopped, vaped, and took sillier pictures than on the fancy part of town with the gastropubs. It wasn't as picture perfect, but it did feel more real than lovely Kelvingrove Park and Great Western.

Gratuitous guys in kilts calendar for Lisa. No, I did not buy one despite the modest price. Use your imagination.

Time to pick up my things, return my rental car, and head south. Assuming I can figure out the subway loop.

 Back in the trendy part of town…

Rock me, Amadeus.

And so I have said goodbye to Glasgow and my adorable guesthouse by the River Kelvin. Off to London for a visit with my old friend Quee Lim and the postal museum! Much deliciousness will ensue.