a mixed bag - London & Peru (sort of)

I had the pleasure of introducing the lovely Alice from Bologna to the Daunt's bookshop in Marylebone High Street, a shop not only beautiful for it's architecture but also for it's unique (well probably not) way of arranging it's books by country, not just non fiction but it's fiction too.

Now Daunt's is becoming almost as famous around town for its ubiquitous bags as it is for it's shops.  Alice and I were in Daunt's for a book signing and during the evening, Alice bought a book and was given an ordinary plastic bag to take it home in.  Later in the evening I was kindly given a signed copy of the book being launched and Peter, behind the till kindly asked if I would like a bag for it and handed me one of their lovely linen ones.  

At this Alice started to pout for the unfairness on the bag stakes and Peter reached down below the counter to get her a linen bag saying as he did so, "would you like one?".  However, as Peter had been bending, Alice had been turning so what she heard was "come back another time".  By the time Peter emerged from the counter Alice was about to launch into "Why, that's not fair??!?!"  However, luckily I had guessed what she thought she had heard and pointed to the fact that Peter was holding out a bag to her, (she was still partially turned), and was offering it to her.

So a big thumbs up to Peter for not only giving Alice a bag but for giving us a really good laugh for the evening (and cementing my reputation with Alice for knowing what she is thinking).

By the way, Peter's not crazy about photos and since I adore his hair I include a backward shot as well. 

Meanwhile, and unfortunatlely I haven't got a picture of any of the people involved in this, but I want to give a big thumbs up to the gentleman on the 82 bus, going northbound around 10:30pm at Dorset Sqaure on the evening of Wednesday, 30th April.  It was during the tube strike and the bus was full and everyone wanted just to get home.

I was on the top deck and could hear a confrontation between the driver and a passenger getting on.  The driver turned off the engine and wouldn't go anywhere until the passenger got off again.  Everyone around me was either just grumbling, calling the driver names and the passenger names in equal measure or getting off the bus.  This one person, (I could only hear partly what was going on), offered to pay the new passenger's fare, the driver started the engine and we all got home.  He was only person on the bus who didn't think just of himself but of the solution.  Thank you.

One of the great things about London is it doesn't matter how long you live here, (from birth for me), there are always new things to discover.  My friends introduced me to my first Peruvian restaurant, Tito's, new London Bridge www.titosperuvianrestaurant.com

We were greated by Carlos and Juan who both made us all feel so welcome.
Carlos went on to not only explain the dishes to us but also, we then had a really interesting chat about the economy in Peru and the changes going on then.  We also had a really good laugh about introducing Guinea Pig on to a menu in the UK and how he could imagine that going down with patrons; "bring us your pets, we'll cook them for you!".  That may not sound so funny here in writing, but it really was very funny and light hearted.

So to Carlos and Juan a big thumbs up and thank you for a lovely evening and for teaching us so much.

As always, if you would like to send in a post to tell us something nice that happened or to say thank you to someone, just get in touch and we would have great pleasure in putting up your stories here.  Thanks.

I borrowed a couple of pictures off the web this week so,  copyright acknowledgements: 

thanks to Kake for the picture of Tito's www.flickr.com/photos/kake_pugh/  reproduced here under a Creative Commons licence://creativecommons.org/licenses/
and to Urban75 for their lovely picture of inside Daunt's  www.urban75.org/blog/

Some Caribbean sunshine

On the island of Bequia in the Grenadine Islands it's hard to find anyone to write about for this blog... since everyone smiles at you and is so helpful but here are a few special thank yous; 

Amanda being shy

Dawn's

To Amanda, (who is very shy and said I could take her picture if I could catch her!), at Dawn's where we had a few lunches, and even a breakfast, thank you so much for helping us with those difficult questions like what to have today.  Thanks and a thumbs up .

Amanda's lovely face

To Audrey, (who also said I could take her picture but she wouldn't pose for it!), who owns our favourite breakfast stop, Bee's on Lower Bay, and who, last year, when my ankle was broken, was especially kind and helpful to us. Thank you to you and Joan and a big thumbs up .

the view from Bee's

Audrey at Bee's

To everyone who gave us lifts up those hills; Andre, Tootsie, Alexandra and all those whose names I neither got or have stupidly forgotten. You get especially big thumbs up as even though those hills should get easier each day, instead they seem to get harder and harder.

Also to Stefand (?) the water taxi guy, who helped us brilliantly getting a message to our lovely Italian friend on his boat, thank you and a thumbs up .

But our best lift, because it was the least expected, came on our last night when four of us; me, the man and two friends from Denmark, (via Canada), were standing at the bus stop at the main junction between Lower Bay and Friendship.  Being four of us at night, we didn't even dream of hitching, we were too many, so we were either going to get the Dollar Bus or, if we saw a taxi, grab one.  Then, a jeep stopped, unbidden and out-stepped the culinary, mother Theresa of Bequia; Cheryl Johnson.

Cheryl doesn't just run the Fig Tree Restaurant in town and the (only) book shop, but she is the driving force of the Sunshine School http://www.bequiasunshineschool.org/index.html a wonderful school for special needs children. 

So as well as giving Cheryl a big thumbs up for picking us up that night, I also want to give her a special one for the work she does and, I'm going to ask you to donate to the school.  They always need new equipment and if you look at the wish list, http://www.bequiasunshineschool.org/wishlist.html you'll see you can send books, musical instruments and, of course, money.  Please look at the work they're doing and think of sending something along.

But back to Bequia smiles and thanks; now as a special treat, we went to Fernando's Hideaway, not once but three times this trip and each time was more lovely than the time before so to Fernando and his sisters, Lorna, Felicia, Barbara and Aggie (Agnile), an especially big thank you and thumbs up . 

(some of) the sisters at Fernando's Hideaway

Jacqui

And last for Bequia for now, but definitely not least, to Jacqui who runs her organic shop down at Lower Bay, Nature Zone, for introducing me to various fruits over the years but especially prickly pears this year.  Yum, yum and a big thumbs up .

  

To everyone in Bequia and the islands thank you and until we can return, stay well.

However, I have to add a little Barbados postscript; to the lady working for British Airways in Barbados giving out menthol towels to the people in the queue, thank you for your wicked sense of humour and for making us all laugh .  

If there is someone you would like to tell us about or say thank you to, why don't you send us your post, (details below).

p.s. If you're trying to follow the blog, apologies, Google is having an issue with all blogger sites and the follow button.  We hope they'll resolve the issue shortly but if you want to complain, write to Google,  thanks.