Kiwi Goes Global

And I've done quite a few cool things.  :)  I'm into bullet points lately, so here goes:

• Caught up with Raewyn (and Mike), ate onion dip and bacon and egg pie.  Thanks, Raewyn: good work, even with the threat of an onion emergency!  Unfortunately, their 'pet' baby foxes didn't come out to play in the back garden while I was there.  General consensus is that they were put off by the rain.  Fair enough.
• Cruised the delicious streets of the Borough Market (stealing Raewyn's phrasing there).  This was a sweet place!  I could have stayed there for about 2 weeks, trying all the different food on offer. However, I had to content myself with: a scoop of lemon, lime and sweet basil goat milk ice-cream; a chocolate chip, cranberry and oat biscuit; and a venison/wild boar, apricot and red wine hot baguette.  Yes, life is very hard.
• Headed off to Tessa's and got a tour of her (pretty sweet) school.  Also went for a wander up to the Hampstead Heath, and saw the view from Parliament Hill - which is shown in the first photo if you follow that link!
• Also with Tessa, checked out Camden Markets.  They pretty much had a bit of everything!  Clothes, trinkets, second-hand books, London/Britain souvenirs, one dude who would airbrush paintings from a photo (Dad, knew you'd have been there talking to him for at least half an hour had you been there), 'herbal' shops, food- plenty of stalls where the servers pretty much tried to drag you in as you went past, lol.  Oh, and big statues of horses.  And one fairly odd shop called Cyberdog, which would be absolutely brilliant if a) you needed a spaceperson costume or b) you were planning to go out clubbing somewhere with a UV light.
• Did the local pub thing with Rachael and her neighbour, in a pub down the road where Rachael knew all of the staff!  Then we wandered across the road to another pub... kind of a mistake.  There had been some kind of party on, so everyone else knew each other, and we, as the other 2 put it, felt like we'd kinda wandered into someone else's lounge.  And then one super-drunk girl started having a cry, etc, etc.
• Went on a mission to see the Big Bin with Rachael.  No, my days of being mocked for my accent are not over.  On another topic, it is really hard to get a good picture with all of the clock and 2 people in it when you are trying to do selfies...
• Wandered South Bank with Rachael!  This is a fun option if you enjoy watching street performers.  Heaps of human statues; a cool, kinda bluesy band called the McGowns; and breakdancers.  But it rained, so the breakdancers stopped just before we could watch them.
• ... so, we hid inside at Wagamama and ate curry and dumplingy things, drank green tea, and it was all very nice.
• Still with Rachael: wandered down the river banks at Putney, then went for a cultural experience (shopping at Primark, read: extremely cheap clothing shop).
• Went to the Blues Kitchen with Rachael and Tim, and listened to several different blues groups.  Couldn't see a thing, as it was too packed, but the music was good.  And so was the peanut butter and chocolate milkshake!  Plus, big thumbs up for whoever came up with the name of 'Hipbone Slim and the Knee Tremblers.'
• Independently checked out the V&A Museum (on Tim's recommendation) and saw lots of: statues of Budda, different types of jewellery, silverware, paintings, ironwork...  Definitely didn't do the museum justice but was getting a tad tired and had a bus to catch!