London Highlights: Fernandez and Wells
Fernandez and Wells is the name of two different outlets in Soho: There’s a deli in Lexington Street and, just around the corner, a coffee shop on Beak Street. The deli sells a great range of meats, cheeses and wines whereas the cafe specialises in serving great coffee, pastries, sandwiches and cakes. I find it difficult to go to this corner of London without coming up with a reason to visit, although visiting Fernandez and Wells needs no justification.
The coffee is made from top quality Monmouth Coffee Co beans and was by far the best coffee I’ve had in London - my cappucino’s milk was silky smooth and, on previous visits, the espresso was perfect. The cakes are delicious too; I particularly like the carrot cake.
After getting accustomed to drinking the same lukewarm coffee from Starbucks, a visit to Fernandez and Wells is a pleasant change.
To find out more, visit fernandezandwells.com.
The Wimbledon Tennis Championships
Yesterday marked the start of the 132nd Wimbledon Championships at the AELTC. It’s the second tournament where both men and women win the same prize money (as the ladies final is a maximum of three sets compared to five for men, they do better in the pounds-per-set ratio, but with ¬£750,000 to win I’m sure the men aren’t complaining) and the first where hawk-eye technology can be used to challenge any decisions by line-judges. Players get 3 challenges per match - although they only lose one should the challenge be wrong. I’ve seen hawk-eye in the cricket over the past years and it’s both a cool and useful technology which adds to the experience for spectators. Now it’s improving things for players too, making bad line-calls a thing of the past.
I went this afternoon, taking advantage of the fact that for the first time in my life I can be at the front gate in less than 15 minutes from leaving my flat. A person under the train at Monument stopped me getting back from work quickly so we didn’t sit down until 2pm, just in time to watch Venus Williams destroy Cavaday 6-3 in the final set.
Later it was time for the start of the annual contest of a British person getting close-but-not-close-enough to the final. Murray won in straight sets but his performance was nowhere near that of Nadal who beat Beck in the second match of the day.
Finally we saw the beginning of a ladies doubles match involving Venus and Serena Williams. The Williams sisters dominated throughout the first set, but the lure of the chip shop got too much so we left after five games.
It was the first time I’ve gone to Wimbledon with a ticket and the experience was considerably less hassle than the usual queues to get in - the longest wait was for the 493 to turn up! In previous years I have queued outside for hours on end and got tired by mid afternoon due to being on my feet all the time.
Plan to go again next week, weather permitting. It’s good that for two weeks of the year, every weather forecast mentions what’s going on in my local area. From my childhood I always remember it pouring with rain during Wimbledon fortnight. Hopefully the sun stays shining and Cliff Richard stays away.
An Afternoon at the Fair
Today was the annual Wimbledon Village Fair, held the Saturday before the start of the tennis championships. Despite the threat of rain (that’s what you get for organising something close to the start of Wimbledon), we popped up the hill to see what was going on.
As well as a huge funfair there was a showjumping course and a considerable amount of stalls selling home made food, drink (including delicious Devon cider), plants and other bric-a-brac. There was a bandstand, punch and judy and, much to my delight, a large number of tombolas. Erika and I profited well from these winning a huge bear, a picnic set, a kids art set and a mini bottle of champagne. All for 4 quid. Luckily we recently threw out a lot of stuff we’d never use so there are plenty of places to store my art set.
Afterwards we went to the new Le Pain Quotidien and despite the staff being rushed off their feet, had a cappuccino in a bowl the size of a swimming pool and one of their mixed berry tarts. The tart was gorgeous with strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries, none of which were overwhelmed with sugar which makes a nice change from past experiences in patisseries. An alternative to Costa/Nero/Starbucks in the village is welcome so I’m sure we’ll be going back in the future.
It’s now the start of two weeks of chaos whilst the tennis is on - got a few afternoons off work over the next couple of weeks so hopefully the weather will improve and we can spend some time at the AELTC. There has to be some advantage to living here!