Gord thinks I should have added Ezra Pound to yesterday's ballot. I didn't add him because I had named his plaque as a favourite in an earlier post. However, he did come up a lot during the walk yesterday. The guide talked about the Imagist poets who basically started right here in our backyard--Hilda Doolittle and Richard Aldington lived right opposite Ezra Pound, two minutes away from us in a little courtyard off of Kensington Church Walk. So if anyone wants to vote for him, please do so.

Today we went over to Wigmore Hall with the intention of seeing one of their Sunday morning concerts. I was led to believe that you could just show up, but to our dismay the performance was sold out and there was only one standing ticket left. We purchased tickets for a concert two weeks from now instead, but on a whim we got in the line for return tickets. Several people stopped to sell single tickets to people ahead of us in line. Finally we were behind only two people. The box office called them over and sold them two single tickets and it looked like we were going to be out of luck. But right when they were going to close the doors, the box office released two more tickets and we were in! Gord was in the stalls (main floor) center and I had a front row balcony seat. It was a wonderful view, much better than down below where you couldn't see the stage because the floor did not slope upward. And the sound was excellent. The musicians were Jean-Guihen Queyras on cello and Alexandre Tharaud on piano. They played Franz Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata in A minor D. 821 and Francis Poulenc's Cello Sonata. Queyras, by the way, plays a cello made by Gioffredo Cappa in 1696. What a treat to hear. And the price of admission (10 pounds) includes a glass of sherry after the performance!

From there we walked over to Grosvenor Square (home of the American Embassy) and down Brook Street to the Handel House Museum which occupies two adjacent buildings, #23 and #25 Brook St. It was pretty cool to be standing in the room where Handel composed the Messiah and Music for the Royal Fireworks (and other works). There was a harpischord concert going on for part of the time we were there, but it was also sold out (the concert space was very tiny).
Jimi Hendrix lived in #23 before he died, and there was a small permanent exhibition of photos taken of him in his flat there.

We then walked over to Oxford Street to see if we could find a coat for Gord. We went to John Lewis and found some beautiful wool coats for 495 pounds. A little out of our price range. The more casual jackets were 385 pounds. Gord thinks he can manage with his existing coat after all!

We did some shopping in John Lewis's foodhall (a glorified Waitrose) and went home. At 9 o'clock I watched the first of a BBC five-part series called Cranford, based on three of Elizabeth Gaskell's novels (another novelist to add to my list, I guess) about a small Cheshire town in the 1840s. It has a good cast that includes Judi Dench, so I wanted to see it, even though I'll only be here for the first three episodes. It was my kind of television, and I'm going to be upset that I'll miss the last two weeks. Hopefully it will make it to the U.S. some time.

Favourite plaques of the day (obviously):