London – Day 2

(To email subscribers of the blog – apparently the email version of the blog is not showing all the photos posted.  I create groupings of photos in what WordPress calls a gallery.  The photo galleries seem not to be included in the email version of the post.  Therefore, in order to see all the photos you’ll need to go to the browser version of the blog at https://www.adventuresctlb.com.  Sorry for this inconvenience.  I’ll try to figure out another way to post multiple photos.)

We had a lovely day today, Sunday March 20th, with Eve.  Eve and Christine had arranged to meet up this morning to go to the pool.  Eve was anxious to show her mom this beautiful old building where the pool is located.  The Paddington Central Baths building was built in 1926 and was a very elaborate building featuring a double-height entrance hall.

Christine and I first walked around the corner to the neighborhood Starbucks and had coffee and our peanut butter rice cakes.  We then walked over to the bus stop near St. John’s Wood tube station.  We got on the 187 bus to Eve’s.

As I mentioned, one purchases an Oyster card, which is a plastic smartcard used to pay for the metro transport. You can “refill” the card at any tube station.  It is the only way to pay for bus and tube fare.  When you get on the bus you place your Oyster card on this yellow circle and it subtracts the fare from your card.  Pretty easy way to do bus fare!

Eve and Christine raced off to catch another bus to the pool.  I stayed at Eve’s apartment to work on yesterday’s blog post.  Here’s a photo of Christine at the place where the pool is in the beautiful entryway.

On their return from the pool, we walked over to the Queen’s Park farmers market.  This is a pretty big, and very nice, weekly farmers market.  You can get all sorts of items including organic produce and meats, a myriad of international foods, cheeses, ciders, crafts and various other things.  The market runs all year round.  The market was crowded with lots of families and people doing their weekly shopping.

Eve’s favorite stall is the Pie Emporium where one can purchase all types of quiches and meat and vegetable pies.  Christine was in heaven because they had a steak and kidney pie.  She has a childhood remembrance of loving steak and kidney pie.  So that’s what she got.  I had a quiche Lorraine and Eve got a cheddar and onion pie.

Scrumptous pies!

After the market, we strolled over to Queen’s Park, a very nice park.  We sat and enjoyed watching the families walking in the park.  There were lots of daffodils in bloom.  The Queen’s Park high street (every neighborhood and town has what’s referred to as a high street where the main shopping area is – what I’d refer to as “the main drag” in American vernacular) was fun to walk through.  It was a bustling area, even on a Sunday.  All the shops were open and lots of people were milling about.

We got back to Eve’s apartment for a yummy lunch of our pies and a great salad that Eve prepared.  We then headed off towards Little Venice where we wanted to take a canal boat tour.  On the way, we stopped at a really nice nursery, Clifton Nurseries, where there was an amazing selection of plants, shrubs and trees for sale. Eve wanted to go to the Quince Café there for tea, but they were too crowded.  We did find the Waterside Café at Little Venice.  The café is housed in a moored longboat, which was really cool to go into.  We sat in the longboat sipping our tea and watching the goings on around Little Venice.

At 3:00 we boarded the London Waterbus boat for a trip to Camden Lock.  It was fun being on the canal and going past all the moored longboats.  We passed by where we walked yesterday.  In my post yesterday I had 3 photos of very large houses along the canal.  We learned today that those are foreign embassies.  Our tour was about 45 minutes long and we ended up at Camden Lock.

The Camden Lock area is this very crowded marketplace where there again are a myriad of international food stalls and all kinds of shops selling probably anything you could imagine.  Being Sunday, the crowds were out in full force.  The market is several blocks in area and it surely is a happening place.  Lots to see and do!

Camden market

Camden market

Chinese restaurant

Indian good shops

We also actually saw Camden Lock in action.  The canal lock takes boats up and down about 15 feet or so.  We watched a tour boat lower in the lock and had a great view from a bridge crossing over the canal.

Downstream side of lock

Boat being lowered

Lock gate opening

We then caught a bus back to Eve’s apartment.  By late afternoon, Christine and I were starting to feel our jet lag and so we said goodbye to Eve for the day and bussed back to the St. John’s Wood high street.  We picked up a takeaway dinner from Pret Manger and returned to our room.  We had a tasty dinner.  We’re now just relaxing in our room.  I’m sure we won’t be awake too much longer.  So ends day 2 of our time in London.