Our vacation ends

May 25, 2016

Our vacation is winding down and so are we.  This vacation stuff is hard work.  The only thing on our schedulte today was meeting our friends, Clive and Angie Morris, for lunch.  We met the Morris' almost 30 years ago and every time we are in England we arrange to meet them, either here in London or at their home  outside of Eastbourne, a town situated on the English Channel coast.  We spent a lovely three hours with them, catching up on each others families, discussing our travels and theirs, and comparing notes on politics in our two countries.  The time flew by much too quickly.  After parting, we stopped at a grocery store and picked up snacks and a bottle of wine and spent the rest of the day in our apartment reading and relaxing.

On Thursday we took buses to Borough Market located on the south bank of the Thames River right next to London Bridge.  We had heard of this market and often planned to go there but this was our actual first visit.  The market was not a disappointment.  It is an open area market located below street level underneath the overpass of the street above it.  Hope that makes since.  At any rate, for several small blocks there were stalls selling all manner of food products: cheese, chocolates, meat and produce, and prepared food to eat. The food stalls were international in their presentations. There were middle eastern food stalls, a place selling German sausages, several selling Paella, a Spanish dish, lots of vegetarian options, Indian food, British food and Swiss food. We chose the Swiss with Lynda having a plate of Raclette and Tim a grilled cheese sandwich. Raclette is a type of Swiss cheese that is melted under a flame and then put on top of boiled potates in Lynda's dish today.  We have had it in restaurants in combination with bread and meat as well.  Tim's sandwich contained four different types of cheese with a leek and sweet pickle topping. Both were delicious. The market was a lot of fun and we are sure we will return to it on future trips.

From Borough Market we took the Tube to Notting Hill. We rented an apartment in Notting Hill five years ago and fell in love with the area. While there we discovered an art gallery that we really like and bought a painting that hangs at home.  Today we went back and the gallery was displaying new art by the same artist. When we travel we always carry of piece of paper with dimenions for various places in the house that need something. The pieces on display were all too big for the place we were looking to fill.  We were also shown pictures by the artist from an online catalogue but found nothing that we absolutely had to have.  The gallery took our contact information and assured us that they would contact us if they came across anything they thought we might like and we left. While waiting at a bus stop not far from the gallery, one of the representatives came running up to us and asked if we would be willing to look at a couple of more pieces.  We did and ended up buying new art work for our lower level. The Gallery poured each of us a glass of prosecco to celebrate our purchase.  It was a fitting way to end our trip.

Tonight we will probably go to a pub for dinner and pack.  Tomorrow we fly home.

Thanks to all of you who have followed along.  We hope you have enjoyed the trip as much as we have.  We look forward to talking to you in person about the trip in the near future.

Cheers!