Day 22 - London

Distance walked: 12km,  Alcohol consumed: none (!)

We met up with our cousins, Rachele and Vanessa, in the morning and headed off to Spitalfields Markets. Vanessa wanted to buy a coat. The very first stall we came to had beautiful, handmade overcoats in pure wool, with a very stylish cut. I had to try one on too as they were so elegant. We both ended up buying one, but I'll need to watch the video on the maker's Facebook site on how to tie the belt before I wear it.

We then wandered around the market some more. Mary and Rachele were looking to buy presents for their respective children. As we were doing this we came across another stall with very stylish coats. These were shorter and had a more casual cut, but again were very well made and looked great. Here, all four of us tried them on and this time, 3 of us bought coats - only Rachele missed out this time.

After this orgy of coat buying Mary and I had to make our farewells to our cousins and rush off as we had tickets to see a Shakespeare play at the Globe. This is a recreation of the Globe theatre as it was in Shakespeare's day. We saw Much Ado About Nothing and it was very entertaining. The actor playing Benedict was particularly good.

After the play we wandered along the Victoria Embankment until we got to Charing Cross. We had planned to stop somewhere for an afternoon tea as we'd only had a quick snack from the market for lunch.  However, by this time it was 5pm and all the coffee shops were shutting and the pubs were opening so we gave up and just went back to the flat. We stopped at a supermarket on the way home to buy essentials for the flat and also got a bun each from their bakery so we weren't too grumpy from hunger.

After eyeing off all our purchases once we got back to the flat, we've realised we are going to have to buy another suitcase for our return journey. Overcoats are bulky.

We went to Pizza Sofia again for dinner. This time we had a pizza each and we just inhaled them. For the first time on this holiday, I ate as quickly as Mary did. The pizza this time were excellent - better than last time.