Christo on the Serpentine

After having breakfast in a little cafe, we went to the Tate Modern, to the 10th floor of the new bit for the view of the Shard, St Pauls etc, then thought about getting the boat down the river but they only accepted London bus passes, not northern ones so we didn’t fork out £19.50.

We went to a posh gallery in Mayfair (from brown on monopoly board to dark blue,) to see the exhibition of Howard Hodgkin’s last work. some somber pieces amongst the vibrant colours. Then we walked a long way in Hyde Park to get the right light to view the Christo oil drums. It is a strange object but I like the vivid colours in the sun.

Then we walked to Lowdnes Square to the Pakistan High Commission where we had been invited to a reception. Yummy food, and interesting people with different experiences of the country. After the food we went upstairs to quite a grand room where the Commissioner told us, among other diplomatic stuff, how safe his country is now and that visas could be issued in a day. Hah, it’ll take us weeks to amass the required paperwork. William Dalrymple spoke about his latest book, an actor of Pakistani origin told us about his visit to the northern areas, and a woman spoke about the food of northern Pakistan. She told me where I could buy Hunza apricots which I’d not found for years and William told me the Karakoram Highway is mainly tarred and has a smoother surface than most of own roads now. Very different from when we went 22 years ago and it was a rough single line track, from which we had to stop to clear rockfall. The Commissioner gave us a book about Sufi.

We went with Tracey, a London friend, to have a yummy Middle Eastern meal near her house near Tower Bridge.