Londinium

When Bob's alarm went off this morning, BBC1 radio announced that the day was going to be so rainy and windy that it wouldn't be worth leaving the house. Well, we proved them wrong--the day was rainfree and definitely in the spirit of an adventure! We started off by going to the Islington Farmers' Market (nice produce and very tempting soups) and then headed over to the Columbia Road Flower Market. On our way over to Columbia Road, I noticed a pretty message made out of plastic cups on a barbed-wire fence:

In July 2005 when we last visited the flower market, Bob asked, "Why are we going to a flower market?" Well, he soon learned that it's not only about flowers; numerous shops selling food, crafts, furniture, and miscellaneous goodies open on Sunday and the street fills with the spirit of a true market: local, one-of-a-kind goods, and a lot of people (and dog!) watching.
I was tempted by the freesia, tulips, lilies, and dahlias, but decided to wait until next time. "Any three bunches for a fiver!" this particular man sings. Toward the end of the market day, things get marked down and some of his flowers sell for four bunches for £5. During the hour or so that we were there, we wandered through the shops,
saw a dining table we wanted (so great! so expensive!) had some wonderful coffee, and sampled a lot of cheese. Oh and remember that dog-watching I mentioned? Some of London's finest were out this morning:

Just as we were leaving the market, I noticed this empty ground-floor space--well, almost empty. There were two very cute inhabitants that I wanted to take home.

After we left the market, we decided to check out a few east-end galleries. Now, in Vancouver, galleries tend to be well-signed and easy to access. In contrast, we had a comically enjoyable day of searching out addresses (they don't always follow in logical order), wandering down seemingly-deserted streets to find galleries in the oddest places (a second-floor space behind a gate off the street it was supposed to be on; behind an unsigned door that was connected by pulleys to a bucket that moved up and down to open a trap door at the back of the gallery space ("Do you keep bad artists down there?" Bob asked. "Yes, AND IT'S FULL!" the man chortled); and on the second floor of a building full of artists' studios, whose address on "The Oval" turned out to be some sort of parking lot in the middle of a completely deserted roundabout). In all cases, we were either buzzed into spaces that didn't appear to be galleries on the outside or people appeared out of nowhere to escort us up to the unsigned gallery spaces. This exhibit was an overwhelming installation that filled the entire room--every landlord's nightmare!

And this gathering of Danish pieces was filled with many tenants' (including mine) dream furniture. It was all for sale at the high prices you would expect of Arne Jacobsen and his ilk. This gallery crammed a whole lot of art into a tiny space. These poodles were my favourite: if you activated the motion sensor, the dogs' tails went into a wagging frenzy until you moved out of the sensor's range. It made it quite difficult to walk away!

Even the galleries that were listed as open, but turned out to be closed because of electricity problems or plain old unannounced holidays were good parts of today's adventure because they led us down streets we wouldn't otherwise have gone. The area around Brick Lane market was especially wonderful, full of great shops and food (we had the best lox and cream cheese bagels and may have to try the salt beef and mustard ones next time), and we'll make a point of coming to Brick Lane earlier next time, since we just caught the end of the market itself. Our last stop for the day was the free Museum of London, which is well worth a visit if you're at all interested in cities in general, and/ or London in particular. Their current exhibition, Belonging: The Voices of London's Refugees, was the main reason I was interested in going, but the rest of the museum turned out to be equally engaging. Here is my current location, as compiled in the 3rd century: Londinium! It has quite the ring to it, doesn't it? This was one of the most interesting maps on display:

"Vicious, semi-criminal," indeed! Speaking of which, my one complaint about the presentation at the museum is that most of the maps (note that the museum isn't just limited to maps; there are plenty of interactive and imaginative installations which I highly recommend) are hung very high on the walls. In fact, I couldn't even see more than halfway up many of them, especially in the dark lighting that was obviously meant to preserve fragile ink and colour. Now I know some of you may be thinking that today's post is a repeat of my recent Disneyland lament, but for a museum claiming to be all about London, this is one Londoner (dare I call myself that yet?) who couldn't fully participate in learning more about this city that I at least temporarily call home. Still, for a day that was deemed one for staying in, we covered a lot of ground, jumped on and off a lot of buses, and saw more of this fascinating, intricate city: a very good end to the weekend.