London - Chelsea Flower Show and markets

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After meeting Alison on our first day in London, the three of us went to the Chelsea flower show, while Rhonda took Olivia and Sophia for a fun girls day out. Chelsea was very similar to Ellerslie, only a bit smaller, with only one grand marquee, and fewer display gardens, but with more people. We enjoyed looking at the shops but unfortunately there was nothing we could practically buy to bring home. There was an interesting mix of display gardens with the theme seeming to be wild and woolly as most featured a lot of weedy looking plants. The grand marquee was an amazing mixture of full on smells and colour. The only NZ display was a small stand by an English based nursery selling NZ plants. It had won a silver medal but it didn’t stand out when we first walked past it. We’d perused everything after a few hours so spent the last hour or two at a champagne bar (within the show) catching up on all the goss with Alison. Rhonda had a dinner booking for us at Foxtrot Oscar (one of Gordon Ramseys restaurants) which was nearby, so we spent the last hour before that at a nearby pub. Being the closest pub to the show it was full of people carrying plants from the end of show sale.

Sunday was market day London style. We started off at the Colombia Road flower market which was a crush of people in a narrow street. Very entertaining with all the sellers trying to outdo each other in yelling out their good deals “two for a fiver”, “five for a tenner”, “big bunch for only three quid”, all in their east London accents. The flowers were beautiful and good value too.

We then walked on through to the Brick Lane market which was an interesting jumble sale of all sorts. There were big heaps of phone and computer chargers, ‘vintage’ clothes, LPs, jewellery, and a bigger range of ethnic food than at Womad. There were beer gardens all the way along the street too. It was very colourful and alternative and very much like Womad.

From Brick Lane we reached Spitafields market which was the complete opposite. Very tidy, organised, undercover, and their products more mass market general appeal. There was a good range of jewellery, clothes, handbags, home ware, food and crafty arty type things without being too alternative.

Near Spitafields we met Richard and Sheryl for lunch at a very nice restaurant chosen by Rhonda. We ending spending quite a few hours there with lots of interesting discussions – mainly food related. Rhonda and Sheryl had a lot in common with their passion for cooking and food.

We walked back along Regents canal to Rhondas house stopping for a play at the outdoor gym she has on occasion used.

Monday was a bank holiday (ie no shopping) so we spent the day at Hampton court wine and food festival. It was a nice relaxing day sitting in the sun with champagne and Pimms with Rhondas friends Kerry and Graeme, and Alison. We had a quick look around the Palace grounds on our way out, which seemed to be in the current (according to Chelsea) trend – weedy and wild. Seeing a fully brick castle was a bit of a change from the French ones. That evening we had dinner with Rhondas gay neighbour friends Kesh and Michael which was good for a laugh.

Tuesday was a bit wet so we decided on a trip to the war museum and Oxford St for shopping. The war museum was fantastic and we spent a good few hours there only looking at two exhibitions – The war through the eyes of children, and The Holocaust. Gerard was also fascinated by all the old airplanes and war hardware.

The children exhibition was a good insight into life during the war in England, and the impact on families of children being sent away for safety for a year or two. The holocaust one gave the best summary of Jewish history I’ve seen and had a huge room showing a scale model of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. The model really demonstrated the size of the whole operation, with the hundreds of people coming off the trains in the model just tiny. The whole model was in white which was quite effective. Lining the room were stacks of (real full sized) shoes, glasses etc like they did at the camp – yuk.

After battling the crowds on Oxford St it was nice to go home to a home cooked meal, that we’d selected off Rhondas menu in the morning (Lamb shanks) – YUM.

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Photos

A field of daffodils
at Chelseas Grand Marquee