First ever trip to London Bridge, and Borough Market

This was the first mass email that I sent out, describing Matt's and my first foray into London Bridge. We've now lived here, for nearly 8 months, and I STILL love our proximity to the riverside, the ease of access to different modes of public transport (especially the bus to work- aren't I lazy?!), the fact that Hilda and Tristan are only 15 mins' walk away.. and most of all, our weekly grocery shopping at the Borough Market!

Re-reading this makes me smile... though, I've taken the editing scissors to my long and lengthy email!

To all those whom I haven't emailed so far- All is well.... London hasn't been too cold, and even when it has- I've been all rugged up or else done the smart thing and stayed inside :).

This past Saturday, Matt and I went to the Borough Market, over at London Bridge (the... suburb?). Firstly- we thought that we'd get some food, and secondly, to check out the neighbourhood as a potential area to move to in Feb.

So we walk into this huge building, and it's heaving with people... I already like it- there's little stalls selling just pate, or just prociutto de parma, coffee... PASTRIES... However, we'd both had a run round the park and were hungry, so we headed straight to the stall that Julie (who's the wife of a mate of mine, Rob) was working at-

Well- Julie was lovely (and she gave us the burger for free- SCORE!) and the burger was great- pork and stilton- migosh, best burger EVER... There was another slice of cheddar, some perfectly caramelised onions and only a dash of seeded mustard. We finished that in about 4 bites?

Still hungry, we went to look for the chorizo rolls. This line was even longer than the one we left! Though, before we knew it, we were wiping off drool and giving our orders to the person..... Definitely worth going to the market, if only for the munchies, what else? We wandered around- didn't buy any fruits or vegies as we weren't too sure what we were doing later that night.

Ooooh- another highlight- we went into Neal's Yard Dairy. Like the cheeseroom in the Richmond Hill Larder but larger.... mounds upon mounds of cheeses on the tables, and the coolest thing was that it was all sourced from within the UK. We found ourselves being served by the most enthusiastic person. He was a cheese buyer over on a busman's (cheese enthusiast's?) holiday from America. We asked about raw milk cheeses and got to try like, 8 different things?! Heeheehee. The guy was like, "here, try this...ooh, I better trysome too".

We then met up with a couple of friends, went to a seafood stall and had grilled scallops (caught just that morning) with bacon and tabasco sauce. Heaven.

I did find London Bridge to be a rather pretty neighbourhood. After the Market, we went into one of the oldest pubs in London. 4 hours later, we're wondering where the time went! Back to Clapham and tapas, a paella and a couple of sangrias later, I was ready for bed. So yeah. That was my Saturday.

I'm so definitely making sure that I head back there next week! And it's definitely on Matt's and my lists of to-live places. If i could set up camp in the market itself, I would!