Been trying out some of the ‘been there forever’ sights of London but mostly those here for just a few months. The forever – Buckingham Palace – open for the summer and all very impressive with lots and lots of gold paint. They have a room set out for a state banquet which was beautiful but the chairs looked very small and uncomfortable as only Betty gets a chair with arms.

Things that are passing through – Frank Gehry’s summer pavilion at the Serpentine Gallery which is light wood and glass and wonderful tho’ I did miss his usual style of curving metal. I was there in that wonderfully hot and sunny bit of summer we had so I saw it at its best. Ealing Jazz Festival Sunday also benefitted from the height of summer and it was baking and just got hotter as the afternoon went on. The good jazz took rather second place eating, drinking and keeping cool – apologies to the musicians!

More music this week than usual and more jazz. A jazz brunch at the Albert Hall on Sunday saw Edison Herbert and his group serenade us through a full English. And a second trip to the Albert Hall in one week (always the way) saw a marvellous world music prom give us a whistle stop world tour – Cape Verde, Spain (the extraordinary Son de la Frontera very proper flamenco), China, Gambia and finally a magnificiant show from Mali. Well done to the new proms supremo, Roger Wright, for putting this in the main evening slot not the late tube slot.

Other temporary delights – the Cezannes at the Courtaulds and Hadrian at the British Museum. Not enough wall in the Hadrian for my liking, isn’t that what he means to us Brits rather than huge models of his villa in Tivoli? Still, always great to be able to drop in and see the Rosetta stone and a Moai from Easter Island on one’s way out of a building.

Off to Scotland for a few days to visit the isle of Mull and then to Edinburgh for the Fringe, so back soon….

Sue