Days 4 and 5 - Thursday 22nd and Friday 23rd March 2007

The Boy's Work Experience, London Town
or, Loos of London (the Bog Blog)

Spent a happy day pootling round the posh shops today, most notably Harrods and Harvey Nicks (dahling). First, tube to TCR, coffee in Caffe Nero, then the tube to South Kensington, which is right next to the doors of Harrods, conveniently. Harrods is even signposted from the platform!

A nice lady in the lobby gave me a map, which you definitely need, and off I went in search of the 'luxury washrooms'. Actually they might have been luxurious 30 years ago, but just because a loo cubicle is made of pink marble, it doesn't necessarily make it extra special! Still, I had a squirt of free perfume on me way out.

I eschewed the dubious pleasures of the fashion floors. I've been there before, and my friend Mia had to put her hand over my mouth in the end to stop me snorting with derision at the stupidly stupid prices - honestly, you could buy a small terrace house in Lancashire for the cost of a jacket in Harrods!

Instead I spent a happy couple of hours in the food halls, which are magnificent, and stuffed full of the most wonderful provender I was hoping for some freebies of course, but nada! I really wanted to take photos, but that was just too touristy even for me. I did however see Hermione Norris in the fine groceries section. She looked very nice, and shorter than I had imagined. So she was week 1's 'Famous'. I didn't speak to her but we made brief eye contact and she sort of half smiled. I bought some rose flavoured tea (which is lovely, like Turkish Delight in a cup!), a jar of marmalade for Mrs T, some herb mayo for The Girl (she is addicted to mayo, she has it on her cereal!) and a tin of Provencal Herbs with lavender.

Then I went to the french cafe, which is called the Ladurée Tea Room (below), where I was terribly civilised and had Lapsang Souchong tea (in a silver pot) and 2 mini macaroons, one pistachio flavour (green) and one rose flavour (pink, obviously). The rose one was like a little bit of heaven on a silver edged plate. The whole snacklet cost me nearly £7, but it was worth it for the campness!

I then went to Harvey Nicks and snuffled round their food hall as well, where I bought some chocolate (for presents you understand, on no account did I eat a whole bar of chocolate with blueberries in it!) and some gluten free biscuit and pancake mixes. Harvey Nicks food hall is not nearly so much fun as Harrods', being all very monochrome and tasteful and chic looking.

Friday, after the now traditional trip by tube on the Northern Line to TCR but without the usual coffee in Caffe Nero, I headed off to check out Borough Market, which sits underneath Southwark Cathedral. I was too early and the market wasn't really underway (I thought markets started up really early!), so I had to go in a little bakery and have a coffee and a piece of gluten-free lemon and poppy seed cake, which was very satisfactory indeed! After that I had a wander round the outside of the cathedral, and then popped inside to use the loos (very clean, as you'd expect!) and have a cup of tea in their cafe. Then on to the market itself.

(I didn't take these 3 photos!)
The market is fab, but ludicrously expensive, probably thanks to Jamie Oliver. I wandered for ages, trying to decide what to buy and from which stall. The fish stall men must have thought I was some sort of dead-fish weirdo, the amount of times I went past there looking longingly at all the lovely seafood. I'm not allowed to cook fish at home as my family are all veggies, and anyway, we had a train journey ahead of us in the evening and I didn't think fish in my luggage would go down very well!

In the end I bought some goats cheese and some freshly made French butter, asparagus and samphire (how exciting, I haven't had that in years!!!) from this very stall, and some Spelt bread from a bakery stall - could've been this one, could've been another.

Later, at lunch time, The Boy and I saw these rather spectacular cakes in a bakery window on Old Compton Street (where else?!). Aren't they beautiful!