Early October 2012 - a long weekend in London

Margaret and I went to stay with Stan & Jane from Thursday 4th to Sunday 7th October - though luckily for them we only stayed three nights. We ate in We had gone down specifically to see the Leonardo exhibition - the largest ever of his studies of anatomy and the human body. We got advance tickets to see this at 11:15 Friday.

Leonardo has long been recognised as one of the great artists of the Renaissance, (we also caught the National Gallery's 'Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan’, at the Sainsbury Wing earlier this year), but he was also a pioneer in the understanding of human anatomy. It seems likely that he intended to publish his ground-breaking anatomical work as a treatise - which would have given him a reputation almost unsurpassed as a Scientist as well as transformed our knowledge of medicine. Typical of Leonardo all remained unpublished upon his death and essentially 'lost to the world for almost 400 years'. Now of course they are among the Royal Collection’s greatest treasures and to be admired! I had booked lunch next day at 'Petrus' but Margaret had me cancel - instead we had lunch at a small Italian style restaurant nearby and then walked to The Mall Galleries and back to Buckingham Palace as we had tickets at 3:30 pm for The State Rooms to take in "Diamonds: A Jubilee Celebration," which Margaret wanted to see .

Ironically the queues were horrendous for the actual exhibition of Diamonds so we rapidly toured it and got out. I was less than impressed with the State Rooms (happily - as I am sure I will never be back!). The over 150 foot 'Picture Gallery' is the sort of thing to won, and was impressive with some truly great paintings. The room was created by John Nash as part of his transformation of Buckingham House into a palace ...for George IV ... in the 1820s.

It has paintings from Titian, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck and Claude as well as Dürer. Not bad eh? Supper was sea bass and all the trimmings... v. good. The next day we had a leisurely start and set off for lunch at around 10:30am. We went via Canada Water and Bond Street to Notting Hill Gate. It was a lovely day and we strolled to The Ledbury for 12:15 - where we had the set menu for lunch - washed down with a bottle of Carmenere. I think we all had the Bourdin of Grouse with the Veloutte .. Truffle as a starter then Stan, Margaret and I had Neck of Lamb - though the chef - (Brett!) - did something slightly different with it for me that involved an aubergine. Jane had the fish main ... It was my third lunch at The Ledbury and I was not disappointed. Great food and fabulous service ... a real pleasure. We perambulated back to a tube, via Portobello Market on a sunny Saturday, to relax back the Dubecks. Margaret & I set off at 09:30am on the Sunday and got home at about 2:45pm... not too bad.