The Sneaky Magpie

Well, not for me, for hubby.

We were going to have a picnic in Hyde Park and visit Serpentine to see the Jeff Koons exhibition however M suggested we go to Greenwich and have a picnic over there. I love the market so I immediately started to make some lunch and pack the lemon tarts and blackberries while he looked up the cycle route.

We set off from Clapham to Brixton, Camberwell, New Cross, Deptford and finally arrived in Greenwich. I quite like Brixton and Camberwell for its character. Not so much New Cross. Deptford looks very interesting with the market, I love the exotic fruit and veg they sell and all the regional cafes. When M took me to a community center where he used to hang out as a kid we stumbled upon a really funky wall painting.

Afterward we headed down to Greenwich Park to have the picnic. It’s such a lovely place, one of the nicest parks in London. Unfortunately there are some horrible plans to have it dug up and changed for the London Olympics so we promptly signed a petition against it and M offered his advertising and new media expertise should they need it.

After we had a bite to eat we wandered down to the Greenwich Market and were shocked to find out that our favorite part of the market (the one with vintage furniture) has closed down and will be turned into a nasty housing project. We had a look round the knick knacks they still sell in the old part of the market, had an ice cream near the Old Royal Naval College and headed back.

We went home via Brockley where my husband grew up, he showed me his school, his neighborhood and his old home – a wonderful huge Victorian house in a quaint street with Hilly Fields at the end of the road (my mother in law built a house in Wales recently and called it ‘Hilly Fields’ after it). A perfect childhood home with a big garden, sadly turned into flats by the new owner.

Some time ago Lola has written about the Voodoo House on Loampit Hill, when I asked hubby if he saw it he immediately knew where it was, turns out it’s round the corner from his old home. We went to have a look, had a nice chat with the bloke who lives there and snapped a couple of pictures. The house is an unbelievable crazy Victorian mansion with mad ornaments, I really liked his garden too, no particular order, just a mish mash of plants.

I must say, I really enjoyed my day in south east London, it’s so good to see it, especially M’s first home.

Tags: Brockley, Greenwich Market, Loampit Hill, Old Royal Navy College, Voodoo House

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 9th, 2009 at 11:35 am and is filed under Architecture, Cycling, Days out, London. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.