Back to London again yesterday (Saturday).  I took an early train (the 09:05), and arrived at St Pancras on time at 10:46ish.

I chatted to the elderly lady in the seat next to me on the way there.  From London originally, but has lived with her son in Chesterfield for the last ten years - not altogether willingly, I supposed; most likely a reluctant exile like myself.  Fascinated to hear how she and her family were bombed out of their house in Limehouse by the Germans before going to live in Barking.  I mentioned that I used to pass through Limehouse each morning on the way to work on the Docklands Light Railway, but it must have been a different place altogether 60 years ago.

And London keeps changing.  The new St Pancras station (such as it is - still a long way off completion apparently) is very impressive, reminiscent of Canary Wharf in light-grey granite, marble and steel, but how sad that it's suddenly so different after all these decades.  Still, large sections of the old station remain.

On a whim, I got off the tube at Holborn station - something I haven't done for years, not since I devised my usual route to the West End from South-East London via London Bridge railway station sometime in 1995.  Somewhat nostalgic to take the long escalator ride to the surface once again; a surprisingly familiar experience.

A perfect breakfast at an Italian coffee bar at the end of Kingsway.  I sat at the window watching traffic passing along Aldwych, wondering why I'd never thought of taking breakfast or coffee there before when I lived in London; I'm sure I must have walked past a few times, and it would have been a pleasant occasional diversion from Pret A Manger or Seattle Coffee Co.

After an hour or two of wandering around my usual haunts in the warm London sunshine - Covent Garden, Charing Cross Road, Leicester Square, Soho -  lunch at the newly refurbished Yo Sushi in Poland Street, tastefully redesigned in a subdued traditional style, with black surfaces and dark red chairs, but absolutely unrecognisable as the place where I used to have lunch every Saturday.  Very pleasant though, and now has dual, contra-rotating sushi conveyors.  Thankfully, their Avocado Maki remains the same.

I finally found the EST album I'd been looking for, Seven Days Of Falling, in HMV's Jazz section.  And I bought the Battle Of Britain DVD which I've been waiting for more or less since I bought my first DVD player, five years ago, and which has just been released.

In the late afternoon, I walked across the footbridge from Charing Cross to Waterloo, then back across the river to Trafalgar Square, where I sat on one of the new benches, listening to the last half hour of the Division One playoff final on my FM walkman.  Although Goering's Heinkels apparently caused considerable damage in Limehouse, he at least left Trafalgar Square unscathed - which is, regrettably, more than can be said for Ken Livingstone.

The narrow confines of my desktop diary are, alas, no longer sufficient to contain my ego.  So, as you can see, I've decided to keep a blog instead!

It runs on Pivot (http://www.pivotlog.net/) which I chose because it's free, Open Source, and doesn't require SQL.

I've changed the background tiles, but I'm still not completely happy with the design / layout.  I'll no doubt be tinkering with the templates over the next few days.

I don't know how often I'll record entries.  Certainly not every day, but I'll try to post here at least once a week.