May Bank Holiday Weekend

I spent my Saturday morning visiting St. Paul's Cathedral and strolling around some book stores. I visited Leadenhall Market and met Jin for lunch at Old Spitalfields Market, where I had the best crumble from Humble Crumble.
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Sv5SX1qzQFUCNbzepTMCpdPBSqjScQy1It was one of the first truly sunny warm days I have experienced in London so far this Spring, so Jin and I lounged in the sun and read at Battersea Park for a few hours. In the evening, we met Ella at Between the Bridges which is a large beer garden near the river at Southbank. We had some drinks and caught up. It was a lovely day that reminded me London is a pretty cool place to live!
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Ella, Jin, and I went to the Giggling Sausage for breakfast - such a great place! I then headed to the Leyton Orient Football Club (the local football team we support because it is close to work) with Tara and some other coworkers for the team's promotional party. We had some beers and ran into many of our students... yikes! It was really fun to take part in a community event though! 

















For the May bank holiday Monday, Jin, Tj, Tara and I decided to rent a car and take a day trip to the Cotswolds. It is an area famous for it’s typically English rural landscape of lovely rolling green hills, stone walls, woodlands, and charming little towns and villages. Many of the buildings are made up of sandy yellow limestone. Out of the many villages that make up the Cotswolds, we decided to check out Castle Combe. We walked through the Castle Combe forest and strolled along the quaint streets admiring the buildings. A couple was selling homemade baked goods and tea and coffee outside the front door of their cottage. I got some delicious carrot cake. We wandered around the church and around near the golf course. It was such a peaceful place to be! 

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1X3GmThWYHZwF11W_Nq50K17jMhL3WbNxhttps://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=16vFby6Xx6o-l0BDRVsq9rmQsfZ8j3d0N
Next we drove over to a place called Lacock. Th
e village has been used as a filming location for Downton Abbey, Pride and Prejudice, and Harry Potter. It’s a super cute village with lots of adorable shops and little stalls set up outside doors and windows selling little knick knacks on a self serve/ honour system. We wandered around the scenic streets and past the Abbey, which we didn’t go in as admission was quite expensive, and then we headed to The George Inn. We sat in the garden, had a cider and played some cards. Next we went and saw Horace Slughorn’s house (Harry Potter). We wandered around some more and went into a church and then ended up at a photography exhibition where we got to vote on our 3 favourite photos, they were gorgeous! We went to the Red Lion for some food and then got ice cream for dessert! It was a lovely way to spend the bank holiday Monday.
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1RvpLV0JCQaLQdohyMMabheTA8dpLYPh0
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1dCZpYIwR-GMNs-UZN54yU9yk6AJAsyfc


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