Walking with family: Borough Market to St Paul's Cathedral... and beyond

Friday June 28, 2013

After dropping Erin at 'Busy Bees Nursery', Emma, Keilyn and I headed to London’s 'Borough Market', for lunch. Keilyn slept for pretty much the entire journey on the Metropolitan line, but woke as we changed to the Jubilee line. After a ‘toilet’ stop at London Bridge Station, we headed into Borough Market. 

The Market area, and Market itself, have gone through some major changes in the last few decades and finally the work is complete. The Market seems more spacious and appears to be a bit bigger. After a good look around, I settled on a ‘Boston’ double burger with red onion and rocket for lunch, while Emma had a hot Bap. 

With the crowds growing and the temperature rising, we decided to head over to the North side of the River Thames, which is something we rarely do as we prefer to stay on the South Bank, where it is a lot more pedestrian friendly.

Once we had crossed London Bridge, we headed along Cannon Street towards St. Paul’s Cathedral, popping in to the odd shop here-and-there. One of the best shops we went into was ‘Hardy’s Sweet Shop’, on Ludgate Hill. The shop has a myriad of jars full of ‘quarter’ sweets and lots of other hard-to-find sweets and candies. I bought some chewy nut caramels and Emma bought some Root Beer, amongst other things. 

We then continued on our merry way along Fleet Street and on to The Strand, heading for Trafalgar Square. The Square itself was surprisingly quiet, considering how nice the weather was and that this is where many of the tourists end up. So, after a brief stop, we decided to walk up Haymarket and then turned on to Regent Street.

Feeling it was time for a coffee, to which Emma greed, we headed up Regent Street, crossing Oxford Street at the best pedestrian crossing in London, and continued to the BBC Broadcasting House, for a coffee. We sat outside Caffé Nero, with our coffee, and Emma fed Keilyn, while I kept an eye out for some famous people. I spotted Spencer Kelly, from BBC Click, as he left Broadcasting House on his way to get some lunch, check out some new gadgets or whatever he was doing. Next I spotted Tim Willcox, from BBC News, standing just outside the main entrance, talking on his mobile phone. (Possibly to a solicitor, after allegedly having an affair with fellow news reader Sophie Long.) 

It was then that I noticed the person sitting next to us, Paul. He is not famous, but I know from Rickmansworth, so we had a good old chat and did a bit of catching up. He was at the BBC sorting out there mobile network, before heading off to another job. 

Once we were finished, and with time ticking on, we turned on to Portland Place and headed towards Baker Street station where we stopped at the Baker Street Emporium. I am not sure whether the shop was waiting for new stock or had just been busy, but there didn’t seem to be much on offer, unlike on our previous visits, so we headed into the station and down to our platform. Our train was waiting for us and we were soon on our way to Watford, where we headed straight to 'Busy Bees Nursery' to pick up Erin.

All-in-all another nice stroll around London.