london - day 5 - borough'ed time

this started out to be a very relaxing day. we had breakfast:



we took the tube to go shopping:



we bought more macarons:



(flavours from left: mint, coffee, orange flower, bergamot, lemongrass, pistachio)

we meandered through the park and watched part of the bike portion of a women's triathalon:



then i lost my sweet and innocent G10 somewhere... and eventually found it again:



and all of a sudden, the day sped up. we had wasted a lot of time retracing our steps. luckily, i had isolated two stores at which i could have left my camera so it didn't take too long to find it; however, it was 1-2 hours that we desperately needed on our last full day in london. after this, it felt like we were on borrowed time. we took the tube to the tower bridge and practically ran across.



we hurried because i wanted to go to borough market. i knew it sold food but i didn't know it would have so much prepared food! it was nearly 5 p.m. - closing time - so thank goodness i quickly spied exactly what i wanted to eat: raclette. picture boiled potatoes with gherkins and pickled onions... aaand slathered in ogleshield raclette, "a semi-hard washed rind cheese made with raw jersey milk by the montgomerys in north cadbury, somerset" and matured by the owner in bermondsey. so i paid my £5 to the kappacasein stall and we sat outside the southwark cathedral for a little picnic.



the boy thought the cheese was so stinky (i thought it wasn't too bad) but ate huge mouthfuls of it all the same. he does this funny, involuntary thing - he closes one eye when he eats something sour so i readied my camera as he took a big bite of raclette, complete with gherkin and pickled onion.



after the raclette, we ate handcooked crisps from marks & spencer: i had chosen sea salt and balsamic vinegar and the boy had chosen taw valley cheddar and caramelised shallots. made in norfolk! i don't know where that is but it must be impressive since they put it right on the front of the bag. when we were sufficiently stuffed, we walked along the river bank and took silly photos.


(images courtesy of the boy)

the sky was amazing again so i took quite a number of photos. i am really into photos of the sky with a dot of bird. it makes me feel carefree.



we then went to the tate modern to check out some picasso paintings. we aspired to paint like him and said we would when we got home but of course we haven't yet.


(leftmost image: "nude woman in a red armchair" 1932, rightmost image: "the three dancers" 1925; images courtesy of the boy and the tate modern)

the boy was being very bad and kept sticking his fave in front of my camera (as i usually do to him).



when we were done, we crossed the millenium bridge again and tried to take photos of a seagull as he flew away except that he wouldn't fly away. after about 5-10 minutes, we decided to move on. we went to check out st. paul's cathedral and then headed back to the hotel. it was a long and exhausting day. we bought lemonade and nibbles and snacked at the hotel for the rest of the evening. we were still full from the raclette.