If you’ve read my blog for any time then you’ll know that every once in a while I love to have a day in London for a cultural fix and a bit of capital city hustle and bustle.

We began at Jamie Olivier’s new venture Union Jacks. Very quirky food here – it is basically a pizza restaurant but they don’t serve pizza. They call them flatbread’s and top them with strange things! Pork belly, horseradish, watercress… I had mushroom and it was nice. Lovely interior too.

 I got all nostalgic about red telephone boxes and catching the No 29 bus to school – the old style where you could run and jump on the back if you were a little late and it was leaving without you.

We walked miles gathering up the unselected paintings from the Royal Watercolour Society, shopping and having tea.

Many thanks for your suggestions of places to hunt out in London. We couldn’t fit them all in yesterday ( www.lechandelier.co.uk is a definite for sometime in the near future – it looks gorgeous) but we did find Chloe’s (slightlytriangle.co.uk) suggestions.

First was a bookbinding shop called Shepherds Falkiners which was packed to the rafters of beautiful handmade printed and marbled papers and enticingly covered notebooks and boxes. It had a gentle old world feel to it and I was amazed by what a world of specialism lay with the humble object of paper – books and books of samples. I made it out having spent only £6 on a beautiful piece of Japanese paper which I intend to use for a painting background. The hardest part was keeping it from being crushed on the London Underground.

Then a short walk around the corner was another of Chloe’s recommendations; an art shop called Cornelissen.

This was another piece of old world London (although the stock is bang up-to-date.) It still has the original interior fixtures complete with creaky floorboards.

The staff were really helpful and enthusiastic, I was entranced by all the glass jars of bright pigment powders and nearly came out all set up to make my own paint. Heavens, I already have enough to do!

And then more food was required (and a long sit down to rest the blisters) before we very excitedly scurried across the road to The Royal Academy where the Hockney exhibition was.

What words will suffice? It was so inspiring, uplifting, impressive, a feast of colour, visually stunning…. So much to say about it that I think it will deserve it’s own post later in the week.