London, United Kingdom

Where were we? Yesterday, having just cruised in Jason the boat, from Little Venice up to Camden Lock market. We walked up to one of the canal bridges with a great view over the lock – it was really interesting watching the boats be raised and lowered to continue on their journey. Not the quickest way to get around town, though I surprised to find the canals really only stopped being used for freight as late as the 1950s.
In the market, at first, I was a bit surprised as it looked small. But soon we discovered an entryway to another part, and then another part, and another and another … it’s an incredible little maze of market stalls – covered, open-air, clothes, knick-knacks, antiques, food … man, the food! An incredible array of sights and smells (and free samples everywhere!), it’s clearly pretty competitive path. We eventually settled on some Indian roti – freshly cooked naan while-you-wait with delicious chicken fillings, it was delicious, fresh, cooked right in front of you as you watch. Fantastic.
The whole place was really pumping, a great market vibe, there was just something really cool about it. Lunch was followed up by Poffertjes (again cooked fresh in front of us) drowned in Nutella then covered in strawberries. Gotta be happy with that!

On the way to Camden Lock market we passed the London Zoo – so we found another canal boat that would take us there. We arrived, saw the money enclosure, I turned my camera o not take a shot and … guess who hadn’t charged their camera battery. Yep, as soon as we got to the zoo, it went dead. Bummer, but only have myself to blame. At least I still had my phone, and Perry still had his camera.

The Zoo was great – we probably covered half of it, but it was great to get in amongst the Lemurs in their enclosure, of always good to see Meerkats, the penguins were great fun, and I even learnt something – I never know about the Okapi until I saw one. We caught another canal boat from the zoo, back to Little Venice, having thoroughly enjoyed a morning and afternoon that very much exceeded my expectations. Top tip for all travellers to London – take a boat to Camden Lock market. Loved it!!

The show this evening was The Mousetrap – the Agatha Christie play that has been running continuously since 1952. The theatre, St. Martins, was yet another lovely old building, I was particularly taken with the very polite signs requesting you to use the ashtrays due to the floorings being easily damaged 🙂 I expected the play to be somewhat dry, stuffy, and possibly a bit boring. Two out of three ain’t bad – yes it was a little dry, and charmingly stuffy (if that’s even possible) – but boring? No – I really enjoyed it. It wasn’t an overly sophisticated story – all the drama is created purely by withholding information fro the audience, but I guess isn’t that how most murder mysteries are done? But it was clever the way that just enough suspicion was hung upon each character to keep us guessing until the big reveal. At the end of the play we were all request not to share the secret – I promise I will keep the secret intact. The play has had hundreds of actors over its 63 years – but one of the first was Richard Attenborough. Even the Queen has seen it – back in 2002. There’s even one original cast member – the radio announcer on the ‘wireless’ is still the original recording used from the very first production. The actor is long gone, but his voice lives on.

We sure crammed a lot in to the day, even managed to get a bit of sunburn at the zoo and Camden. All in all, a brilliant day!