Didn’t really sleep in as it is much lighter here in the mornings but we didn’t exactly leap out of bed either as Jeremy brought us a cuppa in ‘bed’ and we checked emails etc with Martin snuggled up in the duvet between us. His long legs means he takes up a lot more of the bed than Bonnie does! We eventually got up and G&J made us eggs, bacon and muffins for breakfast while we read the Saturday morning Guardian –we are being spoilt rotten. We were absolutely happy to just ‘go with the flow’ today and it was so nice not to have to be anywhere or to do anything or to have to read a map or tourist guide. We took Martin with us and sauntered off to through the ‘housing estate’ section of Bermondsey to the little markets that have opened up under the arches of the train line into London Bridge. Lots of artisan bakers, butchers and cheesemongers who apparently supply to Southwark restaurants. They have all relocated from a weekend market near Waterloo which has become too overpriced and crowded thanks to a few ‘celebrity chefs’ and newspaper articles that have identified them as the place to go for gourmet produce. Jeremy bought a sour dough loaf for our dinner tonight and we had a coffee at a bean roasting place before walking up to Bermondsey Street proper.
Today is the Bermondsey Street festival so the street was cordoned off and every local community group and shop had stalls lining the pavement. Bermondsey Street is actually along the same line as the original Roman Road that led in from the east into London Bridge and one of the restaurants has a glass floor where you can look down onto the foundations of an old Roman building). We wandered up and down and popped into a few shops including a designer cat and dog collar/lead shop where a fancy-schmancy collar can set you back about 80 pounds. There were lots of dogs in the store with their owners and plenty more outside wearing the collars so the store doesn’t look like going out of business any time soon. Suffice to say that we didn’t buy one for Bonnie or Ducati though! They are certainly a lot more liberal about allowing dogs places in Europe – basically Martin can go anywhere with Glen and Jeremy – shops, bars, trains, buses – just not into anywhere that serves food.
We eventually headed towards a big grassed square along the road which was filled with tents selling food and drinks. A whole suckling pig roasting on a spit threw a thin aromatic trail of smoke across the crowd of people sitting at tables and chairs enjoying the autumn sunshine. We nabbed a table and sat down for deliciously refreshing bottle of Stella Artois cider (comes in pint bottles!) and fed Martin the ice cubes out of the plastic cups. We had him looking beautiful and topped up with doggie treats as we had him entered in the ‘most handsome dog’ section of the afternoon dog show. Unfortunately he was up against some stiff competition including another whippet wearing a garish collar from the store we had visited early and who were sponsoring the dog show – guess which dog made it through to the top 6! We told Martin it didn’t matter and that it wasn’t his fault the judges had no taste but he did disappear under the table for a sulk whilst we had a few more drinks back at the bar. Some of Glen and Jeremy’s friends turned up and sat with us and some of their neighbours walked past and stopped and chatted so it was a very pleasant way to spend the afternoon. Most of the time there would be one plane or other flying overhead and Glen had an application on his phone that allowed him to track it and tell us what it was so we welcomed various planes into Heathrow and London City airports. Just scary where the application shows you ALL the planes at once and you realise just how many planes are up there at once.
Eventually headed home with Robin and Ian in tow where we had a few glasses of wine and continued chatting. Couldn’t convince them to stay for tea though as they thought they had imposed enough which was a shame as they really missed out. Jeremy made a fantastic lemon and chicken pasta which we had with the sour dough bread and for dessert Jeremy had prepared home- made vanilla icecream which we had with a GIANT meringue which had strawberry syrup (jam? Fruit?) through it to give it lovely pink swirls and flavouring – will try and reproduce one at home as it was REALLY yummy. Larry just can’t resist walking past a bakery that sells them!
We watched a bit of ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and another episode of Doctor Who (they are all saved on G&J’s clever telly) and then went to bed but not straight to sleep as we were all suffering from a massive sugar rush. J
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