One morning after dropping Cameron and Eli off at school my mom and I took the train to London Bridge and walked to Borough Market.  A few people had suggested it and they both said to go hungry.  

We got there fairly early so all the vendors weren’t up and running yet but we perused and sampled and tried a few things.  Some bread, some macarons, some cheeses.  The kids had some fruit too and I had a slow roasted salted pork sandwich with mustard that wasn’t like any mustard I’d ever had.  It all looked and smelled so good. Okay there were some things that didn’t look good, but to each her own…

After we left the market we realized Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre wasn’t too far away so we decided to walk to see it. Along the way we came upon a full-sized reconstruction of the Golden Hinde- the ship that Sir Frances Drake used to sail around the globe from 1577-80.  

“The vast treasures he brought back, taken from the Spanish, wrote off the English national debt and made Drake one of the richest men in England.”   No wonder the Queen knighted him.  

Last Christmas we knew about our plans to move to London so we bought each of the kids a British-related Christmas gift.  We bought Simon a Paddington bear and a few of the Paddington books.  He loves them, and so when we saw this Paddington book bench he lit up like a flashlight.  

We had a really nice walk along the Thames to get to the theatre and we passed this quote.  I’ve never seen a river in a city that had anything besides mucky, muddy brown water, but I still love the Thames and the dozens of bridges that cross her.  And I maintain that peace can be found on the banks of even muddy and mucky rivers.  

On our walk we also passed “The Clink” dungeon prison.  I’ve never heard someone refer to a prison as a clink, but my mom says her parent’s used to call it that all the time.  Well this is the original Clink- and I read just enough about it to be pretty sure I don’t need to come back and tour it.  (More torture and such. Those medievals I tell you were a cruel lot.)

This is the reconstructed Shakespeare Globe Theatre.  (The original was burned down and then after being rebuilt was later destroyed again during the Civil War in 1644.)   We didn’t have the time or the attention span of Mim and Simon to take a tour but my mom looked around a bit while the kids and I walked by the river.  

Then we walked back to the train station and bought some drinks for a relaxing ride back to Lewisham.  Both my mom and I were amazed at all the things you can find in London without even looking.