We have had a great autumn here in London.  According to every newspaper, online resource and the BBC, it’s been the warmest autumn on record in something like 160 years.   That is supposed to mean a cold and horrible winter, but we’re not worrying too much about that yet.  In the meantime, it’s currently sunny and warm and feels more like June than November.  The leaves on the ground are the only clue.To celebrate London and leaves and November, here is a list of some things we’ve been enjoying recently in this great city.Lyle’s: Lyle’s is a restaurant that Drew heard about from a co-worker who sells cheese here.  Drew asked for his number one restaurant recommendation in London and this was it.  No joke.  So, we immediately booked a table. It is a small, fixed price menu spot in Shoreditch, but it’s quite a good value for money, and even on a rainy Wednesday night, this place was totally packed.  Always good news.

Screen on the Green: Speaking of movies, we have an annual membership to Everyman Cinemas, a small group of funky cinemas that have the most comfortable seating, reserved seats for all movies and a long food and drink menu.  It’s definitely a good place to spend an evening.  And so unique to this place. One location is a three minute walk from our flat, so we’re trying to get the most out of our membership now that the days are short and the nights dark and long.The School of Life: My inner geek emerges.  I have been meaning to go to a class at the School of Life all year and finally did it.  I went to a class on Ambition, but they offer tons of interesting classes, from finding your true calling, to shyness, to how to live more mindfully.  It’s a fairly academic setting I suppose, but it definitely helps satisfy my need for education and being ‘in class’ a fairly severe personality quirk that was not satisfied by 7+ years of higher education.Ben Sherman: This is a clothing shop for men (well, they do have some womens’ clothes but the location near us is just men).  It’s classic Brit style with layered tweed, crazy socks and skinny ties. They also have one very unfortunate windbreaker jacket thing that I swear must have been just found in a closet circa 1986. Drew stocked up on some cool weather clothes here a couple weeks back. Great stuff, high quality, local.

Moxon’s: A new fish shop in our area, which is a closer walk than Steve Hatt and is a pretty good value. If I work from home, I will walk over on my lunch break to grab some fish for dinner. This week, two good size fillets were only £5, which is a pretty good value.

London Film Festival: Wow, three mentions of films in one single post. I just had to mention this because it was really fun.  The London Film Festival is a couple of weeks long and you can get tickets to various movies around town.  We went and saw ‘Wild’ which is a new film coming out with Reese Witherspoon (I love the book too) in January or February. We went to the European premiere, so we got to walk on the actual red carpet and walked by Reese herself.  It was nutty.And finally, a few books! These are not London specific, but I’m a pretty voracious reader.  In September I read four books in a row that I absolutely loved.  That never happens.  Add them to your list:

• Where’d You Go, Bernadette?
• The Happiness of Pursuit
• All the Light We Cannot See
• We are All Completely Beside Ourselves