A glorious day, warm with blue skies and only a little breeze - too good an opportunity to turn down a day outside. Jane and I set out for the high line! We started from the meat packing district end - and I don't know how much meat packing is done here anymore, all the truck bays and warehouses are all under development for residential buildings! This area was affected by cyclone sandy, but I wonder if the success of the high line has driven up the real estate prices to edge these businesses out.

The area around the high line is full of interesting shops and restaurants. A girl giving away soap samples enticed us into her shop, soapalicious - they make natural skin scrubs and hand lotions that leave your skin baby soft. We were treated to a hand scrub and were so impressed we both bought something.

The food carts have returned to the high line due to spring! And I was thrilled to see blue bottle coffee amongst them, the great coffee roasters from San Francisco. I got a cappuccino to go with a Parmesan and fennel shortbread to enjoy whilst sitting at the cutout on the high line over the road where you can watch the traffic go by.

Since I was here 2 weeks ago, the flowers are in full bloom and the trees have grown foliage - it looks beautiful. We went through the Chelsea market, this time concentrating on the Filling station, which sells flavored salts and balsamic vinegars - all delicious. I was given some by Sonya for Christmas and I have added a couple more to my pantry.

Lunch was at Cookbook, a modern American restaurant with a sunny outdoor terrace perfect for people watching. I had a vegetarian mezze plate of healthy delicious vegetables, a rarity in this town. Carson Kressley from Queer eye for the straight guy was also having lunch there, would know his voice anywhere - second celebrity sighting!

Janes camera broke a couple of days ago and we have been having trouble finding a camera shop to get a replacement. Well we found the mother lode today - the biggest camera shop I've ever seen, with an almost exclusively orthodox Jewish staff. Except for Miguel, the Cuban who helped us who told us that New York women were scary but so was Australia, as people get eaten by crocodiles. When we pointed out that statistically you were more likely to be killed by the crazy New York cab drivers, he conceded his wife was probably a bigger danger still. Not sure if we convinced him Australia was safe enough to visit. Once Jane made her choice, we had to line up to order it with Abraham who puts the camera on a conveyer belt, then pay someone else downstairs, then pick the purchase up from the bagging area! Fascinating!!!

Our neighbours came over to visit, they're really nice people, and they could not say enough nice things about having Linda as a neighbour. We then had a very late dinner of the polenta we bought from Eataly (hand-ground organic from local farmers) with an Italian sausage ragu that I made (Jane did the polenta) - it was amazing, we would happily take the polenta guy from masterchef on with our efforts.