Anyway, I had planned to sketch a lot more bridges in London but you know it is.

In fact I spent a lot of time in bookshops in London. I even bought a book about bridges while I was back. There is a very famous clock tower on the other side of the river. As I started sketching this, the rain came down, so I moved into the little tunnel next to the bridge (which I had never seen before is it new?) and sketched from there. Westminster Bridge, crossing the River Thames. Many thanks to Natalie Nelson and the good people at the Pence for inviting me to take part and attend this very fun event. I had been coaching my son’s U7 soccer team (the Red Foxes) that afternoon, it had been a good game, so all in all a pretty nice Saturday. Oh, and both my pieces sold! I honestly hadn’t expected them to this time (I’ve sold my pieces in the previous three years) so I was pretty buoyed, and went home pretty happy. A very warm night, people talking, art-lovers buying, music playing. The auctioneer is very humourous, and very god at getting the crowd to buy art (though every time he said “going once, going twice,” I really wanted to say “c’mon baby don’t be cold as ice…”) This is the third year in a row I’ve sketched it, and I think I’ve captured it now. I sketched at the back, stood next to the dessert table (wow, amazing chocolates!). I met a lot of nice people there, and really enjoyed watching the auction. The Pence is a great place and they work tirelessly to promote excellence in local art. The wealth of amazing work on display was amazing, as always. Last week I was fortunate enough to be invited to the Pence Gallery’s annual art Auction, as one of the contributing artists. I sketched here until the sun came out, before heading back to Burnt Oak for dinner. Yep, there’s a lot of social history in a place like this. Dancing to Anarchy in the UK while my friend Tel threw up in the toilets.

Getting my drink knocked vertically across the bar by bouncers steaming past quickly to conclude a fight. Watching very serious unheard-of bands while surrounded by record company band-scouts. Talking Serbian poetry with students from Belgrade. Oh, this old place, many evenings were spent in here, back in the 90s and early 00s. Now he does have a long association with this pub and this area (here’s his ode to the area) but still it was fun seeing him in there, briefly, especially as I was drawing his poster (he’s on the tube-sign one next to it too). As I was sketching the big ‘Madness’ poster, I heard a guy talking to a woman at the bar whose voice was familiar, and it was in fact Suggs himself, the Madness singer. I got a beer (actually wasn’t expensive, for London) and sat and sketched the red interior. Thankfully it was still the same, though being the daytime it was practically empty. Anyway, I arrived soaking wet, having run through the rainstorm from Camden Lock (see the handy map below to figure out my route), to see if this old haunt had gone the way of the so many London pubs – gentrified, sanitized, or worse, closed. It’s easy to get confused, it hasn’t changed in the slightest. No no, wait, it’s 2014, I got confused there. This is the Dublin Castle pub on Parkway, Camden Town. When I added the colour later I left it as the luscious N1 summer blue sky, pre-tempest. People dashing about like mad things, and I took shelter in a doorway. And then, whoah, massive thunderstorm, super heavy rain – good job I got the ink done, because this rain was stupendous.

The clouds were rolling in, oh big black clouds, scary looking but not enough to stop me. I didn’t do any colour except the red cross of the flag. I stood, with the sun shining, and sketched the lock, as far as I could. I chose the Regents Canal, specifically Camden Lock, well Hampstead Road Lock. I haven’t sketched much around here, so I wanted to do a bit while I was back. I for one have a lot of personal history around here, nights out, days about, the odd gig, too many night buses, a good few birthdays, and of course my stag party. Everyone in north London has their own Camden I think. It’s grimy and tacky and great, and vibrant and awful and touristy and local and rough and everything, it is Camden and can be everything at once.

There’s no way to properly describe Camden, it’s just Camden.

Kola kubes vodka