Wandering the City

As you know, she arrived today, and the trooper only took a one hour nap on arrival. That means Melissa beat Meredith, Adam, Matt and Jess in terms of sleep vs London sight seeing on the first day. Roar!

We set out to do the ‘History and Mystery’ walk of the area around Tower Hill. It is relatively close to my home and was new ground for me.

Here we start at Tower of London, where it is rumoured there are ravens, crown jewels, and also lots of wind.

This is trinity house, which was the head organisation for lighthouse keepers and other mercantiles.

At All Hallows of the Tower church Melissa did a brass rubbing of a unicorn and I helped! I thought it was an amazing souvenir.

These sculptures commemorate the end of the trans-continental slave trade and are in the garden of where once stood St Gabriel Fen Church. It was there that I found a labyrinth. Not seven stage.

Leadenhall Market. iPhone does not do it justice.

After visiting three terra cotta demons, Melissa balanced out her shadow side by perching on the stairs of St Michaels church.

Melissa found Bank and the Bank of London.

Last photo stop- St Pauls Cathedral. We also crossed the millennium bridge past Tate modern, Shakespeare’s globe and then ate Indian on my tastecard ( and melissa’s treat- thanks love!)

She’s here!!!

Woke up at seven am this morning to journey to gatwick where I found a pretty blonde toting an 11 lbs suitcase.

Expats and pottery

Melissa over at wanderlust took on the task of organising a second round of London expat blogger meetup. She had an urge to treat her creative side, and final decision for activity was an afternoon at biscuit ceramic cafe in Greenwich.

Population count: two Canadians, an American, a German, and a South African. All painting pots.

That’s my carafe in the foreground in sketch-phase.

This is the jug after it was painted with undercoat. It has to be kiln fires then i can pick it up next week. Pictures to come.

Oh and yes I did find some steak and ale pie.

(it was very sunny yesterday, don’t mind the squint!)

Walking Kings Lynn

As we were unable to see Sea Henge, we opted to make the most of kings Lynn. What we found was a beautiful little town teeming in history. It was originally a port for Germans and some of the building went back to the 1260s!

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If you can’t see the slideshow, you can view the images here: West Norfolk

Quay-side Kings Lynn

While re-planning our Kings Lynn trip, we found a few good photo ops…

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Kings Lynn – Where Sea Henge Isn’t.

Jen discovers BC as Captain Jen Vancouver

August 29 is a bank holiday here in the UK. It was also Jen’s second last weekend in jolly old, so we felt it was a necessity to escape the city.

Originally, Jen wanted to see the Giant’s Causeway or Bruges, or Scotland, or Brussels, or Channel Islands or Wales… none of those panned out. Reality check: you’ve gotta book bank holiday trips well in advance because everyone and their Mother is planning to get the h$@& outta dodge and escape The Big Smoke. But Jen, being a problem-solving Social Worker, did some digging and unearthed an attraction that she’s mentioned on a few previous occassions.

SEA HENGE

She explains:

Unlike Stonehenge, Sea Henge is made from wood… really old wood. It is from the Bronze Age and can be found in the West Norfolk area.

Excitedly, Jen also found a train to a nearby town – Kings Lynn – and we booked ourselves into the Duke’s Head Hotel. Sorted. We’re off to Kings Lynn to see some submerged wooden history.

Ready to blog.

9:10 am – King’s Cross. We board our train on our way to Norfolk county. No thatched roofs, by the way.

10:50 am – Arrival at King’s Lynn station. We walk to the hotel through empty streets and arrive at the rear of the Duke’s Head. It looks like a converted council office. Not a good sign. We were too early for our room… off to the high street to kill some time.

11:15 am – Jen avoids spending a lot at Primary. I fail at the same task. But do you like my new “author” costume?

11:35 am – Mission: find a good British pie. The barmaid at the village local informs us they don’t serve food, despite the permanent sign out front advertising Sunday Lunch. We are forced to eat at “The Silver Spoon Diner.” No pie. Refer to previous post. To summarize – food failure.

1:00 pm – A visit to the tourist information centre reveals that Sea Henge is no longer located in the sea. Good news: Sea Henge has been relocated to the Lynn Museum, saving us the journey to Holme Next the Sea. Bad news: the Museum is closed on Sundays and Mondays – the entire duration of our trip.

Quelle surprise! May we say – internet, you have let us down. However, we are two spry young women in a pretty town that is proud of it’s link to Canada. We can blend in. We can rock it. Bring on the self-guided walking tour, Captain George Vancouver.

Cap'n Vancouver - hailing from Kings Lynn he discovered BC, then promptly left.

Still not pie

A month ago I realised that I had yet to order pie (a savoury main course dish) since arriving in England. It’s said to be very good, and since then I’ve been on a mission to eat a good pie.

With the number of pubs scattered about, I thought it’d be easy. Pie is a traditional British meal, is it not? If so, why has it been so impossible to find a restaurant with pie on the menu?

I’ve looked in kings Lynn, Hunstanton, blackheath and Greenwich. Restaurants in London have offered no joy either.

Last weekend I thought I might have been close when I ordered this puffy pastry filled with mushroom and camembert. I can’t remember the name of it but guess what? It definitely wasn’t pie!

Gimme pie.

Not for social workers

No coloured pencils for social workers… This window was found in Shad Thames and belongs to people with cool jobs in design. Wish I could have a window with coloured pencils… Or maybe even my own desk.

Crafty folk invade The Thames Festival

Leave it to Mrs. Brenda Braun to find the coolest things to do in London, even though she’s half-way around the world in her studio back in Palmyra, Ontario. Being an active Etsy-er, she came across an Etsy event right near me! Etsy does the Thames Festival.
I didn’t get to follow much of The Craft Trail, but what I did see was enough to inspire me to find some classes… or at least try to find some if I can afford the tuition. Oh to be back in printmaking! And to crochet again!!! Check out these beauts…

Biba’s Tea Party and Louise Graham had a really neat little cafe set up selling tea cakes and cup cakes and tea and their neat-o wares.

There were other displays too – the ramblers were there with info on their walking clubs, and Lindsay got reinsured to kayak… And might have a partner over water in me. And then there were the dancers – apparently they were offering free lessons!

Lindsay and I had enough time to try some coconut milk from a man with hundreds of coconuts and a machete.

Next year I’ll make sure I get to see the whole festival – I missed the fireworks and parade. Thanks Brenda for recommending I go!

The boy who lived; and filmed in London

Court building from Bridget Jones

Back in 2008, in the days of ‘Robbie and JR Do Ireland’, we had planned a trip to England and Scotland to see some sights. It would be a whirlwind voyage, of course, but I had full intentions of visiting some of the film spots of the various Harry Potter movies. As you may remember, the trip ended approximately one month earlier than originally planned, so Harry was put on hold during my reprieve in Canadia.

Not long ago, whiling away time between applying for job postings, Jen and I hit up a few HP keysites. Remember The Millenium Bridge, The Harrow School, The Infirmary, and of course, Platform 9 3/4? I had found a free Harry Potter walking tour, and it only took six months to get around to it; London is  a busy place for a Social Worker!

Without further ado, here is a brief snapshot of the spots on our walk through Harry Potter’s London…

We started in Borough Market, under the bridge where they filmed a scene with the Knight Bus, as it pulls up to the Leaky Cauldron. Obviously the did a lot of work to the outside – this is actually a flower shop.

A bit of a disappointment, but it gave our visitor Natalie a chance to see the famous market, and the rest of us the opportunity to try Goats Milk Ice Cream. Delicious!

Natalie, Lindsay, and Jen at Leadenhall Market

Over London Bridge (not to be confused with Tower Bridge), we walked past Monument on our way to Leadenhall Market. This is one of the locations of Diagon Alley. It is also the location of The Leaky Cauldron from one of the films. Again, a lot of changes would have been required to turn this into the building seen in the movie.

It was nearing food time, and being so close to prime London grub, we stopped at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese for a drink. This is said to be the oldest pub in London, and it certainly looks that way as visitors navigate the twists and turns of the stairs. It’s reputed to be haunted, and has hosted many famous diners over its time as a pub.

I had been wanting to visit the Twinings Museum for a while, and as we just happened to be walking past it on our way to Covent Garden, we popped in to check it out. Not so much museum as store, I was underwhelmed, but the tea-lovers in the party seemed to enjoy themselves.

Another historic pub, The George Inn is nestled nearly on the border of Fleet Street and The Strand. They serve a good roast platter – ask Matt and Jess about that one. We hit Temple Church and also saw Sweeney Todd’s building.

Our dinner reservations were for 6:45 in Covent Garden,  giving us just enough time to visit the last stop on the Harry Potter Walking Tour – the other Diagon Alley (the first being Leadenhall Market).

It was a winding bout of streets – cobblestone of course – that we navigated with the trusty help of my iPhone, but we found out way eventually.

Diagon Alley?

We had to walk through the second photo to get to the supposed location for Diagon Alley. If you ask me, photo two looks more Harry Potter-like. Perhaps Knockturn Alley?

Knockturn Alley?