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At the Marlyebone Farmers; Market
I had no idea you could get spaghetti squash in the UK! |
This was one of those perfect days that rarely happen - especially when nothing was planned in advance. We had found discounted NFL football tickets the day before and were excited about the game and the tailgate party beforehand. I assumed that would be the main activity of the day. Well, I guess it was but, like the Ginsu knife commercial, there's more!
First of all, I had the pleasure of meeting our son for a delicious breakfast at
Maison Vie. Alan considered eating with us, but he is so much happier with a McDonald's breakfast that he came in, said hello and went to do his own thing. There was a bit of confusion since the clocks had gone back an hour and we thought we had agreed to 10am, and our son thought we had agreed to 9am, which was really 10am. So he got there at 9 and texted us at 9:15 to ask where we were! Yes we can move fast when we need to!
I was taken completely by surprise when our son suggested we had time to visit Marlyebone! I already mentioned the book
"London's Villages" by Zena Alkayat. I have been working through this book and the "villages" of London for 7 years now! I saw the book in Covent Garden when visiting our son with his sister. But I didn't buy it until a few months later. It really gives a bit of structure and variety to visiting London because we go to places that we would never have thought of before. London itself is broken into Central, North, South, East and West - with each area then having different sections. Until this weekend, I had never visited Central or East. Marlyebone is in Central and, as it turns out, has become my favourite area so far! We didn't have much more time than to arrive, walk the streets a bit, enjoy the beauty of the buildings, the variety of the shops, notice that there are quite a few interesting sounding Greek restaurants and then visit the Farmers' Market. But it was enough to make me want more!
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| Found the farmers market! |
My London Villages book states that the Farmer's Market is located in the carpark, but this is no longer correct. Looks like the "carpark" is currently becoming homes with lots of construction. But the market simply surrounds all that and is on the roads, which are closed to help with this. So much food and choices. I loved it, and again, I need to go back - if only for the spaghetti squash!
We stopped at a very interesting cafe for a coffee and cake before heading out to Wembley. Saw the
Simit Sarayı Bakery and thought it looked a bit different so that is where we stopped. Unfortunately, we were not actually hungry and also knew we were headed to the NFL tailgate party where there should be interesting and American food. So, instead of ordering a "Simit", which I now know is a Turkish bagel, we all got little pastry type cookies. Mine was absolutely delicious and just what we needed before facing the football crowd!
The last time we all attended an NFL Football game it was played at Twickenham and the tailgate party seemed much bigger and more exciting. Whether this was because it was our first one.....I don't think so. There seemed to really only be a few bits of entertainment and lots of food queues. Not too much to entertain thousands of people for 4 hours before the game. Don't get me wrong, people were really enjoying themselves, but I felt it lacked something this time. Could be Wembley does not have the space for a tailgate party to equal Twickenham.....
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| Arriving at Wembley |
The game was LA Rams vs Cincinnati Bengals. I know my photos show lots more Bengals but they were just so noticeable. It was interesting to see all the NFL teams represented though. Yes, all! Our son kept a list of which teams were represented by what the crowds were wearing and he spotted at least one from every single team!
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Later that evening, we got a text from our son to say that Andrew Wentworth, LA Rams, made history at the game by being the 12th player to defeat every NFL team. So it was really cool that each team truly was represented in this game!
We got our tickets unexpectedly and at such a great savings since it was close to game day and they were just selling them off! The seats were really amazing, right on the 50 yard line and we could see every play and I loved being able to be that involved. However, after such a busy day already, I felt like I was climbing Machu Pichu to get to just 4 rows from the very top of Wembley Stadium!
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| This was beating the crowd! |
We left the game after 10 minutes of the 4th quarter, thinking we would beat the crowd! Yea, we really beat them! I wonder what it WAS like at full time?
So a very special and unexpectedly fabulous day - again! But this time, we had to say goodbye to our son since it was Sunday night and he had to go to work the next day, while we had to head home.
