London in Bloom

Last weekend a 'heatwave' was forecast for London, which means temperatures around 30 degrees. Jackie and I didn't have much planned which was great, it meant we got to spend the weekend mooching around our neighborhood.

We started off by heading down to the Ritherdon Road street party. Ritherdon road has just a small row of shops, fewer than 10 shops in total but most of them are cool shops with our favourite being Quirky Dovetail which is an antique furniture shop.

Jackie at the Ritherdon Road St Party, we couldn't stay for the magic show but maybe next year (or the year after) Baby Bush will take us to the magic show. 

We bought a cheese and herb scone which was fresh out of the oven, had a look at the furniture in Quirky Dovetail and had a chat with the people from NappyValley.net which is a website mainly for mums in our neighborhood - it's a great website for getting local advice on pregnancy and parenting issues and also for keeping up to date with local gossip!

From Ritherdon Road we went to Argos, which is a peculiar shopping experience, maybe the topic of another blog post. We picked up our Moses basket from here.

We dropped off the Moses basket and headed off to Northcoate Road, walking through Wandsworth Common along the way.

Jackie in Wandsworth Common, Common's are a particular type of  park, they used to be common land for grazing your heard and most commons still have relatively wild parts which are not mowed, in fact they'll quite often come through at the end of summer and make hay from the long grass. Not livestock anymore though.

London in Bloom is the title of this blog for two reasons, lots of flowers out and Jackie has definitely reached the 'blooming' stage of pregnancy with her belly getting bigger by the day but looking great and generally feeling good too. 

More blooms on the way to Northcoate Road.

Northcoate Road is a great spot with lots of cafes, restaurants, antiques shops, charity shops but also maternity wear shops, baby clothes shops and pram shops - we spent a fair bit of time in these shops, I didn't mind so much as most of these shops had air conditioning.

Northcoate Road was buzzing with lots of people sitting outside at restaurants,  the one in the background is a great Italian restaurant, we went there a few years ago and had a great night.

Jackie blooming in the hot London sun

The two bits of the day I enjoyed most was our visit to The Breadstall, photos below. This place is great, fresh bakery goods including monster sausage rolls that are worth eating (unlike most of the sausage rolls you get over here). They even have pies but given the heat I went for a crayfish baguette.

The Breadstall, yum

Looking very pleased with herself - probably due to the self control exercised in not buying anything sweet.

"Jackie stand in front of that restaurant so it looks like I'm taking a photo of you" - this is a Spanish Tapas restaurant which we've not been to but want to go to some time. It would be best to have one of these outside seats where you can watch the world go by.

My other favourite bit of the day was before going to the park to eat our lunch Jackie needed a loo stop so I allowed her to go into the Draft House  to use the toilet. The Draft House is a great little pub with a huge range of beers and a nice French restaurant menu. I started with a Dark Star Sunburst half pint and because we had a great spot perched at a windowsill looking out to Northcoate Road, a great place for people watching, Jackie let me have another half pint, so I had a Camden Brewery Wheat Beer. A couple of photos from our prime position below...

Yours truly with a Dark Star Sunburst, it might not look it but I'm happy. 

Some of the beer taps at the Drafthouse

Our view from the Drafthouse over Northcoate Road. Note the girl in the bottom right has three half pints just for her. I actually think this is a deal the pub has so you can taste more of their beers.

We eventually tore ourselves away from the spot at the Draft House and went to Wandsworth Common to have our lunch. All in all a great, relaxing day spent in our neighborhood, one of our favourite things to do in London.