However, half way up Exhibition Road we were enticed into the temple of the latter day saints (see reference 2), to be greeted by some very smooth people from the US who said they were very happy to be visited. A very swish building inside, complete with lots of expensive AV gear and lots of endangered tropical hardwood, very much the thing at the time the place was built, I think in the late fifties, on what had been a bomb site. Handsome chapel, without crucifix - and we learned that these people, unlike us, prefer to celebrate the life of Christ rather than his death, his sacrifice. In which they may have a point. The lady taking us around offered us a short organ recital, working hard to make us feel wanted. During the recital we were struck by the newness and the quality of the hymn books, something of a contrast to their rather tatty cousins usually to be found in one of our churches. And then outside by the curious tone of the paintings on the wall, with that included above being very much of the type, although not one of those there. Plus two pretty & smiling young women who had by then turned up to work reception. Readers will no doubt be relieved to hear that we managed to escape with our souls and wallets intact.
So where did all the money come from to build a place like this? Where does all the money come from to keep it up and running?
Further up the road we came across the Royal Geographical Society, a large red brick building with a new pavilion in what used, one supposed, to be the garden. Large statues of Shackleton and Livingstone. And in the pavilion a free exhibition devoted to one Michael Drayton, a poet from the late sixteenth century, and his poly olbion (see reference 3). A curious exhibition, being a mixture of old books, old prints and school project work. We were intrigued by one exhibit which talked of the River Mole getting up to something with the Thames and another which showed the watershed between the Mole and the Arun, somewhere on the South Downs. It had not occurred to me that the two rivers were related in that way. The entertaining figures to be seen disporting themselves along the north coast of Kent were a bonus.
Eventually we made it to the second pavilion, the one which had been erected outside the Serpentine Gallery. Not much to look at outside, but very entertaining inside with wonderful plays of colour on the translucent plastics with which the framework was covered. A sort of strange tent, the work, I believe of a couple of Spanish architects. Further entertainment in the form of a herd of students from nearby Imperial taking notes, about what it was not entirely clear. If you ask google for images for 'serpentine pavilion 2015' you will get lots, lots which will give you some idea but are not the same as visiting the real thing.
Onto the Diana Memorial where I had thought that there was a bad bit of green sculpture, which turned out to be a quite decent bit of green sculpture in the form of a large duck. Something to do with Osiris. Memorial itself not bad, though as I think I have said here before, a bit overdone. Someone should have simplified the design a bit before building started; a sort of editorial role, the sort of thing needed by even the best authors. A little noisy as there were some chainsaw volunteers busy at the margins, trimming or perhaps removing what I assumed was a diseased tree - and given that the memorial was intended to attract children, I dare say the park authorities are a bit obsessive about the risk of bits falling off trees.
Up past the bad bit of brown sculpture called energy and onto the round pond to spend quality time working out how round, or not it was. Looked very well in the bright sunlight.
And so to Daquise for lunch. An excellent place which we had passed in the past, but not managed to enter. Busy enough but not crowded, pleasant staff and good food. And while it was certainly not a veggie place, they did do a very nice carrot salad. See reference 4.
The afternoon saw a little shopping, in the course of which we bumped into our Mormon organist again, doing a spot of shopping herself, followed by a siesta, followed by a visit to Joe's in Draycott Avenue, which turned out not to be a Joe's caff, being owned by the expensive dress shop of similar name opposite (see reference 5). They did us an excellent meal and provided considerable entertainment in the form of a number of parties of young women taking coffee and cake, mostly in both fancy make up and fancy clothes. Some of them sported hijabs, but more in the interest of fashion than modesty. Our waitress said that there being so many of them was something to do with Ramadan, which I did not understand, Ramadan having been done for this year for some time.
In their honour, I took cake, a cake called a sticky date cake. It came with ice cream and a caramel sauce, both of which were needed to balance the sweet stickiness (odd how one uses one high calorie smack to balance another), but in which I could detect no date flavour, this despite Cortana explaining that sticky date cake contained lots of dates.
Reference 1: http://www.psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/breakfast-in-bed.html.
Reference 2: https://www.lds.org/locations/hyde-park-chapel?lang=eng.
Reference 3: http://poly-olbion.exeter.ac.uk/.
Reference 4: http://daquise.co.uk/.
Reference 5: http://www.joseph-fashion.com/en/ecomuk/joes-cafe/page/joescafe.
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