London Journey: Part Four

September 22- Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, Portobello Road

We found a store, much like IKEA, called Homebase, and bought a few necessities for the house- prices here are expensive. We have a washing machine in the flat, but no dryer (and no place outside to hang a line- besides, it’ll be winter soon anyway.) So we went looking for a simple wooden drying rack…nothing doing…the closest thing we could find was a metal one which ran us almost £20.00 (almost $40.00 American!) The rest of the trip was the same story…very expensive.

Today, we put in a call to Bobbi’s parents…Buffy has arrived safe, and sound, and is demanding affection. The “Little Princess” (as Bobbi’s mom calls Fluffy) seems to have figured out how to get the household running on a cat’s schedule…we’ll see how long that lasts- Bobbi’s mom is not one to be bullied for long!

It seemed like a weight had lifted from our shoulders and we finally felt free to go out and explore the world. We walked up to Notting Hill and then cut over to the Portobello Road Market. Wow. Everything in the world was on sale there from jewelry to women’s underwear with a Union Jack printed across the front.

We saw a t-shirt that had a picture of Hitler and a picture of Bush. The caption said: Same shit, different Asshole. Made me feel very proud to be an American.

There were fresh vegetables, and toys, kilts, leather, vintage clothing, and even a WOOLWORTHS…we were very glad to find this, as the prices were, by London standards, very reasonable…we were able to buy some knives for the kitchen as well as some pillows and a role of “sello-tape” (apparently, the British answer to “Scotch” tape back in the States--- now that I’ve seen “SelloTape” , the “SPELLO-tape” jokes in Harry Potter make more sense than they did before.)