saturday in the park with Whetten

So I'm sure everyone out there in the blogosphere has their own idea of what a perfect day is like. I'll step past my lame attempts at witty comments and deep philosophical epiphanies to describe my perfect day, which happened to be today. Please indulge my dorkiness. At around 10:30 this morning a group of us headed to the Boroughs Market which is just south of the Thames river. I had heard bits and pieces about the market, which only convenes on the weekends ( don't quote me on this because I'm most likely wrong). We arrived just as every other tourist was and tried to navigate the maze of food stalls and little cafes. I had heard rumors that many of the vendors would give free samples of their product if you only lingered around their stall a bit and ask some questions. I have to say that my vision of heaven must include something like Boroughs Market. I stopped at every cheese vendor I could find, whether it be Dutch, French or Spanish, to try some cheese. At my third vendor I decided to buy a slice of cheese that tasted much like Bleu or Roquefort. It was a little too strong for my tastes but what sold me on it was that it came from Nottinghamshire, or the site of the ancient Whetten homestead. I had to bring a piece of ancestral cheese back with me. I'll most likely it for breakfast in the morning along with some organic grapes purchased at the next stall I visited. For lunch I chose a vendor set up next to a shop of Spanish gourmet food. He was serving chorizo sandwiches with roasted red peppers bathed in olive oil, which was a common lunchtime snack during my mission.
After an hour or so at the market I took the tube back to the centre and then headed towards Kensington Gardens to complete a drawing assignment. Kensington and the Hyde Park area on a Saturday are quite a sight, especially on a sunny day like today. Every inch of grass is covered with picnic-ers, pasty white Londoners hoping for a tan, cricket players and cuddling lovers. The parks in London are little wilder than they are back home. Most of the grass is left to grow, perhaps to give the parks a more wilderness feel. I chose to draw a figure on the Peter Pan sculpture that is just inside the park. J.M. Barrie, who wrote Peter Pan, would spend lots of time in Kensington Gardens and it is where he first met the Llewelyn-Davies boys who inspired the story about the boy who refused to grow up. I sat in front of the statue for awhile, sketching a single figure, while tourists from all over the globe posed for pictures. I must've heard the name Peter Pan in a dozen different languages, but everyone loved the character enough to smile brightly when they came up to his statue.
To finish off the evening we went as a group to a Baroque music concert at the recently renovated St Martin-in-the-fields Church in Trafalgar Square. Out of all the churches and Cathedrals I've seen throughout Europe, this has to be my favorite. It was so uncluttered and simple compared to the rest. Each pillar was surrounded by lit candles, and for two hours we sat in the pews older than America, listening to Vivaldi and Bach (two hours was a bit much but it was great anyway). I'm not a huge classical music fan, only when I'm studying something that required deep thought like Math or Philosophy; but there is something incredibly relaxing about classical music when played by stringed instruments.
Basically, all those elements are present in my perfect day; great food, fun outdoors and something cultural and relaxing at the end. Give me those three, add in family and perhaps a swim in the lake, and I will stay happy.