Markets galore

I’ll make this post really really brief. I know you’re all dying to hear about Ireland and what made it so damn hilarious. But first some news from the best of London’s markets.

Amy and I got up bright and early (well, maybe 8 or 9) to make the trip to Portobello Road Markets. It was here that I discovered fantastic clothes which I could actually afford. I bought a crazy bag from a crazy Japanese lady, and an even crazier jacket which I’m still working out how to wear. No room here to describe everything I bought, but next time you see me you can probably count on the fact that I’ll be wearing something bought that day.

We met my cousin Justine at the markets. She’d just arrived in London fresh from that wonderful 24 hour flight. And straight to the shops. That’s the way.

We’d reached the far end (the antique end) of Portobello Road by mid afternoon and stumbled across a fantastic looking cake shop. It was the Alannah Hill of the cake world with pink walls, cupcakes that looked like something plastic from a dolls house and giant cheesecakes and chocolate cakes under glass lids. I never knew a cupcake could taste so good.

Saturday was my last chance to see the BP Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery so we dragged our tired bones to the other side of town for a quick viewing. We all agreed that the winning portraits didn’t excite us very much but that there were a few good ones in there including one by an Australian Ralph Heimans. You can have a look at it here. My favourite of the exhibition was probably the self-portrait by Mark Roscoe which you can have a look at here. The exhibition is a bit like Archibald really, right down to the popular voting opportunity.

That evening Amy and I (after ordering in some excellent Indian) took off to yet another end of town to see a local band play. The venue was the Half Moon in Putney and the band was Second Sun. I was quite surprised at how good they were. I don’t go for that indie-rock style of music so much these days, but seeing them made me realise that there are many bands which could be the next big thing… it just takes a good marketing campaign to make it happen.

We were kicked out of the pub at precisely midnight and proceeded to race to the station for the last train. The train was packed with jubilent people heading home, or maybe just somewhere else, after a night out. Not long before we were due to change trains a guy in a kilt came into our carriage and began playing the bagpipes. The bagpipes make such a horrible sound but in a train full of happy people it couldn’t have been more fun.

You’d think by Sunday that we’d be all marketed out. Oh no. Not when they’re this good. You may remember me going to Spitalfields markets on the previous Sunday. Well this Sunday we returned to finish the place off. My Spitalfields highlight for this particular visit probably had to have been the coconut. Yes, once again my travel blog is being dominated by food, but does anyone really mind? For a pound or two a nice gentleman with a big sword lopped the top off a coconut and a put a straw in it. Lovely.
We wandered around a little aimlessly. I had started to think that the weight of my bag was catching up with my body weight, and that my savings balance and credit balance were becoming the inverse of what they were a few weeks earlier. So I bought a very cute stripey dress for Maxie and a Japanese Radiohead album. Amy* bought a very funky and weirdly folding bag made of gorgeous Japanese fabric. I’d convinced her the week before to think over whether she needed it, so the decision only took another 20 minutes or so ;)
*Note: This is the girl who counted her shoe and bag collection for me and both counts were around 30. Keep in mind that this collection really only goes back 18 months to when she moved to London.

We met up with Justine again and headed across the road to a little caf� called S & M, or Sausage and Mash. Being the lover of mashed potato that I am, I was very excited to see the place. Good mushy peas too. It was mostly great except that I wasn’t nearly as hungry as I thought I was. Never a good idea to eat a big plate of stodgy food when all you really need is a slice of toast.

Amy and I decided to split up for a few hours with Justine following me back up to Portobello Rd to chat to someone at Rough Trade. I wanted to take advantage of all the exciting people and things I’d encounter overseas and so interviewing someone at Rough Trade about the store was one of them. Hopefully I’ll make it up into something for broadcast on FBi or anywhere else that’ll take it.

Justine and I then made a quick last stop at Selfridges because I didn’t want to leave London thinking that I should’ve gone back. There really wasn’t anything we needed to go back for so we got some perfume samples and a birthday present for Nicole then set off once again. This time for Wimbledon.

Yeah, I wish I was going to the actual Wimbledon but seeing that I didn’t book a year ago and have a few thousand pounds to spare, I had to settle for watching it on a big screen from a park near Tower Bridge. We found Amy there who had been to some sort of costume/fashion museum as well as another ex-Fox Studios employee Melissa, and her sister who had just arrived from Sydney too. We laughed at Amy for buying a silly souvenir from the museum. I can’t remember exactly what it was now… maybe an unpicker or a pair of those little sewing thread scissors. Whatever it was, we laughed while Amy tried to defend the usefulness of the object.

Oh yeah, and the tennis. The men’s final had just resumed after some rain when Justine and I had arrived. We were mostly distracted by conversation and didn’t watch much of the match between Federer and Roddick but did manage to see match point and then paid attention to the speeches. Sitting on the grass in lovely weather by the Thames and the Tower Bridge (not the London Bridge as an American tourist called it when he asked Amy to take a photo of him in front of it), was simply lovely. I think I really started to appreciate the sun when it came out from behind the clouds in London, but I do much prefer taking it for granted in a Sydney summer.

Italian dinner nearby where I spent most of the time in silence looking from a person at one end of the table to another as they discussed the finer points of daytime soapies. Possibly The Young and the Restless. Oh dear.

Once again we didn’t manage to have an early night. I interviewed Amy about what it’s like to be a primary school teacher in London, but other than that I don’t know where the evening went. Once again I’ll blame it on being fooled by too many hours of daylight.

I got up early the next morning to pack for Ireland and I even had enough time to run up to Sainsbury’s for a last potato bread and eggs breakfast. Mmm.

I obviously lied when I said I would make this post short.