I'd booked my tickets in advance and somehow managed to get first class return tickets for £28 - I have no idea how! I think it was probably so cheap because of the engineering works - instead of the usual train straight through to Liverpool Street from Norwich, I got a train to Ipswich, then a bus to Billericay and then another train to Liverpool Street. Blinking palaver! But very scenic!
Once at Liverpool Street, it was just a fifteen minute walk to Whitechapel Station, where I'd arranged to meet Andy to get the hotel key. The above picture shows the job that Andy's working on at the moment.
And this is one of a handful of huge cranes they're using.
Whitechapel High Street was full of market stalls selling the most beautiful fabrics and scarves - but I was very restrained - only because I was conscious that, on Monday morning, I'd have to walk back to Liverpool Street and didn't want to carry too much stuff!
Urgh, the smell of this fish stall was rather overwhelming!
Our hotel was on the Whitechapel Road right next door to a mosque, where camera crews had taken up residence to report on three local schoolgirls who had absconded to Syria. Unnerving stuff. The plan was that I would run back to the hotel, dump my stuff and then come back to meet Andy at 5.30 pm as we were off to see the Man City v Newcastle game with Ronnie, one of his Geordie workmates, in the pub.
This is the view from our room! When I got back to Andy's, I was so excited about the view - apparently Andy had dumped his bag so quickly in the room before going back to work at lunchtime, that he hadn't even seen the view, so was as surprised as I was delighted with it!
Obviously the room provided endless photo opportunities for the whole weekend, including practising with my super zoomy camera!
After the football, we headed to an amazing restaurant - Tayyabs - which apparently was THE place to be seen. The queues! We probably only had to queue for about fifteen minutes before being shown to the smallest table in the world in the window, and I think we only probably got that as there were just two of us. Those parties of four or more were waiting much longer - at one point there must have been about fifty people queueing, and, in fact, they were hanging around outside the front door on the road too. Well worth it though - wonderful food. (At this point, my 'phone battery had got so low that the flash wasn't working, which is why there are no pictures!) Really popular restaurant - deservedly so.
Andy had an early start on Sunday - so I was up and about early on Sunday morning too, heading off to Columbia Road Flower Market (post to follow), somewhere I had wanted to visit for - well, it must be fifteen or so years? I had read about it in one of my gardening books and added it to the ever-growing list of places to visit. I wasn't disappointed. And it was only a thirty minute walk from our hotel - which proved quite useful when I found myself heading back to the hotel afterwards with a bag full of primroses. Why?!! I had promised myself I wouldn't buy anything that I'd have to carry back to the train on Monday morning. That didn't last long, did it?!
I spotted these beautiful mosaics on a wall outside a school on Vallance Road, E2. Really fun.
I had a pretty busy morning - I think I must have walked about nine or ten miles in total (posts to follow about the rest of my day's adventures!) so had a lovely couple of hours in the hotel in the afternoon with a good book, before heading to meet Andy after work and a drink in the Blind Beggar, the infamous pub where Ronnie Kray shot a rival gang member in 1966. There are plenty of plaques and photos around so I had the obligatory photo taken. Interestingly, the pub was owned by Bobby Moore at one stage - I love google and wikipedia!
So, a really fab weekend - although of course I was riddled with guilt about Finn but we have since had the loveliest cuddles now I'm home!
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