real ice cream and art

When I got to Liverpool Street the concourse was as wet and slippery as if somebody had thrown buckets of water over it, but when I cautiously stuck my nose outside the station it was only drizzling very lightly.  The rain storm had evidently passed, leaving behind it the sort of muggy air that almost makes you long for winter and a crisp frost.

I walked over to Covent Garden as I had oodles of time before I was due to meet my old university friend for lunch, feeling relieved that I'd decided against wearing an extra layer on top of my tee shirt, since it was quite sweaty enough in my raincoat as it was.  We were meeting in Tavistock Street, which is wall to wall full of chain restaurants.  You would not think there were so many people wanting bistro food, but there must be.  My friend had chosen Cote (as in coast, there should be an accent over the O but I don't know how to do it), which was a new one on me, but there are dozens of them all over the place.  Well, all over London, and we could have eaten in one in Dorchester when we were on holiday.  Only three in East Anglia, but that's the Eastern counties for you.  There are none in Essex.

We went on somewhere else for pudding.  When the idea was floated in advance this struck me as being the height of metropolitan decadence.  Bistro chain puddings not good enough for you, then? But I was swayed by the promise of excellent ice cream, and if anything my friend undersold the wonders of Gelatorino.  It is a tiny little shop in Russell Street, selling real Italian ice cream made by real Italians.  There are a few tables at the back, or you can have a cardboard pot of ice cream to go.  The pot come in three sizes, and even the smallest seemed pretty generous by the time the ice cream has been piled up.  If you were going for the largest one I definitely wouldn't have any other lunch first.  You can choose your combination of flavours, and since it's dished out by the pot rather than rigidly by the scoop you could make your mix of flavours as complicated as you liked. Overwhelmed by choice I followed my friend's lead and opted for hazelnut and chocolate, which was delicious, but they also do salted caramel.  And pistachio.  I shall have to go there with everybody I ever go to London with, apart from the one person who doesn't eat sweet things. Maybe with her too, and I'll have her share.

Then I went to Tate Britain for another look at the Barbara Hepworth before it closes.  This time I sat all the way through a vintage BFI film about the links between her work and the Cornish landscape, complete with shots of her wearing huge jewellery and no safety goggles, bashing away vigorously at blocks of wood and stone.  Having the link spelled out to me between some of her forms and the surrounding natural landscape did make me go back and look at them more carefully.  There are at least ten or a dozen works in the exhibition I should like to take home.