Saturday - a parade and a Syrian dinner

Not drizzly today. Omnia was visiting friends, so Amr and I did our walk into the city centre after breakfast at Caffe Nero, our regular. Walked up Edgeware Road looking at Lebanese restaurants where we will probably eat tomorrow night. Lots of middle eastern eateries there. Then we walked down Oxford street, I had another small binge in UniQlo and then on to Amr’s coffee place where we wanted a bite to eat, but they only had cake today (which we ate)..then we got the underground to Blackfriars as we decided to watch the Lord Mayor’s Show - a huge parade, an annual event held on the 2nd Saturday in November, for the inauguration of a new mayor. We hadn’t heard of it before, but a woman in a pub told us it was a fun thing to do. They parade through the City, and there was quite a crowd…we looked it up and chose a time and place that they said was less chaotic, as the parade was returning back..Quite cold waiting, but it was good…sort of traditional, with bands, guards and soldiers in uniform, cartoony crazy groups, chandlers, wheelwrights, everything you could think of ending with a very tutti frutti ancient carriage with the Lord Mayor himself!

Then I returned back to the hotel, Amr went to Harrods with some errand regarding watch straps (the eternal quest!) and we all met at 5.15 in Piccadilly as we had a restaurant booking for 6 pm. It was the only time we could book (Saturday night, even a couple of weeks ago) and it was a Syrian restaurant that had a great review. It was in Kingly place, off Carnaby street, and at 5.30 the whole area was totally chaotic with masses of people. Kingly place is a sort of courtyard with three levels of restaurants, and just finding the place, which was on the top level, was a feat in itself. But it was worth it. There were 4 of us, as Omnia had asked a friend to join us, a delightful man, Edward, who is English (though has spent much of his life living in other places) and now lives in Sweden with his Swedish wife of 40 years. So there we were, from different countries, in a Syrian restaurant in London, with an Italian waiter, drinking Spanish wine! The food was amazing, we did get a photo, but by that time we had demolished most of the food! Anyway, a great night, and early also, which was good as Edward gets a morning flight back to Sweden tomorrow. The crowds going back not as bad as earlier (though many many people out and about) as they are all still out and not going home for ages yet!Read more