Walked to Leicester Square and then past the Hippodrome to Leicester Station tube – easy to purchase a ticket, just a £1.75 flat rate for each trip by tap at gate entrance.

Love Magic Mike and great its fun that’s it’s still happening…the Hippodrome has incredible statues on its roof. Took the Picadillly line to Kensington and had a look at Harrods. Its the same labyrinth of a store I remember from decades ago. Cafe Erol in Kensington High St is new though – catering for anyone who loves middle eastern savoury and sweet flavours.

I booked to go to one of my fave (Polish) restaurants in previously experienced London 5 decades ago at least….’Ognisko’. It was like old home week…with a menu that had been jazzed up for international expectations. I ordered a delicious pierogi starter…..

and a pork schnitzel ‘main’, and spicy pear cocktail. Yumm!

I got notice that there’s an EID festival happening on Saturday @ Trafalgar Square, so to take a pic before the event management crew came in…… here it is…(note to self, must find a venue out of this area!).

You have to line up to see plays in London…this wasn’t a terribly long one, thank goodness. And I loved this 15thC chappy at St Martin-in-the-Fields wall.

‘Oh Mary’ @ the Trafalgar Theatre has rave reviews, billed as an uproarious black comedy about the life of Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham Lincoln, in the lead up to the time of Lincoln’s assassination. It’s panto, it’s big, it’s loud. And it’s won BAFTA awards. So I got a ticket. OMG, you can “see the jokes coming around the corner before the punchlines drop. The camp comedy contains less subversion, more American-pie level of puerile humour'”(thank you Guardian review). I endured 1.5 hrs of this and was grateful to leave. Despite Catherine Tate being one of the lead characters.

I discovered a lovely ‘hidden’ bar called Larry’s, (part of the National Portrait Gallery) just around the corner from my hotel. Loved the 1985 portrait of Michael Caine and Bob Hoskins…and 1983 of Annie Lennox!