Sunday, 1 August 2010

We heart East London...

Well we've had a bit of a calamitous time here lately as my Dad injured himself by falling off a garage roof! Oops. But on the bright side he's been pinned back together and is now recovering back at home and me, C and Ru have just been on a weeks holiday! Yay. More about that soon. But all this left little time for blog writing. Darn. So I thought I'd catch up on a few posts and photos I've been keeping up my sleeve for a few weeks...

We recently visited my lovely friend Dana of Beards and Buttons back in lovely London town and spent a day in and around the east. I love it. I'd forgotten how vibrant and inspiring it is. We had a great day just wandering, perusing shops and markets, stumbling across random live music and even one mini festival in a recently renovated old bandstand in the middle of a sort of roundabout-come-square! First though was Coloumbia Road flower market...


Then a short walk to Spitalfields market - one of my favourite places when I lived up in London town. It's been a tad over renovated in the last few years but I still love the building and they've kept the feel of the old shop fronts and signage. Me and C were lusting after these gorgeous bikes from the pop-up shop by Tokyo Bikes for ages afterwards!


On route we passed the beautiful new East London tube line - I'm a sucker for oversized concrete architecture!


Then we spotted this gem of a piece of graffiti nestled under a tree on a meandering route back to the flat. Ru was especially impressed - he's a fan of squirrels. Quite right.


It was at the end of this street that we spotted and heard the mini festival celebrating the 100th anniversary of the bandstand in the middle of Arnold Circus. There was a fantastic brass band playing covers of pop songs and people picnicing at little checked tableclothed benches dotted around the place, some beautiful stalls and a guy taking portraits with some great cardboard props! We were tempted but the queue was enormous. Such a lovely and unlikely event to just stumble upon one sunny Sunday afternoon.


Then back home via the now empty Columbia Road and through London Fields... ahh I miss London. Must go back more often.

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7 comments:

  1. I heart East London as well. We've just come back from a trip there too, as it's where my husband is from...so we like to visit the family every few weeks. We're actually contemplating a move there (though it seems that most people leave London to come this way, and we're thinking the opposite. Hmmm, what to do)! Glad you had a nice time. I'm a lover of concrete architecture too. Your photographs have captured the appeal of London that I see too x

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  2. Thanks! Glad you liked the photos - it was a bit of a monster task to choose which to post as I'd got a bit snap happy. Some days everything inspires me! I can completely understand why you'd want to move there. Who cares whether other people are heading out. I've plenty of friends who've no intention of leaving ever - lucky me as I get somewhere to stay! And there are children everywhere round there which I also love. Hurrah x

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  3. i love arnold circus. there was something going on there last time we were in the neighbourhood too. i love all that old council housing that surrounds it.

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