Luckiest bastards on earth

I swear, sometime I think we are the luckiest bastards on earth. Today was one such occasion.

Today we got up, and after morning coffee and the usual Sunday laziness, we took off in separate directions, Rich to a geography collectors map and book sale and me to Spitalfields market. Spitalfields is my favorite market and I make a point of going there whenever I am in London on a Sunday. It's a very cool, smallish market, not overwhelming like Portobello or Camden, and a lot of up and coming new designers show their stuff there. If you hit it right, you find someone (like I did today) who is selling their stuff for 1/4th the price what they charge at places like Selfridge's and Neiman's in the US. I found some kick ass wood and silver jewelry from this one jewelry designer, and I also got an awesome purse for 1/5th the cost of what they would charge in Norway. (I also love Spitalfield's because it is smack in the middle of some of the most interesting historical bits of London, including Jack the Ripper's old haunts. It is undergoing humongous redevelopment, but the funky old bits and the completely Victorian Ten Bells Pub remain.)

Retail therapy indulged, I met Rich for a trip to the Chelsea Physic Gardens. I have always wanted to go there, and I found out that today was their first day open to the public for 2005. Ohmigod it was gorgeous. Founded in 1673, the Chelsea Physic Gardens are directly responsible for the explosive growth of the cotton plantations in Georgia in the 18th century, as they developed a strain that was prolific enough to be worthwhile for the growers there. They sent the plants to Georgia and whammo, the growth of the cotton trade in the old Deep South. It's so cool how history twists and turns in so many directions, and how you find it all out by serendipity so much of the time. The Chelsea Gardens are some of the oldest in Europe. It was a lovely, sunny spring afternoon in a gorgeous bit of botanical London history.

We came back to the flat on Cadogan, caught our breath and now Rich has gone off to take some photos. I meanwhile, have availed myself of the rooftop terrace that this apartment comes with (that I did not know about until Karen showed me the secret doorway). Swweeeeet! Here I sit, me and my beer, on top of millions of pounds of the best real estate the world has to offer, all London spread out before me. I can see waaaaay south past the Thames, into the area south of Battersea and beyond. THink of all those people living behind all those windows, and some of them might see me on my rooftop aerie, jealous of me being up here!!!! I might take the opportunity to use the jacuzzi bathtub that is upstairs, just because I can.

I tell you what, life so does not suck right about now. Today is my perfect Sunday: a visit to a market, some fun and funky shopping with a score or two, a perambulation about a garden (Hi Ben! I used the word perambulate just for you!), a lovely spring day, and now a beer. The prospect of a hot bath (with bubbles) tempts. How, honestly, could life be any better?