Westminster in the Sunshine & Making New Friends in a Spitalfield

Sunday's Just Don't Come Any Better Than This

Yesterday (Sunday) was pretty much our last chance to scout London on this trip since next Saturday we fly to Lisbon in the morning. We decided to take another London Walks tour (truly our favorite way to learn about this great city) and this time we chose "Old Westminster 1000 Years of History". Described as "The seminal London Walk. Miss it and you've missed London". Well there you go! We had our marching orders. It was around 70 degrees with almost full sunshine all day!

The Babe, who's been here way more than me said she'd never seen Big Ben in the sun - ever!

The tour was led by an older, cotton-topped gentleman with an encyclopedic knowledge of everything he need to cover (and more I'm sure). Unfortunately after about 30 minutes of the two hour tour I'm afraid much of it fell on overloaded ears where we were concerned. Henry the VIII crowned here, Sir Winston Churchill married there, Sir Walter Raleigh's torso buried here... and head buried there, and so on, and so forth. After awhile I just gave up keeping up and took lots of pretty pictures.

The other really cool thing about the day took place at Spitalfields Market; an open air market with a uniquely London twist. The Babe had discovered this mecca of local artisans and their wares on a previous trip and had managed to inflict a fair amount of damage to a VISA card amassing an ensemble of one jewelry designer's work.

While there I ran into the booth of Positive Tees; T-shirts with great design and positive, empowering messages. The shirt I bought and you see me wearing in some of the photos has a quote from Jack Kerouac's On The Road which reads, 

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles."

Those who know me know that's a sentiment I can wear without reservation! The owner/designer is Mal, and he's also a musician. In the few minutes we talked I could sense a connection. We just sort of resonated with each other. It was quick, strange, cool, and very real. And just like that I knew I had found a new friend.

Mal said his e-commerece site will be ready to accept orders within the next few weeks so I'd encourage you to check out his selection of life affirming designs printed on freely traded cotton with 10% of all sales going to a children's AIDs charity.

I guess that's about all for tonight.

Cheers,

Dave

Okay quit kidding you guys. Where's Peter O'Toole!?