Seated on a steed

Mirinda has two dinner engagements this week for work so our usual Wednesday night date was rescheduled to lunchtime. Her dinner last night was awful. Here’s hoping tonight is better.

While the day started brilliantly, by the time I reached London, the unthreatening clouds had appeared, whisked away by an icy wind that felt like it had raced quickly down from Iceland. That sounds far more poetic than it actually was. It was occasionally sunny, occasionally overcast, with very cold winds.

I metaphorically tapped on Mirinda’s office window, prompting her to brush her hair and join me outside. We then went for one of our usual Wednesday walks. At least that’s how it started. Having walked the length of Embankment Gardens, almost to Big Ben, we decided to head up to Horse Guards.

The view down to Horse Guards Road

I’ve often walked by the very dapper chaps sitting on their beautiful horses but have never walked into the actual Horse Guards Parade. Mirinda hadn’t either so we decided to check it out. What an amazing place, even without the horses or any hint of pageantry.

Stiff backed and seated on a black beauty

Once through the building and across the parade itself, directly in front of us, was a park. As we approached it, we debated what park it was (this is not a part of London we know at all). Actually, Mirinda wondered and I volunteered various park names which she claimed were just guesses and meaningless. I conceded that was true. I even vaguely gestured towards Buckingham Palace in, what turned out to be, the completely wrong direction.

The lovely little green oasis is St James’s Park. My Friday Tube train goes through St James’s Park but it never looks as lovely as it does above ground. Mirinda was overjoyed to find such a lovely spot so close to work and announced that she would now include this as a favourite walking spot. The fact that the water has something called Duck Island in the middle of it had something to do with it as well.

Two of the Duck Island residents

It was while we were admiring the general park environs that a loud shouty voice made itself heard from across the street. An old chap was railing against the government by shouting vehemently at Downing Street. A few yards further down, a couple of armed police officers stood and tried to ignore him. He clearly had a problem with this and moved to the gate, behind which they stood, and let them know what he thought of things in general, in the hope that they’d pass his opinions on to the Prime Minister. Mr Cameron is currently in Jordan, so he’d not have heard anyway.

While he clearly had some sort of problem with the government and, from the tone of his voice, had a solution to the perceived problem, he was lucky he was yelling at two armed police officers in London. Were he in Syria, things may have been very different. I did mention to Mirinda that while he was lucky, in so many ways, we were unlucky. At least foreign, evil regimes rid the streets of loud shouty people, intent on polluting the ears of normal people having a nice quiet lunch.

We left him and the armed police officers to their fun, and went to Tattershalls for a lovely rustic lunch served on slate tiles.

It’s an odd thing, serving food on slate. Don’t get me wrong, from a diner’s point of view, it’s all very cool and trendy and works perfectly well but I can’t help but feel any restaurant using them is just making more work for themselves.

Imagine a plate. It is specifically designed to hold food. The sides slope up so that anything liquid remains on the plate rather than pooling on the table. Now imagine a slate tile. One of the reasons slate tiles are used in roofing is the fact that they are beautifully flat, meaning rain just runs off them.

Subsequently, the oil based dressing on our salad flowed freely onto the table as we ate. As I often say in these situations, it’s a clear case of design over function. I have to assume that they serve soup in bowls but it wouldn’t surprise me one little bit if they used ice cream cones.

Not that it, in any way, spoiled our lunch. The food, as always, was delicious and the beer as good as beer can be (and served in a pint glass). The serviette was perfect for mopping up the oil.

I dropped Mirinda back at her office then trotted off, back across the bridge to catch the train home. Actually, it wasn’t quite direct. I stopped off in a special shop in order to collect something that Mum requested months ago.

The wheel rises above Horse Guards