South of the River

Posted on 2007/05/02 08:25:56 (May 2007).

[Saturday 28th April]
The general consensus seemed to be that none of us wanted to overdo it today, so following a quiet morning at the flat we headed out to go to a sort of market / crafts centre thing Mum had found on the web, called Merton Abbey Mills. It was near Colliers Wood tube - South of the river. It was only about a 20 minute journey away, but felt like being in a completely different city - South London is really foreign territory to me.

At Rob's birthday do the other day I was talking to Dwain about the fact that even though I now lived in the centre, only just North of the river, I still thought of myself very much as a North Londoner, rather than a South Londoner - harking back to my days in leafy Hampstead. According to Dwain there's a simple test to this - he asked me what I order when I go to buy a coffee. I answered "Errr, an espresso?", which apparently was the right answer - South Londoners would ask for "Black with two sugars".

Anyway, there weren't a lot of people at the Merton Abbey place, but oddly it had a little bit of a Glastonbury vibe to it. I suspect a lot of those people led "alternative lifestyles". We got lunch while we were there at a little creperie stall, which was very pleasant (and I suppose the presence of this kind of cosmopolitan food rather negates the above assertion about South London).

We spent the remainder of the afternoon back at the flat and then out shopping to get stuff for dinner. I was somewhat unambitious and decided to just make pasta for dinner, as it seems to be the only middle ground for something all four of us would eat. I knocked up a starter and we also had a cheese course and dessert, so this turned into a long rambling meal, slightly French in style I suppose, which was jolly nice.

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