In Which I Turn 59

Yes, today is in fact my birthday. Dave and I celebrated last night because it's always more fun to celebrate on a Saturday, and besides he has to go down to South London today to guest-conduct a musical ensemble for a friend. (Long story!)

We went to Canary Wharf, in East London. A couple of years ago, while there for the Winter Lights festival, I spotted a couple of restaurants that appeared to have been built on floating structures in the boat basin. I blogged a photo at the time. They've lived in my memory ever since, so we made a reservation at the Hawksmoor steak house.

Hawksmoor is a small chain, with ten restaurants in the UK, two in the USA (New York and Chicago) and one in Ireland.  Here was the view from our very good table by the window:

Not too shabby, right?! I like the reflected lights from the restaurant overlaid on the cityscape. I do wonder how long we're going to be able to maintain the kind of energy production that allows us to light up empty office buildings at night. Surely this is not sustainable in the long run of civilization. But in the meantime it looks nice.

I had an excellent dinner -- oysters, filet mignon with a couple of sides and a salad, and a pavlova for dessert with a candle in it. Oh, and two not-very-strong martinis! I gained approximately 20 pounds and will probably be diagnosed with gout.

But that's OK, because I plan to work it off today with a long walk somewhere. We shall see.

When left to my own devices I usually tend toward vegetarian meals, but you can't go to a steak house and not eat steak. And it was darn good, I must say. Dave and I were both very impressed.

Otherwise, yesterday was pretty chill. I spent it mostly on the couch reading. I'm about 140 pages into "The Old Curiosity Shop" and I fear the curiosity shop itself has already exited the plot, having been siezed and its contents sold off by a scoundrel. What will the old man and Little Nell do now?

The photo at the top, by the way, shows illuminated "Lightbenches" by LBO Lichtbank that were part of Winter Lights several years ago, and are now permanent features in Canary Wharf's Jubilee Park.