United Kingdom 2015/16 - Flight in and Day One

My God, I don't think it's possible to feel more tired. We left home at 7.45am on the 10th of December, and I'm writing this at 3.55pm in London, meaning we've not rested in over 40hours. I have vertigo. However, we've had a fantastic start to our trip. As we arrived well before check in, rather than sit in the hotel, we're right next to the Portobello Rd markets, so we decided to see how much we could explore. They are fantastic - I've already bought four dresses, three scarves and a pair of boots, and we saw pretty much everything. The prices range from very cheap (10 pounds for a dress) to very expensive (850 pounds for an antique cane) and all manner of things in between. The markets are a delightful mix of established clothing and antique stores, hipster eateries, old pubs, bric a brack stalls, vintage clothing shops and stalls, fresh produce and street food.




We had some lovely pastries and coffee in Second Cup, and then Andrew had a pie, mash and mushy peas with gravy from the most British eatery I could imagine - white and green tiles, washing dishes behind the counter, with an owner who sounded like Rose's mum, whose son was in the back making the mash. Delightful :) We visited virtually every shop and stall, finding a beautiful stall specialising in movable type and printing press decorative stamps - needless to say, much time was spent perusing the beautiful items. A few observations so far include: We both keep giggling at the accents, we watch too much British television and, as a result, we associate certain accents with comedy, regardless of the content of the conversation. Dogs appear to be more welcome here, with many of them being allowed in shops, and most of them are in jackets. Finally, where we're staying is both beautiful and insanely well-off, we counted no less than four Porches, one Aston, numerous Range Rovers and one Rolls Royce in less than 100m.




I think we'll go back to Portobello Rd tonight for tea, but right now it's time to have at least and hour or two of sleep as we're both virtually delirious at this point. We'll try to keep everyone updated here on the blog :)

- Jess





We didn't go back out. We just slept from 3pm until 7:33 am.



- Andrew