Pancakes and a Stamp

This is where I ate lunch yesterday. When I walked past on a visit to the city I immediately had a craving for pancakes, even though I knew they wouldn't be the fluffy North American-style pancakes that you get at Denny's or IHOP. And indeed they were the European variety, which is more like a crêpe. But still yummy! I ordered the "Amsterdammer," with apple, bacon and maple syrup.

I was in town because finally...

...I got to visit the one-cent magenta, the world's rarest and most valuable stamp. It's on display at Stanley Gibbons this week. (You may remember I own a piece of it, and I did clarify with an attendant that if it's eventually sold I recoup my share of my investment. I suppose if there's a loss I take a loss, and if there's profit I get a bit of that, too...?)

They're showing it in a two-sided glass frame, so both front and back are visible, in a very dark room with special lighting. As you can see from the image above, it doesn't look like much. It's quite small and although it depicts a ship, I'll be darned if I could make it out, the design is so faint.

Still, it was fun to finally see it after reading about it so much as a young stamp collector.

From there I walked through Covent Garden and along High Holborn into the city. Above is the view from the Holborn Viaduct, featuring some ornate dragons and the armored head of a knight decorating the bridge.

More dragons. It's quite an elaborate structure!

I walked on all the way to Bishopsgate. I wanted to see the outside of the gigantic new building that's gone up there, and which I've seen from Parliament Hill on my visits to Hampstead Heath.

From beneath it's hard to get a sense of the scale, but it's a big ol' thing. It also creates a heck of a wind-tunnel effect beneath it. I could barely stand on the curb to get this shot without being blown off my feet.

I got back home around 3 p.m. and found that Dave had ordered a new lawn mower, so we should be in good shape to start mowing when necessary. (Not for another month at least.) We also repaired the banana tree pot, at least temporarily, with that most utilitarian of methods: duct tape. Dave is talking about dividing the banana so we may eventually need a couple of new pots to contain it, but for now the taped-up pot will protect the roots.