Charles Dickens Museum

London feels like it is slowly getting back to normal.  We went to a musical event in someone's home in Fitzrovia yesterday evening.  Then this morning we had a session with our personal trainer to work up an appetite before a long lazy lunch in a traditional French restaurant not far from our flat.  Then on to the Charles Dickens Museum just round the corner.  I can't believe I've never been there before.

Dickens bought the 5 storey Georgian house in 1837 when he was only 25 years old out of the earnings from his writings.  A writer could never afford the house today, houses in this street are worth millions.  He wrote Oliver Twist here and researched the story by walking 10 to 15 minutes south into Clerkenwell Green and Smithfield where he observed the conditions that are described so graphically in the novel.  It seems a different world, and one that he escaped only through his own hard work and genius.

I was amused by the poster on display - "Please Sir, can I have some more?" (extra).