yonmei

yonmei @ 10:04 pm: I had a good weekend.
Beginning with lunch on Friday with glitterboy1, mango and a sandwich and then espresso by the river on Jesus Green, and then to London after work, where I met copyeditor friends for dinner at Levantine, a restaurant near Paddington Station (London Street) which is done up in the most ridiculously opulant brass fretwork and rose petals style, where we ate one of the largest, most delicious meals I've ever had. We shared a vegetarian platter for three and a regular platter for two (five of us, two vegetarians and three omnivores) and by the end of the first round brass tray, I was feeling comfortably full. By the end of the second round brass tray, I was feeling too full to eat. But then they removed the trays with the savouries and replaced them with a tray of fresh fruit (really fresh, not supermarket-hard) and a stand of turrkish delight and small pastries and stuffed dates and pistachio nuts... and by the time we got up to leave, I was so full I couldn't have eaten another bite, and yet everything was so delicious I wished I had room for more. The wine was good too, and the unlimited mint tea was delicious.

To Catmunk and his partner's house, near West Ham, where I arrived half an hour later than I said I would, but fortunately before they'd felt they had to go to bed even if I hadn't reached them (I'd rung them, of course, from the Hammersmith and City platform, but then it had taken so long to get to them...).

The next morning Catmunk and I watched Dirty Weekend, a brilliant movie which was banned in the UK for two years after it came out in 1993: a woman becomes a serial killer. It's one of Catmunk's favourite films, and I definitely want to see it again.

And then to Speaker's Corner to watch the beginning of the 2004 Pride March, and join the march ourselves: it's been a long time since I was at a London Pride, and I had forgotten the fabulosity of joining in the celebration when it's sixty thousand strong and breaks down London's transport system. Despite occasional drenching showers, it was a cheerful march: Catmunk had brought his rainbow flag, and since I had forgotten to pack my cagool, I wrapped myself in it whenever it rained (symbolic and convenient) and we walked with it between us when the rain stopped, thus drying it and showing it off. We walked down Whitehall and past Downing Street, where in 1988 we were both nearly knocked down by a cordon of policemen protecting it from a massed queer invasion protesting Section 28. (Now they have big, massive, black metal gates preventing casual sightseers or massed demonstrations.)

A devil and an angel danced down a row of cars stuck in a traffic jam caused by the march, floating their rainbow flag over the cars between them. A busful of lesbians with a banner flying "Hackney Dykes - often licked, never beaten!" which both Catmunk and I thought was the best banner of the day. A queer reggae band who sang "Let the sunshine in!" when it was pouring with rain, and the sun came out. The gay policemen and women marching in uniform. The policewoman on duty (wearing her shiny yellow tabard) who was given a red rose by a gay man who was distributing them.

Afterwards Catmunk and I went for coffee and shared chocolate cake in the National Portrait Gallery tea shop, which is lovely, and went upstairs to check out their restaurant, because it serves afternoon tea. Didn't look like a good place for afternoon tea, but a fabulous view.

Then I wandered home: walking as far as the Elephant and Castle tube station, and then to King's Cross, where I gave my 4-zone travelcard away to a woman who was waiting to buy a ticket, and to Cambridge, where I had peas and pasta for a late tea.

Met foreverdirt at Indigo Blue Coffee Shop for cappuchino (me) and hot chocolate with marshmallows (her). We also had Jamaican bakes bought at the market. She is a delightful person, full of good ideas: we talked about a HHGttG/BtVS crossover, about afrai, about why Cambridge looks smaller to me now than it did 25 years ago (it's in a swamp: it sinks), and she geeked about maths, which meant I had to confess that I maintain my apparent knowledgability when she geeks about maths on livejournal by looking stuff up. All I can do when I encounter her in first draft is to nod, awed by maths geekery.

We had lunch on Jesus Green (bread and samosas from market, dips from M&S: very odd to see people buying expensive plastic-wrapped vegetables when there was a stall selling organic produce much cheaper about five minutes walk away). We fed ducks and moorhens. This involved dropping bits of bread conspicuously in the water for the ducks to get them, then immediately throwing bits of bread very accurately at the moorhens, since once they had the bread in their mouths none of the ducks (except one obtreporous teenager) would actually snatch it away from them. Ducks are bullies.

We visited bookshops. (Most of them were closed, but still, we visited them.) I had two lucky finds: Dirty Weekend, by Helen Zahavi, the novel on which the film I'd seen yesterday is based, which Catmunk had said he'd love to read, so now I can give it to him (it's not bad at all, and the film is quite faithful to the book). Also Royal Assassin, the second book in a series I'm collecting, though I've already read as far as book six. I also read foreverdirt a very slashy passage out of The Secret of Father Brown, which she reacted to with appropriate fannishness.

We also ate alcoholic ice-cream in Qi Lounge, which made me feel utterly decadent.

And home: the sourdough spelt bread had not eaten the kitchen, which was just as well, and I made two loaves and four experimental rolls with lots of garlic, and had bread and a pear/mango salad for tea.