The Spring Delights of a Saturday in London: Portobello Road and Borough Market and Meetings with Friends

The Spring Delights of a Saturday in London: Portobello Road and Borough Market and Meetings with Friends

London, May 7, 2022

    I am still waking up very early indeed--about 4.00 am. I suppose this is to be expected as I am still on my Bombay body clock. Fortunately, I have loads to do--it's a good time to catch up with my blog.

    Shower done, I went down to the restaurant for brekkie and ate a horse--or close! Muesli with yogurt, French pastries, a Full English (helpings, I assure you, were restrained)! Decaff coffee fueled me for the day and I left at about 9.30 am to cover the first item on my Saturday agenda! For yes, I do have an agenda when I am in London, based entirely on the day of the week.  Saturdays are inevitably spent at Portobello Road and in Borough Market. So, off I went. From Theobald's Road, just outside my hotel, I took the 38 bus to Tottenham Court Road Tube station and hopped on to the Central Line--I knew it would get me there much faster than the bus all the the way to Notting Hill. 

On Foot to Portobello Road:

    The walk en route to Portobello Road from Notting Hill Gate Tube Station has become a treat in and of itself for me. Over the last almost 40 years, I have seen the area change and get more touristic with every decade. When local vendors realized how much foot traffic towards Portobello's antiques' dealers could aid their businesses, they began catering to the hordes. Most of the shops along the way offer vintage clothing, shoes, records, bric a brac. One of my favorite shops is a vintage jewelry shop--over the years I have bought a lot of special pieces from here. This time a gorgeous necklace caught my eye...but when I inquired about it, it turned out to be a designer piece by YSL and was priced at 300 pounds. I do have gift money to spend in London at my disposal--but not that much! So sadly, I bid the piece goodbye and moved on. At least I have a good eye, I consoled myself as I walked on...

    Spring has sprung at Notting Hill and the lovely mews homes (now worth millions of pounds) sport ice-cream colors to match the profuse blossom on the trees: soft pink, lavender, baby blue. Wisteria treads its way to the rafters, cherry blossom colors street corners. George Orwell's house gets much traction. Everyone wants a picture in front of the home of the man who gave us Big Brother! Soon the enchantment of cobbled streets gives way to the beginning of the antiques market. The big dealers whose shops are overflowing with stock (lean Covid days are responsible) are happy again. I entered into a lovely conversation with a silver dealer who informed me what sort of silver polish I should buy when I inquired as to how he was able to keep his beautiful sterling silver tea sets gleaming. In the polluted, salty air of Bombay, I will need loads of it, no doubt, but perhaps I shall buy some before I leave. He warned me against using cream or liquid versions as it takes off each layer with every polishing.

    As for the pop-up vendors along the streets, well...all they sell today is kitsch. Alice's today is just a shadow of its former self. I think of the days when I had picked up a real Japanese Imari umbrella stand for pennies, cut-crystal and sterling silver cutlery...today, it is nothing but teapots and mugs and creamers--and all of them are in ugly ceramic (not a single bone china mug in sight). Totally bummed out, I am beginning to wonder whether I should give up my Saturday stints here--they are a sheer waste of time now.

Off to Borough Market:

    Unwilling to walk all the way back to the main road, I jumped into a passing bus and rode in it to Knightsbridge. Had I more time, I would have popped into Harrods, but as there is no sale on at this time, it makes no sense to venture there. I took the Jubilee Line to get to Southwark as my next port of call was Borough Market. I was meeting my friend Lawrence Powell there at 1.00 pm but it was soon clear I would not make it on time. I called him and told him I was running late. I got off at Southwark and had a good ten minute walk to the Market. A few minutes later, Lawrence and I had a happy reunion. We spent the next ten minutes encircling the Market which has also burgeoned and was just thronging with tourists. Borough Market, for those unfamiliar with this venue, is a venue that has, for years, showcased the artisinal food offerings of purveyors of quality. In the yeats gone by, you could eat lunch based entirely on the free samplers ("tasters') doled out: cheese, dips, sauces, charcuterie, jams, marmalades, berries, bread, olive oil, flavored vinegars, spreads, you get the idea. Sadly, those freebie samplers that we have all enjoyed for years through the generosity of the vendors, are no longer being doled out. It seems that Covid has out paid to such communal delights. So round and round we went as we tried to find a free pocket of space absent of humanity--but we were much disappointed. In the end, we decided to get away from the crazy queues at every stall (although the offerings were tempting) and get a pizza in a proper sit-down sort of place so that we could actually catch up as I was seeing Lawrence after a while.

    We ended up at Franco Manca for designer pizzas and cider and a lovely long catch up. But I had my eye on the time as I had another meeting fixed up at Trafalgar Square with another friend at 2.30. I called him and told him it would be 3pm instead. Pizzas consumed, we took a few pictures outside Southwark Cathedral and then I moved on.

Off to Trafalgar Square:

    I took a bus that crossed Southwark Bridge (another gorgeous day--so got some more gorgeous pictures) and was at Trafalgar Square (after changing buses outside St. Paul's Cathedral) at 3.00 pm. Himadri Chatterjee is my new Twitter friend--someone I have been following for over a year. He is extraordinarily well-read (a big fan of Dickens and Tolstoy). Dickens brought us together through his many tweets on Bleak House and Great Expectations. He is also thoroughly versed in Western classical music and his knowledge is simply stunning. We hit it off immediately, for the first time in person, and made our way to Cafe Nero at Haymarket where he treated me to a decaff Americano and much information about himself and his family. We enjoyed getting to know each other better as the world went by. As we sat outside, it was the perfect place to people-watch and that was exactly what we did.

    More than an hour later, we were ready to move on--he had a concert to attend at Finsbury in which his son was playing the trombone in Dvorak's works and I was meeting two more friends at St. Martin's Lane. Himadri thought it would be a good idea if we cut through Cecil Court to get there as it is crammed full of antiquated book shops and antiques dealers. I have, in the oast, particularly loved browsing through the shop of Mark Sullivan who has the most carefully curated collection of small antiques. There are record shops, coin shops, antique maps and the like on this one street and it was a visual treat for both of us.

Drinks with Still More Twitter Friends:

    Himadri bid me goodbye outside Notes, the coffee shop that my Twitter friends Scarlett and Catherine, chose for our meeting. Scarlett was going to see the 7.00 pm show of My Fair Lady and I had a plan right after that to get to Paddington to pick up my down jacket that I had left behind, by mistake, in my friend's friend's flat in the suitcase I had left with him.

    We had a lovely reunion indeed. Both of us arrived together and on time and in a far corner of the coffee shop, away from the hustle and bustle of the place, we sat down for a long chinwag. I learned a lot abut the manner in which they conduct their blogs--both cultural, both a round-up of all that London has to offer. Scarlett focuses on London, Catherine on the UK overall. They were keen to find out what the nature of my work in London was all about and I told them about my talk at NYU and my current research at the British Library on British traveling drama troupes in Bombay in colonial times. It was all very interesting indeed. We had ginger fizz drinks (the more to settle my rather dodgy stomach, at the moment), but nothin to eat as I had yet to digest the designer pizza and had some of it in a doggie bag! It was almost two hours later, when we parted--first Catherine and then Scarlett. Indeed, I thoroughly enjoyed my meeting with them.

 Off to Paddington:

    So then off to Paddington I went as daylight began to fade slowly in London. I took the Jubilee line from Charing Cross and got off at Paddington from where I made my way to my friend's flat at Southwick Street. I did not stay long as all I wanted to do was pick up my jacket (which I did). I then retraced my steps back to Paddington, but instead of taking the Tube, I took a bus (simply the best way to get re-acquainted with all the city's nooks and crannies). I hopped off at Southampton Row and then jumped into a 38 for just one stop. A few minutes later, I was in my hotel room and watching some TV. 

    About an hour later, I actually felt hungry and ate the rest of my pizza with a cup of soup with tiramisu for dessert. It had been a less hectic day--punctuated more by meetings with friends than any sight-seeing. But it was full and fulfilling, nevertheless, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

    Until tomorrow, cheerio...