Thursday 2 April Dinosaurs

Today I went to a place for breakfast that I have passed in the bus quite a few times and have read about . Daylesford Organic – a nice place that sells organic food, a lot of which has been grown in Daylesfood – they grow the cows, make the cheese etc etc. It does meals too. It had a nice feel – there were many staff bringing in the day’s produce, serving customers, but with an air of quiet efficiency rather than haste. But then again it was only 1/3 full of people. There was an emphasis on thinking about what you eat, eating good stuff, etc. The long central table was set with paper place mats that said ‘For what we are about to receive’ which I thought was a nice way of reminding people to think about what they were eating and where it had come from. A lady came and sat near me and asked for a ‘flat white’ - I’ve never seen a ‘flat white’ on a menu here. The staff member asked her what she meant so she got up to go and talk to the barista. While she was gone the guy over the table from me said to me in his very proper English accent ‘I’ve never heard of a flat white’ I told him that I had! I had mushrooms, poached egg and hollandaise sauce on toast – to compare with the previous one. It was delicious – different and yummy. The coffee was good. Not a given in this city.

On the way to the bus stop a guy on his bike stopped and asked me directions – that I knew! Mind you, talking to him made me miss my bus. It did not make much difference. I got to the Museum of Natural History at 10.10 and waited in a queue for 25 minutes. At least there were interesting local people to talk to. (When I came out at 12.30 there was no queue.) I wandered around – mainly the dinosaurs and mammals. I never got a good photo of a yak when I was in China last year so was pleased to get one here, even if it was behing glass. In Burma we saw a takin in captivity – a maingy looking specimen, so it was good to see a ‘healthy’ (even if stuffed) one of those too. I had to go into the room that is called ‘creepy crawlies’ – alongside all the other ‘proper’ names like ‘ecology’ , ‘fish’ ‘mammals’ etc- in all the literature. I was impressed by the large number of staff at various places talking to the visitors and just wandering around. I was not impressed by the large numbers of people, or rather I think it is the noise that they generate that puts me off. There were many many school group – but it does cater for younger people very well. There was an old ( even older than me) gentleman looking at the millipede v centipede display and pushing buttons to see the answer to questions, just like me.

Then I caught a bus to the northern end of Marylebone High Street because I had been told that it was full of nice little shops – which it was. The best was this great bookshop – Daunt books with lovely old shelves. The travel section was large. I bought the first book in the series of an Italian police inspector to read in the plane coming home. I have not read any of this series.
I had lunch in a shop very similar to the shop I had breakfast in. I was hungry – I forgot to eat more than usual yesterday and worked out that I had walked 20 kilometres so no wonder I have been hungry today. I looked at all sorts of things and then caught a bus home.

Tomorrow I leave in the morning to catch a train to near Guilford in Surrey. I am staying with a first cousin of John’s . Then on Saturday evening I fly to Dublin. I do not know when I will next have internet access and be conveniently able to put a post on this blog.