I'll go back to Tuesday the 8th, also known as Shrove Tuesday, when Kristen met me after work at the Breakfast Club in Soho for a meal of pancakes, which is apparently what people do on Shrove Tuesday. Afterwards, we had to get over to Camden to see Iron and Wine play at the Roundhouse. They were an eight piece band and worked remarkably well together, sounding different to their recorded material and jamming out a few songs with their saxophonist taking the spotlight a few times. There was even a ten minute long jam in there on one song, which seemed to confuse a lot of the crowd, but I loved it - how often do we get a good jam these days?
Anyhow, that was a couple weeks ago now and life has been sailing along at a fair clip, not allowing too many chances for reflection. The days are slowly but surely getting longer and the trees are blooming already. For the first time in almost 12 months, Summer is on its way.
We were treated to a beautiful day yesterday, Saturday. Kristen and I caught the tube to Holland Park (we were originally planning to walk there) and walked from there to Notting Hill Gate. That area is always crazy on a Saturday morning and bustling with tourists, all speaking a hundred different languages and walking at a snail's pace. Nothing makes you feel like a local more than seeing the tourist you were just a short time ago reflected in these people.
I feel sometimes the only good thing about a market here is the food that can be found. Portobello Road market seems to have a thing for antiques, but I find myself wondering how authentic these all are. Perhaps this market in particular preys on the tourists and in being such a affluent area, the prices reflect that. The clothes market is great, but you have to look very hard indeed to find any sort of a bargain.
I bought myself a nice leather satchel and then we visited the original Hummingbird cafe, which sells those amazing treats undreamed of in Wellington. Seriously NZ, you're missing out on some treats - there's nothing I can even begin to compare with the array of sweet, creamy and sugary patisserie delights to be found here. We also found a very good German food wagon which sold us a massive schnitzel in a bun which was more than enough for two.
We reached the top, quiet end of the road and instead of turning around, we decided to try and get lost. We walked in the general direction of Hyde Park through the twisted warren of streets, eventually finding it - along with half of London. It's no wonder that the park is so popular on a day like that as they really are quite rare. Still, there was plenty of space to sit down on the grass and bask in the sun and relax for a while. Check out these crazy cars we saw on the way over to the park:
We wandered through the park for a while, taking in the Albert memorial and the Princess Di memorial fountain. We made it all the way to Marble Arch where there are some strange new sculptures of Jelly Babies and a horse's head. We walked on down Park Lane and a short way up Picadilly before conceding defeat and heading home.
Today was not quite as insane, though we did head all the way up to Acton central on foot. We've lived in Acton for a while now and never bothered to go over, which makes sense having seen it as it's not a lot to write home about. We caught the 207 bus all the way back down the road to Westfield Shepherd's Bush, which is actually worth going to. I'll post some pictures of the sculptures down below.
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