Monmouth Coffee

For the first time in our Canadian lives, we voted in a country that isn't Canada. It was both strange and exciting to be casting our London votes.

Some Londoners weren't quite as enthusiastic about election day:

This mural covers one side of a Soho building where Shelley lived in 1811 (you can just see the corresponding blue plaque around the corner).

When the gardener's hut at the centre of Soho Square became too derelict, plain fencing was placed around the building, but this was soon replaced with a more cleverly disguised bit of protective fencing. From a distance, you can't even tell it's there!

This isn't something you see every day, is it?

We passed a little frog patiently waiting to be let inside . . . .

Our last stop of the day was at Monmouth Coffee in Covent Garden, where we enjoyed two cups of coffee as well as another 250g of ground coffee--all on the house!

We had Bob to thank for this little treat! After we bought our last 500g of ground coffee at Monmouth last week (our usual blend, which has always been staggeringly brilliant), Bob made us some coffee at home with our newly replenished stock--only it wasn't as good as usual. After a few more rounds of coffee from our new beans, we agreed that it was definitely the beans, and not any deficiency in the preparation that made our coffee breaks not quite up to Monmouth happiness. I was ready to just keep drinking our way through the bag with the hope that the next one would be better, but after some polite email correspondence on Bob's part, we were offered a replacement pound on our already partly used bag, as well as some extras as a further apology. Now that's customer service! If we weren't already loyal Monmouth drinkers, this would have certainly tipped the scales. On a final note, the new beans are back to their regular brilliance, so all is right again in coffee-break land.