There’s nothing like going to London and overdoing it. On Friday
night I put my second Off The Hook party on at Vogue Fabrics. It was a busier affair
than my first party there, and a whole different crowd too I think, but just as
much into the music, if not more so. Song of the night was ‘Overdose’ by
Ciara. Very apt… I can not / will not leave that tune alone right now. I
aim to move RnB away from ‘guilty pleasure’ to just ‘pleasure’ with this party.
So many brilliant songs to play. I had a great guest DJ this time around in the
shape of Mr Sina Sparrow who runs a terrific Bethnal Green party called Debbie. I’ve been a fan
of Sina’s illustrations for ages. It was lovely to meet him in real life at
last (and now I’m off to see him for coffee in Chorlton..!). You should check
out his work here.
Saturday
morning never happened. Instead we drag ourselves out of bed third thing in the
afternoon to face a gorgeous sunny Clerkenwell day and take restoratives at Workshop Café.
I recommend this place endlessly. Gorgeous coffee / staff and a beautiful living
wall in the back. Try the corn fritters and whatever’s on the aeropress, it never
fails. Next comes a chance meet-up with dear Anna at the Coach and Horses in
Soho and her lovely friend Derek who is currently living in a converted school
near Hyde Park and paying a pittance for it. I just adore London stories like
this, the lucky devil. I Facebook a photograph of us from inside the pub and my
friend of twenty-something-years Andrew, a West-end Wendy, currently working on
what he refers to as ‘The Irish play’ (The
Commitments, ha-ha!) only goes and recognises the pub from my photograph and
nips out of the theatre to come and find me and say hello. Pints of Hopspur and
a five quid (!!!!) cake in the patisserie next door then it’s back to Dalston
for Long Island Iced Teas and Korean food and onto to Debbie at the amazing Resistance
Gallery where I immediately run into a succession of friendly Manchester faces.
By this point Oisín and I have all but lost our speaking voices. We manage an
hour of dancing before we have to call it a night. It’s a great party and you
should get it on your list, stat.
Sunday is another
glorious day so we head to Potters Field Park for a street food festival with
live music, both of which turn out to be great. Venezuelan wraps and South London
rap and actual warm sunshine beating down on us. Oisín runs into a friendly
face from his Limerick days thus proving that London is in fact a village of
200 people as suspected. From where we are we can hear the London Marathon
runners passing over Tower Bridge and the crowd cheering them on. We head over
to the bridge to give our support and it’s so unexpectedly moving that the pair
of us have a little spontaneous cry. We see the oldest runner in the race pass
by, followed by a wheelchair user, powering away with his incredible shoulders,
and a guy dressed as a tiger, and we’re off again blubbing. I am re-inspired to
do my own modest bit for charity, and if you’d like to help me raise funds for
the Neo-natal Unit at St Mary’s, you can do so here! We walk down the north
side of Thames, which I’ve never done before, occasionally crossing paths with
the runners, the cheers and whistles floating in and out of our ears with the
breeze off the Thames. London is truly magic on days like this. We meet up with
Ted who takes us to the rooftop of ONE NEW CHANGE which is a grim glass
shopping mall but the rooftop allows you to look eye to eye with St Paul’s and
is breathtaking. I am singing ‘Feed The Birds’ of course and getting teary-eyed.
We sink a rum and coke in the sun and it’s time to head home to Manchester. We
don’t want to leave of course, but we are back in just a few days for this, so
hurrah! See you soon London…
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