Sunday 10th February 1808

Dear Diary,
London! What a different world this is compared to my life back home at Thrushcock Grange! The journey was long and tiresome and not a little uncomfortable. If I sit still, I yet feel as if I am being jostled up and down. The seat upon which I sat had some unmovable protuberance which prodded my back throughout the journey. I was constantly poked all the way from the Grange to the City. Can you imagine it? At least I had the Misses Forster and Dixon for company and Mrs Crutchlow's stuffed muffins provided much welcome sustenance. The Misses are staying in rooms in the north of the city whereas I am near Aldgate and most comfortable my rooms are too, although there is an unfathomable draught which keeps extinguishing my candle and persistently thrusts me into darkness.
I reconvened with the Misses for dinner down by the docks where some far eastern fellows seemed to be holding some kind of celebration. It was all very colourful and noisy. Suddenly we were startled by what, at first, seemed to be gunshots, but which, was in fact, some kind of celebratory explosive. It was all too much for the Misses and when we were all but dragged into an eating house, we acquiesced politely and took a seat. Well, I have never eaten such strange looking fare but these Misses are indeed adventurous women and partook with relish whatever they were offered. "Delicious!" exclaimed Miss Dixon as she finished off what appeared to me to be no more than a bowl of sheep's testicles. What some people will put in their mouth!