That Friday feeling

M and I both had the day off today so, after dropping Little Planet off at daycare, we headed over to Exmouth Market for breakfast at Caravan: flat whites, scrambled eggs with chives and organic salmon on toasted sourdough, black pudding and, for M, a full fry up (photo above).

We took a bus down to the Tate Modern, where we visited the exhaustive and excellent Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera exhibition. I was engrossed by this show as it appealed to the nosy parker in me. One of my fondest memories from childhood is when my father and I went out walking after dinner through our neighbourhood at dusk and both of us looking in through the windows of houses as we passed by and imagining what was going on and what was being said!

There was a very un-PC woman at the exhibition - standing in front of a photo of slum dwellers in Alabama, she exclaimed loudly to her companion, "I'm glad I don't live in those conditions!"; standing in front of a photo showing the broad behind of a woman in a red dress, she wondered aloud "Do you think she is black?" I was lost for words.

Afterwards, we bought several story books for Little Planet in the Tate shop, including the beautiful, fantastical story book Mouk - a wordless picture book about a little bear who sets off on a journey around the world and discovers different cultures and makes new friends around the globe. We have a long weekend ahead of us in the UK (Monday is a public holiday) so we will be doing alot of reading with her. I can't wait, as I love reading children's story books.

Then we walked along the Southbank to the British Film Institute, where we watched Apichatpong Weerasethakul's haunting, mysterious and political short film Phantoms Of Nabua. Teenage descendants of Nabua's Thai rebel farmers play football at night with a fire ball. Beautiful.

We walked across river into Soho where we lunched on amazingly subtle yet flavourful udon noodle dishes at Frith Street's Koya. M had his with prawn tempura in a hot broth, and I had mine cold with fried tofu and spring onions (photo below).

We popped down to the Algerian Coffee Store on Old Compton Street to stock up on coffee beans (Costa Rican and Indian) and Mrs Kibble's Olde Sweet Shoppe on Brewer Street to stock up on cola cubes and apple & custard sweets, before watching a little bit of Tacita Dean's new film Craneway Event at the Frith Street Gallery on Golden Square. We couldn't resist checking out the new iPad in the Apple store on Regent's Street - we'll definitely be buying one but may wait until the next iteration of the device coming out later this year (which will have multi-tasking capability - ie ability to have two apps open and working at once).

Then home to pick up Little Planet, play with her a bit then put her to bed. M's cooking dinner now: spaghetti with butter beans, pancetta and rocket (from our garden).

What a lovely day!