This is a watercolour sketch of Mappin and Webb pained yesterday from a table outside Pret A Manger in Piccadilly. At I have mentioned before I am allergic to shopping – I think it is probably due to working as a shop assistant.
If you have too much of something you can get an allergy,
however I think the exception to this rule for the English is a nice cup of
tea. Now invigilating shopping for the male parent of female teenagers can
involve sitting over a cup of tea in a café and occasionally dispensing money,
personally I find this a bit boring, so I look for a table with a view – away
from the noise of modern coffee making machinery; which is inclined to suddenly
hiss and make me jump (it’s not that I’m ophidiophobic or anything like that,
just easily frightened)… where was I? Oh yes bored, so I paint the view; I’m
not an artist, you understand, just a painter – I paint what I can see no what's inside my head, (which like Poo's is fairly empty) but I
do like a cup of tea.
Personally when I buy paint, I buy Winsor & Newton,
Rowney or Reeves, this means I know what’s going to come out of the tube will
be the same as what came out of the previous tube.
It’s the same with tea, English Breakfast Tea served in a
cardboard or plastic cup and possibly drained from the European tea lake isn’t
my kidney, nor is Earl Grey – I prefer to put perfume where the sun don’t shine
and not in mi cuppa, as for, Labrador, Ginkgo Biloba, Genmaicha and the rest of
them. I just don’t know what to expect, my ignorance in this area is large and likely to stay that way - hopefully.
In Piccadilly however I was reduced to drinking decaffeinated coffee from a cardboard cup.
Needless to say I didn’t stay for long enough to finish the painting
Now in east Kent, the cafés with a decent view that I frequent
have become accustomed to my peculiar habits, at Turner Contemporary – as I come
through the door – they remove the filtration mechanism from a teapot and put
in two bags of PG, at Chocolate Café in Canterbury a steaming pot of Yorkshire arrives
unasked for. In other places – best not to mention the Typhoo is raided from
the staff room.
In Piccadilly however I was reduced to drinking decaffeinated coffee from a cardboard cup.
Needless to say I didn’t stay for long enough to finish the painting
