DAY OUT: London

After out aborted visit to London a few months ago, we decided we would definitely go in September. But then it started to get really hot again and we resisted the urge to book any tickets for anything, just in case. Thankfully the unwelcome warmth abated and so we headed off to London expecting a cloudy 21 degree day - but I took my sunglasses anyway, and I was glad that I did in the end.

We started our day with a visit to Harrods (our first in quite some time) and arriving at 10:55 we were somewhat perplexed to see that the doors were still closed. We never thought to check the opening hours and had just assumed that it would be open by the time we got there, but actually Harrods doesn't open until 11am in the week!

We wandered through the handbag areas, not really looking at anything and ended up in the jewellery and fine watches department. As ever the jewellery on display was mind blowing and the watches in the 'jewellery' part of the store were also pretty amazing. We stopped in at the Chopard boutique where Rose tried on a L'Heures du Diamont watch that retailed for a pretty crazy amount of money (£58,000), while I tried on a Chopard Alpine Eagle, which was 'only' £11,000. But it did have a wonky screw in the bezel....

Then we came across the Dior boutique where Rose finally came face to face with her dream watch: the Dior Grand Bal. They had several different versions and she tried on one which cost £25,500. It was a stunning watch for sure, but unfortunately it will have to remain a 'dream' piece!

We carried on down the stairs and were pleased to see that the (previously unfinished) 'general' watch room was now nicely fitted out. We had a look at the Breitlings and Moser & Cie pieces including the dreadful Breitling Pistachiograph (Rose's verdict, awful but not as bad as the 'peach' one - which she said looks like the worst kind of bridesmaid's dress!), before perusing the TAG Heuer collection.

We fell into conversation with the manager who told us that the store was due a refit and that the room was destined to become a TAG Heuer boutique, and that we should come back in December to see it. They had some really cool pieces in there, much better than I was expecting from past experience and it seems that Darnell is to thank for this. Amazingly they had the Aquaracer 844 which I really wasn't expecting to see anywhere in London, alongside several other special and limited edition pieces.

Unfortunately we were slightly pressed for time as we had booked a ticket to visit the V&A and we needed to walk down the Brompton Road and stop off for lunch before 2:15. Well as we were walking down the road we came across a pub called the 'Bunch of Grapes' which was a Greene King pub just like the one we'd scoped out further down the road and we decided to just go there instead.

Greene King pubs are a good standby in London. They are cheap and clean, with decent, basic food like Scampi and if you're not looking for anything fancy you can't really go wrong. We both had the half chicken with rosemary seasoned fries and it was pretty good. Although the waitress really struggled with our request for no 'dressing' on the salad (it came in a little bowl instead).

We ended up arriving at the V&A much earlier than expected, but thankfully they allowed us to come in so we didn't have to kick our heels for 45mins! We had been keen to visit the V&A since watching the second series of the TV show 'Secrets of the Museum' and we found plenty to look at including the 'Fashion', 'Jewellery', 'Theatre and Performance' and 'Modern Design' departments. 

We didn't visit all the rooms we wanted to, but after about 90minutes we were starting to get museum fatigue, but never mind, we can go back another day and see the rest.

We then headed off to Green Park (changing at Victoria because the Piccadilly line wasn't stopping at South Kensington for several months and we couldn't wait that long), this was the worst tube we experienced and we waited for a second one to come as we physically couldn't get on the first one. We walked up from Green Park to check out if Richoux was still there or not, sadly the answer was no. All that was left was a menu in the window, such a shame, especially since they had refitted the place not long before the pandemic started!

So we headed up Bond Street, spying a black Ferrari Enzo along the way (£4million+) and peering in the windows of several of the shops. We saw more dreary cack in the Breitling window, that brand really is shitting the bed right now and we carried on up past Chopard, Panerai, etc until we got to Charbonnel et Walker where we purchased a double box of Pink Salted Caramel Truffles.

We had planned all along to visit the 'Eden Fine Art' gallery which sells Alec Monopoly pieces, but first we came across a different gallery (Richard Orlinksi) which was quite cool. This featured lots of brightly coloured resin pieces of animals, mainly gorillas but also lions etc and was well worth a look in. I overheard someone looking at a piece that was £4000 but I'm not entirely sure which 'size' of statue that was and the internet isn't helping much. I did find a 40cm high gorilla for $150 though so I assume the £4000 one must have been rather large?

A few doors up we came to Galeries Bartoux which was really good with tons of really cool art pieces including a resin wall piece made up of butterflies. There was also some resin cast bags, paintings and sculptures like the one below.

Next door we finally found the Eden Fine Art gallery, but there was a sign on the door saying it would be shut on Thursday. It was Wednesday afternoon.... so that was annoying, but still at least we got to see some cool things next door.

We got to the top of Bond Street and crossed over Oxford Street in search of a cocktail bar called 'Be At One'. It was not far off the main drag but unfortunately even at 5:15 there was a queue outside so we decided we couldn't be arsed with that and turned around. As we walked back to Oxford Street we came across a Radisson Blu hotel with a bar/restaurant that was open to the public called 'The Berkshire Lounge Bar'. There was a menu outside and a list of cocktails and we decided to go in there instead.

The barman inside was friendly but seemed somewhat bemused that we thought they did cocktails. He did offer to make us a cocktail, which was okay. It was kind of Sex on the Beach with Malibu in it. Kind of, but not quite... it tasted more like Prosseco and orange with a hint of coconut in it to me, but to be honest we were so glad of a sit down and a drink it was okay.

From there we wandered up to Selfridges and took in more bedazzling jewellery and watches. It didn't seem like that much had changed in there, especially in the Hublot section which felt like it hadn't been updated since two years ago when we last visited! The TAG Heuer counter did have a Dato 45 which was well worth trying on, but Audemars Piguet was the worst with just 6 watches on display, all the dreaded 'Code 11:59' (which nobody likes or wants).

We headed over the road to the TAG Heuer boutique, but we were told that there was already two people in the store and we could wait if wanted to (there was already two more people waiting). This seemed rather strange given that we had wandered around Harrods and Selfridges with absolutely no restrictions at all. 

But by now we were tired and ready to go home so we rushed back to the station and just about managed to catch the 7:15 train home. It was a great return to London and we shall certainly be doing it again soon.