The Trifecta

You would be right to think that a lot of this holiday has been spent wandering around markets taking pictures of food.  But...the vegetables are simply tremendous, like I should take some photographs around to our local Whole Foods and show American vegetables what a long way they have to go.

The Chapel Market/Islington Farmers Market is held on Sundays, about a block from the Angel station.  You could accomplish your weekly grocery shop there, as there is at least one stallholder selling rolls of bin liners and loo paper, and we also saw smalls, and mattresses.  In fact, JY had quite a long conversation with the gentleman selling smalls, although thankfully made no purchase there.  If you should find yourself in Islington and in need of pants and socks, you should know that the Chapel Market purveyor is happy to mix and match colors to your liking. 

A further note regarding vegetables:  Restaurants and take-aways selling "jacket potatoes" with "stuffing" are very popular.  I often have to point out the piles of uncooked potatoes in the windows because they are Potatoes of Unusual Size.  Really enormous.  However, I would like to tell the people of Britain, generally, that tuna with mayonnaise has no place anywhere near a hot baked potato. 

Lunch in Upper Street at an Indian restaurant, no mayonnaise in sight. (CR:  Chicken korma, with sides of yellow daal, Bombay potatoes, and mushrooms masala.  Also more lime pickle than should strictly be used as a condiment.) 

Free swim in the afternoon:  JY to the London Art Show at the Design Centre on Upper Street, and me to Tate Britain for a show on Romantic painters.  I included small side visits to Sargent's Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose


and the Pre-Raphaelites in the permanent collection, including Millais' very famous Ophelia.
http://www.tate.org.uk/ophelia/
While I was looking at it, the woman standing next to me said to her partner, disparagingly, "There's no scene like this in the play.  She's just dead."  She might need a tiny bit of help with the concept of imagination.  Just saying. 

Pub dinner tonight (CR:  ham with parsley sauce, roasted potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, mashed swede, peas and savoy cabbage) so that we could be there for live traditional music.  We could hear the band starting up, sadly mixed with the very loud David Bowie coming from the loudspeakers.  JY asked the server, tentatively, "Are you going to turn down the music while the band is playing?"  She replied, "Oh no.  Not in this part.  Most of the people don't like Irish music."  Hmph.  So we moved. And it was great.  Still no squeezebox, sadly, but banjo, guitar, flute and tin whistle. 

They hit the very important (to me) traditional music trifecta - at least one song in which all of these things occur together:
1) Loss of true love;
2) Taking to the sea;
3) Being transported to Australia, probably to die.