Market, the Globe, St. Paul's. Thursday, April 17 (Chris)

Hi again,

 After my recent rant, I promise not to complain again. 

This morning we got an early start and made our way via bus to a huge and fabulous farmers market. Everything from fish, food, and vegetables were in evidence with not a tee shirt or tube sock in sight. We celebrated a belated birthday lunch for Linda, sharing two tasty but very unhealthy cheese sandwiches (see picture).

We then spilt up with Emily returning to the apartment with the food she selected for tonight's home cooked meal and heading to the Old Operating Theatre.  Linda and Chris headed over to the Tate Modern and Marg to the Globe. Plans were to meet "in the lobby" of the Tate Museum.  Seemed like a good idea at the time, but in a huge museum with multiple entrances on multiple levels, gathering was a challenge.

Having finally found one another,  we made our way home and 

were treated to a delicious dinner by our favorite chef and plotted our remaining two days in this wonderful city.

Borough Market and Dinner Thursday Evening (Emily)

We headed off to the Borough Market today for some exploration and Linda's birthday lunch - She requested grilled cheese sandwiches at Kappacasein, featured in a Samantha Brown piece on London. On the way we stopped in to see Southwark Cathedral where a young female vicar gave us one of the most gracious brush-offs I've ever experienced. She gave us a very brief orientation, offered a few interesting observations and the invited us to come back at 5:00. The reason was that they were having a special service for clergy to, in her words, "fortify them to go back to their home congregations for Good Friday and Easter". 

Once we'd recovered from the elegant bum's rush, we headed over to the Borough Market where I picked up the makings for a delicious dinner. At Noon we met for Linda's birthday grilled cheese which was thoroughly enjoyed by all - three cheeses on Poilane sourdough, cooked in a sandwich press till it's crisp on the outside and thoroughly gooey in the middle. 

Dinner later was pumpkin tortelloni with sage butter sauce and grated organic parmigiano, heirloom tomatoes with artisanal Sicilian olive oil, leeks and chanterelles sauteed in butter, and roasted local asparagus. Delicious if I do say so myself.

I seem to be having trouble uploading pictures so they'll have to come in the next post.


The old Operating Theater (Emily)

[Apologies to those following my facebook acct because this will be similar.] 

Today I visited the Old Operating Theater Museum which was part of St. Thomas' Hospital in the early 1800s.  Certainly makes one glad for our current state of medicine, imperfect though it may be.  The operating theater was tiny, lit by a skylight in day or by a two candle holder candelabra at night. The patient was given alcohol to sedate them and restrained during the procedure. The operating table was a wooden plank and the surgeon wore the same blue topcoat to every procedure. The "Rules" in some ways presage managed care in that you had to get well or get out..... And washing your hands before 

operating  was a novel idea

Dinner on the Thames, Wednesday (Chris)

Just a quick note. Em made mention of our delayed dinner last night. She was understating the situation. After waiting 45 minutes? An hour? We got our appetizers. They were ok. 35 minutes after finishing our starters, we started to inquire as to our second course. Finally, a manager type who had been going from table to table apologizing about the long delays in serving everyone arrived at our table. I was ready to leave.

... Finally we got our meal. 

A young couple next to us who were seated around the same time as we were, got their meals moments before us. They were apologizing for the terrible service and hoped we didn't think all restaurants were so poorly managed. 

Anyway, here are two of Margaret's photos from last evening. One was taken before the dinner....the other on our stroll back to the apartment.