November 11/12 - Weekend 1 of 4 to update...
What can we say? We’ve been very busy and in the list of priorities the blog went to the bottom. Based on feedback we clearly understand that our priorities should go as follows: blog, spouse, weekend time, jobs. So without further ado we present…November 11/12
Always up for a parade we went down to the Lord Mayor’s Show. It’s an annual parade that dates back almost 800 years. Each year a new Lord Mayor is appointed. During the course of his (always a male, sorry lasses) term, he chooses a charity to promote. His official responsibilities are basically to promote the city and raise awareness and funds for the charity. Did we mention that he proceeds along the parade route in a 250 year-old gilded coach, the only time it is ever out of the museum.
After fighting through the crowds along the parade route we popped down to the Borough Market. It’s a relatively small area stuffed with food stalls covering fresh oysters, butchers, cheese stalls, ethnic foods and so on and so forth. If you don’t like crowds then avoid this place on the weekends, Brian wanted to chew his own arms off it was so difficult to get through and around the market. We enjoyed our time there and promised ourselves we’d come back; early in the morning to do our fruit, veg and meat shopping.
After hours of wading through the masses off we went to Richmond and Kew Gardens. We went on a 3 mile walk suggested by one of our guide books. It was nice to have information about the many things we saw as we strolled along the river including historical royalty dwellings, 400 year old churches and more. Perhaps the best part of the whole walk was ending up in Strand-on-Green at one of the oldest pubs in the Richmond area, the City Barge.
We finished up the evening by celebrating the 30th birthday of our friend Amy. It was a small group but a good one, we had a really nice meal in Richmond. Afterwards we decided to head home, it had been a long day and going out on the piss until all hours was just not in the cards. As if we needed any support of this decision, on the walk back to the tube we watched an extremely drunk 40 something year old man skipping down the sidewalk with his mates when he caught his feet and fell face first onto the pavement. With the night ending in bloodshed we headed home for some much needed sleep. To all you 40+ year olds reading this blog a word to the wise, don’t get really drunk and skip down the street, nothing good can come of it…
Compared to Saturday, Sunday was completely uneventful. We had a bit of a lie in, as you do cheeky buggers. We paid a visit to a friend of Brian’s from his last stint in London. Wayne and his recent fiancée Clare live out in Windsor, home to the Queen’s favorite residence, Windsor Castle. We walked around the town for a bit to get the lay of the land, popped into a couple of retail shops (Brian’s idea of course) and took some photos of the outside of the Castle, we promised to return when we had more time. We then headed to Wayne’s local for a few pints and a game or two of darts. True to form Brian’s mouth was going better than his actual ability to play darts, it certainly didn’t help matters that Wayne plays in a pub darts league. Final score: Wayne 5 – Brian 0.
Deciding to make it an early evening we hopped on the train and went back into London. Rather than deal with the hassle of making dinner we sampled some of the finest Thai food on offer in Islington. Hmmmm, how best to describe this particular meal, tasty, sumptuous, well presented, nay how about HOT!!! This particular meal was face meltingly, intestinally torching, spouse preferring to sleep in another room spicy hot. So when you all come to visit and we suggest Thai? It’s because you’ve wronged us in the past and this is payback…and so another weekend comes to a close.
posted by Brian and Kirsten Hennigan @ Wednesday, December 06, 2006
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