Flower Market

On Sunday we decided to head to the flower market Lyndon’s wife recommended to us. It’s only open on Sundays so we did not want to waste an opportunity to go. Denise wanted to go with us so we had planned to meet up with each other at 11:30. According to the Transport for London website it was going to be a bit of an adventure getting there as there were lots of planned engineering works set to take place. Jeana and I thought we had figured out a good way to get there though.

We set out at 10:30 as it was supposed to take us an hour to get there. The first delay we encountered was when the over ground train was not set to get to the station until 10:45. We only had to go a few stops and then changed to the underground. All was going pretty smooth still besides the fact that we were running late. Once we got off the tube we had six choices to exit the station and one of them listed exactly what we needed. We randomly went out one and luckily found out where we were supposed to be pretty quickly. From there we were supposed to get on bus 55. Well we found the bus only to learn its route was temporarily changed due to engineering works. We then figured out another bus that would take us to where we needed to be. We walked to the stop and got on the bus. When we got off we were not in the right spot. The place the bus was supposed to take us wasn’t even listed on the map anymore. It was then time to call in some reinforcements…aka Denise. After talking to Denise we began walking in the direction we knew the flower market was close to. As we walked we got a phone call from Matt. He proceeded to find our location on the computer and guided us street by street until we finally reached the flower market…only thirty minutes late! It was such a relief to be there.

We met up with Denise and began one of the best afternoons in London. First we all stopped for a cappuccino…I think it was much deserved after our stressful travels. Next we began looking through the shops around. They were some of the cutest stores I have ever been to. They were mostly vintage shops. The neat part is they are only open on Sundays so they are obviously structured around the flower market shoppers. I saw so many really neat things. We all found lots of good things to purchase for gifts to take back home which is always fun. We checked out about half of the shops then decided to walk through the flower market. The reviews we read for the market said to get your flowers as close to 2:00 o’clock as possible as that is closing time and you can get the best deals.

The market only goes for about two blocks but that didn’t make selecting the flowers any easier. I loved them all! The best part was seeing new flowers I had never seen before…discovering new flowers is always fun. We all eventually picked out our bouquets and absolutely loved our selections. While we were deciding and walking through the marketing it was fun absorbing in the atmosphere. The owners shouted out “three for a tenner” or “two for a fiver” as we walked through. They are always trying to convince you they have the best deal but it was fun in this case. The market was packed but it came as no surprise. The reviews said there was no way you could go and leave empty handed and that was completely true. No harm in treating myself to some flowers every now and then anyway :)

Once we all made our selections it was time to finish u pour shopping. By the time we got done shopping we were all hungry. We found a nice little local pub called the Sting Ray and we stopped in for lunch. Denise and I decided to split two things so we could have a bit of variety. We split some of the best risotto we have ever had and a really good pizza. The risotto had a crème sauce with leeks, mushrooms, and artichokes. We got pizza with bacon, onions, and mushrooms. Quite a delicious meal!

When lunch was over we headed home for the evening. Getting back was much more successful than getting there as we just followed Denise the majority of the way. It was late when we got back so all the stores were closed. We found this out the hard way after walking all the way to the store to try and buy a vase for our flowers. When we got home we just had to use our creative sides to come up with vases. I ended up using my reusable water bottle. Once that was all situated it was time for homework which pretty much consumed the rest of the evening.