Afterwards we walked over the Dalston Superstore bar on Kingsland High Street – a bar which I have attempted to visit on several previous trips to London but have never managed to enter as it has always been full. Tonight it was only 8.30pm when we arrived. It looked busy but not jammed. The signs were good. We strolled past the doorman feeling full of joy, until he stopped us.

‘Are you here for the party, or just dropping in?’ he inquired.

‘Oh we’re just dropping in’ we nonchalantly replied.

‘Tonight’s party is called ‘Hysteria’. You are very welcome to come back later, but at the moment we are prioritising entry for people who are here for the party’.

‘We’ll pay the cover charge’ we replied.

‘You are welcome to return later but you cannot come in now’ was his response. He refused to offer any reason other than prioritisation of people who were specifically there for the party.

We decided not to argue. Arguing with doormen is a pointless exercise. They make arbitrary decisions and tend to be non-movable once they’ve made up their mind.

We wondered was it because of our age – the LGBT scene is notoriously judgemental when it comes to people north of forty. We wondered if it was because we weren’t fashionably dressed. It was all a bit disheartening. Checking the bar’s Facebook page revealed the reason for our exclusion. ‘Hysteria’ is a space for music-loving queer women, trans and non-binary folk to whip up a frenzy and get hysterical together.’ I guess the doorman couldn’t actually tell us that though and felt it wiser just to let us wallow in the feeling of ageist discrimination. I understand that we were not the crowd the bar was catering to, but he could have at least given us a clue that this was the reason we were being excluded. I guess the Dalston Superstore is not for me.

Instead we went up the street to the 512 Bar . Upon entry we were surprised to see that on Friday night we were the only clientele aside from the bartender. We got chatting to her and she told us that this was a late night bar open until 6am and it would be midnight before it got busy. She is a student of mathematics at Uxbridge university, originally from Camden who works this bar job at the weekend. She played the Tina Turner song I requested. After a Long Island Iced Tea we bid her farewell and made our way to our final destination of the evening – The Glory. I have fond memories of the Glory having last visited in August 2021, when I acquired Covid 19 at a cabaret show in the basement nightclub, a fortnight after receiving my second Covid vaccination. We stayed upstairs this time.

On Saturday morning after our garden breakfast of muesli, fruit salad, Greek yoghurt and a boiled egg we took the Overground from Haggerston to Victoria Station. As I mentioned when in London I choose my itinerary specifically for each trip. This weekend my plan was to see sone of London’s grand churches. Our first port of call was the Catholic cathedral of Westminster. Less well known than its Anglican counterpart (where King Prince Charles was recently crowned) this edifice is still quite imposing. Built in 1903 it is less gaudy than its southern European Catholic or English Anglican counterparts (it’s not state subsidised) but still impressive. It contains St. Patrick’s Chapel which is dedicated to London’s Irish community and designed in various shades of green.

Ten minutes walk away found us outside the majestic Westminster Abbey gleaming in all its splendour on that glorious summer’s day. We decided not to enter – partly because of the queues and partly because of the thirty pound entrance fee. Considering that it’s the headquarters of the UK state religion and in receipt of generous public funding this entrance fee feels like price gouging. As a devout atheist I am happy to stare in awe at the magnificence of religious buildings but I am not paying for the pleasure. In any case it is still quite splendid from the outside.

On our way to the St. Martin-In-The-Fields church on Trafalgar Square we walked through Parliament Square. To my surprise I realised that despite my frequent visits to London over the years this was a square I had never visited. Big Ben and Parliament Buildings were instantly recognisable. The ever present protests involved the usual groups – ‘Just Stop Oil’, ‘Extinction Rebellion’, ‘Abolish the Monarchy’ as well as some more specific protests. Surrounding the Square were statues of famous political figures such as Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi and Millicent Garrett Fawcett (the only woman memorialised on the Square. I noticed that the statue of Oliver Cromwell was visible but inaccessible to the public – behind a metal grid several metres from the road. I guess a decision was taken that repairing this statue on a daily basis from Irish people would be too costly. I raised my fist and hissed at it nonetheless.

St-Martins-In-The-Field church was closed to the public that Saturday. After an Italian lunch we went to the Temple Church where King John had hidden himself before signing the Magna Carta in 1215. Destroyed during World War 2 and painstakingly rebuilt, this is a ‘royal peculiar’ in that the church is directly answerable to the monarch and not a bishop. It it the church of the Inner Temple and Middle Temple law courts. Various murderous Crusades in the Holy Land in the Middle Ages were launched from here. We were lucky enough to arrive as the Vicar of he church gave a speech. A fictionalised version of his character appeared in ‘The DaVinci Code’. A fascinating place.

After half an hour trying to escape the maze of legal buildings surrounding the church, we boarded a Tube to take us to Brixton across the river in South London. There was a birthday party to be held on a rooftop bar named Lost in Brixton over the Brixton Village market to which we had an invite. The music was pumping, the crowd was young and beautiful, the gin and tonic was refreshing. It was all very pleasant until security barked at the birthday boy to remove his peaked cap. The request was ignored. Apparently since the Manchester Arena bombing at the Ariana Grande concert in 2017, caps that can cover faces are not permitted. The bouncer could have explained that clearly to avoid unnecessary tension. The hat could also have been removed when requested. Neither happened. A scene ensued, which culminated in the party coming to an abrupt halt. As we had arrived late, we were sitting separately to the main party. We finished our drinks in a relaxed fashion before also making our own more dignified exit. The party was continuing back at the house. We called in briefly to wish a happy birthday. We were men on a mission that Saturday evening. Our mission was Soho.

After a delicious Indian meal at Tamarind Kitchen on Wardour Street, we repaired to The Duke of Wellington hostelry – a tavern favoured by fancy gentlemen such as ourselves. We followed this with a trip to a bar named Rupert Street (I’ll let you guess where that was located). We ended our evening in the G-A-Y Late bar on Charing Cross Road. It had been many decades since I had been in this venue – the last time I was there, last century Billie Piper was still a pop star and was launching her single ‘Honey to the bee’ on the night I attended.

The following day and feeling quite fragile we took a walk to the Sunday market in Victoria Park where we purchased some iced coffees and sat in the shade of a tree for several hours watching London unwind on the Sunday of the bank holiday weekend. It reminded me of the many summer days I spent in the Vondelpark in Amsterdam.

Sadly it was not a bank holiday in Ireland so at about 5pm I gathered my belongings and made my way to Stansted for my flight back to Shannon.

Another action packed weekend in London finished, I felt no melancholy.

This is London. I’ll be back.