Our first days in Londinium

We arrived on a Thursday, and I didn't have to start work 'til the Tuesday - so we had a bit of time to wander around the city, which we discovered to have been formerly known as Londinium. Around the area we were staying in (Barbican, and the Square Mile) there were bits and pieces left over from Roman times - like... a wall (I guess you really have to be there).

We found a Marks and Spencer, where we discovered that chicken was by far the most affordable meat (if you can call it that) you can buy. So, we bought 1.2 kilos of it (it's even cheaper in bulk) and proceeded to make our first home-cooked meal as a married couple. All quite exciting, and the bonus was it was edible.



We also ambled down to St Paul's and the Borough Markets. St Paul's is impressive - and it really sticks out from the rest of the drab corporate buildings around it. I like the way they've designed the Millennium Bridge so that when walking from the South Bank towards the North, you get a nicely framed view of the church which makes for a good photo - but for some reason we didn't bother (which is unlike us). The picture that we did take was the memorial to the people that fought the Great Fire of London (I think...).

One day we'll have to actually go inside the church.



Borough Markets was also fun but incredibly packed out. We managed to barge our way through the crowd to get a buy a brownie from a cake stall (fantastic), and contemplated buying a pie to take home to heat up in the oven for dinner, but didn't as we couldn't tell what was inside it. Usually, that wouldn't have concerned us (what's in a meat pie? meat, right?), but since they sold so many different types of meat there from a variety of animals, it did make us think twice.

They also sell rabbits, fresh from whichever field they were happily frolicking in. Not so cute when they're strung from their hind legs...