The sun still shone...

... but we didn't get as far as St James Park. Instead we strolled along the Southbank.

We popped into the Tate Modern.

There, we whizzed around the Gilbert & George exhibition.

It's not my kind of art, but I appreciate how brilliant they are. It was a very well presented show and worth several more visits.

We popped into the new BFI Gallery and watched some historic film shorts about London and saw Jennifer & Kevin McCoy's playful miniature film sets. They reminded me of Gregory Crewdson's dark photographic reenactments of suburbia.

We ate lunch outside Queen Elizabeth Hall, where M ate a brie and mustard sandwich and I ate a feta cheese salad with spinach leaves, puy lentils, red onions and capers. We also ate some rather nice crisps.

Then we walked into town. We checked out H&M's COS. Clothes were styled well, but finished off poorly: the quality doesn't justify the price tag and you can buy better at Muji. I bought ti-shirts from American Apparel on Carnaby Street. We also bought provisions from Chinatown and from Arigato in Soho.

Then we checked out the cute new Do store on Beak Street, where they sell affordable desirables for your home.


Back home, M booked tickets for us to fly to New York City at the end of May. We'll stay again at the Rivington on the Lower East Side because it was a fabulous hotel and at the heart of a thriving night life.

I've got several books on the go, which is rare for me: Orhan Pamuk's magical realist The New Life, Katie Kitamura's reflective Japanese For Travellers, Amit Chaudhuri's claustrophobic A New World, and Jun'ichiro Tanizaki's meditative In Praise Of Shadows. But this evening, I've been embroiled in Janet Evanovich's laugh-out-loud One For The Money.

M's grilling whole sea bream with sumac and preparing a herby tabbouleh for dinner. Afterwards, we'll watch Wong Kar-Wai's Days Of Being Wild. This is the movie we were both watching separately at the NFT many moons ago and where we first bumped into each other.

And so the long Easter weekend ends. Work again tomorrow.