Just a couple of doors down the street is the WHSmith store: office supplies downstairs and a book store upstairs. Also upstairs is the downtown post office (always a line of people there) and money exchange windows for converting currencies. The money exchange line was short, just two people, but the woman in front of me (in the red coat) had two big plastic bags of money and it took a while for the clerk to take care of her. Not that I was in a hurry.
Downstairs in the office supplies area we bought some really cheap brushes and a set of 12 Watercolour Pencils and a small pad of Watercolour Paper. A great artist I know in Santa Fe says he uses the worst brushes he can find. Another artist told me he uses cheap brushes because when he sees art that's really great, he can say "Well sure, he probably uses good brushes. I could do that too if I had good brushes."
Decided to stop for dinner at The Three Tuns, a pub with great pub atmosphere, and good food. A "tun" is an old English unit of wine cask volume. Look closely and you can see three casks stacked in a pyramid, hanging above the tavern signage. Click a photo to see a larger version.
There's a small bar at street level when you first walk in. Stairs go down several steps to a larger bar below. We ordered food upstairs then went downstairs to order pints of cider and join the patrons who obviously were placed there by a Hollywood casting agent for the benefit of any foreign tourists who happened to stop by.
The bar maids are nice. There's a sign next to our table that reads "If you think your beer has too much head, tell us and we'll gladly top it up for you." Our cider doesn't have much of a head at all, and they pour the glasses so full that they almost spill over. I'm not a big drinker, but I'm willing to try.
An old photo from the late 1800s. The woman reminds me of someone.
Robin adds to our napkin art collection. Bravo. Good show. Captures the essence of the napkin art movement, I think.
One last old photo. Who IS that woman?
