We started our day at the Design Museum where we visited an exhibition on the work of film director Stanley Kubrick. Even though we'd actually only seen two of his films (The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut) it was still very interesting to read about and see how much work goes into the making of his films. We only just got there in time as we had a ticket valid from 10am til 10:15am and we underestimated the time it would take to walk from the Holland Park station.
Shortly before we went to London we were watching a programme on TV called 'The Wonderful World of Chocolate' which included some interviews with the curator of a museum in Notting Hill called the 'Museum of Brands'. Since it was fairly nearby we decided to do the two back to back, even though generally speaking we usually try and keep to one cultural visit per trip.
It was a very hot day and of course it took a while longer than anticipated to walk back through Holland Park and through Notting Hill to get to the museum, but it was very interesting and we spent quite a bit longer in there than we really expected (we actually met the curator Robert Opie while walking through the exhibits and we probably talked to him for 10-15 minutes before moving on). I asked Robert if he had a 'Nutty' wrapper in his collection, he said yes but it wasn't on display as the museum only held a small percentage of the total collection.
By the time we left the Museum of Brands it was already mid afternoon and we were starving, so we got the tube to Baker Street and then to Green Park. It was so busy in London today, even the bits that are usually quiet seemed really packed. We finally got to Richoux and even that was unusually busy so we had to sit around the corner in the not as nice bit (it's still nice but the booths are better) and then we realised that they had done away with the half-chicken so we had to have the burger. Actually it was very nice, but there was a kid screaming in there and Rose's head was on the verge of exploding so I thought maybe it would be a good idea to get our puddings 'to go'.
I was always going to pick carrot cake and Rose selected a sort of chocolate/almond pastry twist thing which turned out to be very nice indeed (and MASSIVE) so we toddled off up Bond Street with our little bag where we stopped off at Charbonnel et Walker to buy some uber-posh chocs (£35 for 19 chocolates, we must be mad!) and then up to TAG Heuer on Oxford Street. Oxford Street was crazy busy today and we were sweating like hell in the heat by now, it really wasn't that pleasant.
We got to see Aneta and Chau from Bicester and I tried on a solid gold Monaco that was over £11,000 while Rose grilled Aneta about the green dial Aquaracer that's due out soonish. After that we scooted over to Selfridges but our heart wasn't really in it and we just wanted to go home and get showered. Even that was a bloody nightmare, trekking up Oxford Street through all the crowds to get to Oxford Circus, then down into the sauna that was the tube to catch a rammed train to get back to the station.
We managed to just catch the 6:15pm train although we had to sit separately for the first half of the journey, and managed to get home about 8pm. All in all it was a great, if unpleasantly sweaty, day!
