Spring is here and everyone is out

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What a joy the last couple of days have been, particularly yesterday. Spring is firmly here in Chislehurst with some much needed sun for everyone. Whilst a cold fog lingered about on Wednesday, yesterday was glorious, so good in fact that the Friends of Chislehurst Recreation Ground ventured back out to the Rec yesterday to carry on with some bits of work.

The WSJ just reported the highest price ever paid for modern art at auction.

While equities, gold, bitcoin hover near highs, the art market is showing signs of early recovery after one of the longest downturns since the 1990s.

Here’s where it gets interesting→

Each investing environment is unique, but after the dot com crash, contemporary and post-war art grew ~24% a year for a decade, and after 2008, it grew ~11% annually for 12 years.*

Overall, the segment has outpaced the S&P by 15 percent with near-zero correlation from 1995 to 2025.

Now, Masterworks lets you invest in shares of artworks featuring legends like Banksy, Basquiat, and Picasso. Since 2019, investors have deployed $1.25 billion across 500+ artworks.

Masterworks has sold 25 works with net annualized returns like 14.6%, 17.6%, and 17.8%.

Shares can sell quickly, but my subscribers skip the waitlist:

Skip waitlist

_{*Per Masterworks data. Investing involves risk. Past performance not indicative of future returns. Important Reg A disclosures: masterworks.com/cd}

I’m conscious it’s another coffee shop recommendation this week but I’ve moved office and am exploring all the new local options. This week I managed to get to Nagare on Brushfield Street next to Spitalfields Market. This coffee shop comes well recommended by those in the know, and indeed, the coffee did not disappoint. But whilst the building looks amazing and evokes a past era of Dickensian East London, its pretty small inside, so dont come expecting to sit down.

The Chislehurst Events Calendar for 2026 recently came out and it’s great to see so many wonderful events planned. First up, is the Easter Trail from the Chislehurst Society at St Nicks Church.

Now that we have entered the dizzy heights of spring, Board & Barrel on the High Street have announced that they are opening their roof top patio. As the nights get longer and the temperature warmer, it’s a great spot to take a drink and look over the hub-bub of the High Street and the ponds beyond. I’ll have a French 75 if you’re buying.

Many of us commute from Chislehurst up to the City or perhaps did so once upon a time, and I think we can all recognise that at times it gets buys. Based on the last couple of Thursday’s it’s far to say the City has been packed. I think a combination of many firms asking staff to be back in the office 4 days a week, if not 5, and the improving weather appears to have bought everyone back into the City. That said, we are pretty lucky we don’t need to catch the train from the country’s busiest train station, Liverpool St. The scene I happily walked past on my way from the office tonight was carnage.

Still on the theme of commuting, have you heard that the line between London Charing Cross and Waterloo East will be closed from Sunday 26 July to Sunday 16 August 2026. Meaning that no trains will call at either of those stations for three weeks. Time to plan ahead.

See you next, Friday!
Simon

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