My brother visited as planned and on Saturday we went into London for the day. The forecast was heavy rain while we were planning the trip, but in the end it was not just dry, but also sunny some of the day, so we were lucky there. First thing on arriving at Paddington we went down to the underground bit to get the tube out to Whitechapel. As we went down the first thing I saw was a little shop - almost just a kiosk - selling South African specialties such as biltong, droewors, and boerewors. I tasted some biltong, then bought some for a snack while we traveled, and at the end of the day went back for more :-). According to Carol, the lady working there, they make the biltong themselves, from grass fed Aberdeen Angus beef.
Whitechapel has a market on Saturday which is well known for its Asian ingredients, fruit & veg (fabrics too, but neither of us was interested in that) so we walked up and down the High St a bit and I bought some fruit / veg without knowing what they were... Here they are, I eventually worked out that I have (from right to left) 2 kaffir limes and one bitter melon gourd, but I still don't know what the other two are - any ideas?
When we left Whitechapel we walked down to the Thames and followed the Thames Path to Tower Bridge. We had lunch in a bbq place called Bodeans and thoroughly logged out on excellent, unpretentious food. If you like bbq meats and you're in London I recommend it! Then we walked over Tower Bridge, and along the South Bank of the Thames to the Borough Market, where we both went slightly nuts (but mainly me!) at a stall called The Spice Mountain - this is their website, and I bought quite a few types of flavoured salts there as well as a bag of Long Peppers.
Finally we went to Whole Foods Market on Kensington High Street so I could buy some more jicama and then walked back to Paddington.
Sunday it rained all day, but my brother & I were hardcore walkers and went out anyway - about 3 miles around town first, then we caught a train into Reading and walked around some more, before going home for lunch and then walking another approximately 4 miles to a garden centre with a good farm shop. In Reading I went to an oriental supermarket and bought a bag of chicken feet to make stock with!!!!
I've been meaning to try that for ages and intended to get them from Chinatown in London but we ran out of time. After that even we were glad to get home and sit down, watching multiple episodes of the wonderful 'Parks & Recreation' till it was time for my brother to leave and me to go to bed :-)
The only downside to such a busy, active weekend is that the time flies by, and 2 minutes after leaving work on Friday evening you're already getting woken up on Monday morning to go back to work 
Absolutely worth it though, and we're already planning his next visit!
Now a question: why is it that its impossible to eat sweet stuff then put it aside again? I need to get back to low carbing it, but so far its harder than it was to start it in the first place... failed miserably today as you will see below�
Food today:
Breakfast: eggs scrambled with vegetables
Lunch: pork & ham soup
Dinner: prawn salad
Snack: carrot cake & chocolate
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