The day I became a Bookseller and other London adventures.

Having left the King's Cross Pond Club, I figured that this would be rather an expensive swimming pool visit unless I made other use of my train ticket to go somewhere else in London or visit other places or at least spend some more time exploring.

As I left the pool, I was still very cold so I went into the delightful Skip gardens (more on that another time) to have a hot chocolate.

As I wandered back through the roads towards King's Cross, I noticed a special bookshop on the Camden Canal called 'Word on Water', a barge that was a book shop.

 Unable to resist a novelty bookshop, I headed down the fake grass steps to it.

It was  pleasant to be by the water, particularly as the sun had come out again.

 I headed inside to look at books- the book shop, on a barge, was cleverly laid out.  I could imagine reading a book here quite happily.Books were second hand and reasonably priced- £3 per paperback or 2 for £5 with hardbacks a bit more and varied in price.

 I went to pay for my two books and as I turned to go, the bookseller said to me, "Would you like to earn a free book?"

Intrigued, I said, "Ok," and he asked, in a very croaky voice, if I would mind the shop for 5 minutes as he desperately needed a bottle of water, but didn't usually work at this shop, so he wasn't exactly sure where to go.

 I agreed, inwardly thinking, "Oh my goodness, seriously is this happening?"
It was and I sat on his chair. A very steady stream of people looked at the books and a few asked me about prices.  Unfortunately, I didn't know the price of the hardbacks as it said, "Varied between £5 and £10 on the sign.    They were all willing to wait and I chatted to one of the ladies about her book choice, "Why didn't they ask Evans?" by Agatha Christie. She hadn't read it before.

He came back, a little more than 5 minutes as it is quite a way to King's Cross station, most apologetically.  He told me to choose a book but I said that it was just nice to do a favour.  After trying to persuade me without success, he asked my name, shook my hand and thanked me.  I was quite pleased to run a book shop even just for a little while!

I am impressed with how King's Cross is changing. It used to be very seedy but it's slowly changing. I loved this grove with tables and chairs created by the Granary, an eating establishment.

Next, I jumped onto the tube and headed off to Holborn for one of my favourite museums, the Sir John Soane museum.  I really recommend this- it is free to enter and is very interesting.  Whenever I picture Grimmauld Place, the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix in Harry Potter, it has always looked like the Sir John Soane Museum in my head, particularly as the three houses are all part of the museum, there was no front door to one before!

Unfortunately, photos are not allowed inside, but this house is an architectural gem- Soane was an architect  (he built the Bank of England I believe) who had a great interest in the interplay of light inside houses, so there are all sorts of passage ways with coloured glass in unexpected places. The rooms themselves are interesting but he had an amazing collection of artefacts and paintings.  In the painting room, probably valued at 1/2 a billion pounds, there are some Holbein paintings that are well regarded.  There is an Egyptian Sarcophagus and a whole host of pieces of stone work from Greece and other places.

 As I left, bizarrely, I met a friend of CBC's who was walking her baby from Covent Garden to Angel. So weird to meet someone you know in London!

 My next stop was Piccadilly Circus where I headed to the Cath Kidston store to try and spend a £10 credit voucher I had but I didn't find anything I wanted to spend it on.  I headed back towards Piccadilly circus and as I turned onto Regent Street, I saw this TARDIS -like Structure.

 That woould be a Doctor Who selfie with Pond hair! Sadly not Amy Pond though!

Onto Carnaby street where I saw this attention-grabbing structure.  It's called Ted's Helix of Haberdashery and is entirely covered in Ted Baker buttons

 I love the crazy names of shops on Carnaby Street, The Great Frog indeed!

 I had a glance into Office, where I was sorely tempted by the Miss L Fire Lobster sandals at half price-I tried on a 7, as they had no 8's, which fitted but I decided, much as I love them, I'd already bought a new pair of Rieker sandals so I didn't need them.

 Onwards, I headed into Irregular Choice where I had a browse of pretty shoes, they had an enormous Unicorn rocking horse downstairs which I forgot to photograph but I took a picture of this unicorn for Gem, Pink-Haired Princess.

Unfortunately,willpower having been exercised muchly, I ended up buying a pair of Poetic License shoes in the sale which I am feeling guilty about.  More on those another time.

So, after that, I headed off to Topshop for a glance in the basement at the different boutiques as I always liked coming up to this Topshop as a teenager (wish I still had my vintaage gingham Levi's shirt)  and finally after that, headed home.

It was an interesting day in London: swimming, bookshop tending, museum attending, TARDIS hunting, shoe perusing 

xxx