Friday, April 20. Good to be able to cook up some toast and coffee for ourselves rather than having to go out and pay. Local butter much better than Italian, which beside being unsalted always seemed to have a rancid undertone. The local butter we bought turned out to be from NZ, which was probably all to the good. Sought to have a shower only to find there was no hot water. I may be a Protestant, but I'm not the Victorian sort who found moral virtue in a cold shower, so had a cold wash instead. Had forgotten how hard the water is in London as tried vainly to lather up for an adequate shave. No doubt why A's place afforded a pressure pak of shaving foam for sensitive skin (as if any real man ever haed sensitive skin).
Morning's project was to be the London Archives - in Clerkenwell, quite a walk from the nearest tube. Found the building. Looked for the entrance, along with another woman on the same errand. L said 'I bet it turns out to be closed on Friday or something', and as the book says, in order that the prophecy might be fulfilled, so it was. Walked back past a v handsome Victorian school with walled grounds - over one entrance a carved lintel said 'Girls and Infants'. A tower at the corner was for the caretaker. Guessed it might have been a charitable foundation of the mercers and drapers, who seemed to have a hall nearby. Would have gone into the local church, but you had to summon someone to open it, which seemed a step too far for a purely casual interest. Then back to Middle Temple to lunch with A.  L had wanted to dine in Middle Temple Hall, so A said it would have to be Friday, the only day their food was tolerable. Raining hard by this time. A arrived with a friend - still looking for a pupillage though in same year as A - and we all had fish and chips. Nice enough, though suspect a tainted gherkin in the tartare sauce for internal troubles that struck me that night. Would guess the hall early C17 from the carving on the hammer-beam roof - walls all decorated with arms of members and armorial glass, mostly C18, in the windows. At the end a large portrait of Charles I, with a smaller Charles II (I thought) on his right, and William III two places away on the left. In the toilets nothing so vulgar as a hand dryer, but a pile of fresh fluffy hand towels in case Lord Justice whoever should need one. Inside the entrance, in a list of presidents, or whatever the head of the Inn is called, the one for 1975 had 5 surnames hyphenated.
Coffee in a shop later and then set out to the far north west in search of an exhibition of mini-prints where we thought Louise had something. Perhaps we got it wrong. Afterwards, an internet cafe full of men skyping their families back in Bangladesh. Home in the rain.