A rainy day (imagine that!) last April in London. The venue? Bibendum, the Conran mecca, erstwhile home of the namesake Michelin Man. I splashed in after a long, drenching stroll on Fulham Road and stopped at the Oyster Bar to give my umbrella a rest. Spied this vignette through the glass so out came the camera -- snap, snap.

The collaged paper on the watercolor is from the South Kensington section of Muirhead's Short Guide to London (1953). It was a flea market find; I adore old Baedekers.

From the introduction:

London is still labouring under the stress of six years of war : many buildings of historic and artistic interest have been destroyed by enemy action, and still more have not yet been restored to their normal condition ; so that the descriptions in the present volume must needs be provisional in many instances.

Just a few more weeks till I get my annual fix of the city across the pond.