Saturday in Clapham Junction

Hard to believe there are still areas of London that we haven't been to yet but after today there is one fewer.  Bill and I spent the day in Clapham.

As we started down the high street we noticed a woman in the Waterstone's window.  It was an author who was raising money for the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home by offering to answer any question and talk for 15 minutes for a 3GBP donation.  How could I resist??

 She was funny and charming.  She talked about her books and said that most people come to ask about how to get published, find a book agent etc.  My plan was to ask her for a lunch recommendation but we wound up chatting about much more.  She wrote a book about finding the truth in feng shui and finding happiness.  She said the key was living in the now.

She recommended Whole Foods for lunch, by the way, which was not going to be our destination as it is American and I didn't take the train to Clapham to eat in an American grocery store even if they do make good salads.

 Her dog was quite well behaved.

Instead we found a tapas restaurant where we could sit outside and enjoy the late summer weather.

 Isobel (the author in the window) told us about a haiku workshop later in the evening.  There would be a game where each person would write a line of a haiku in a sort of round robin. It actually sounded like fun but over tapas we joked that Bill's lines would always be about poo.  So someone would start a lovely haiku with:  Gently floating leaves  (5 syllables)

And Bill would follow it up with:  Exploding diarrhea  (7 syllables)

Here we are counting syllables.

Crying Clapham child

Shut up or suffer my wrath

You ruin my now

 There were lots of fun shops..cheese shop, antiques, a fresh fish van, flower stalls in the street, and a cake shop called Aux Merveilleux de Fred.  Fred is a funny name, isn't it?  Look at it - Fred.

 We topped the day off with a sweet treat gelato.

Salty caramel

Happiness in sugar cone

Filling in the cracks