Camden Market -a great day out!

It’s a long time since I’ve been a hippie!

As you will know from my previous post, it was my birthday on 1^st May and my birthday outing, to spend my present money from family, was a trip to Camden Market. I love it there, for the sheer range of trinkets and treats plus so much that is outrageous and isn’t found anywhere else and which caters for everyone’s tastes.

If I had had shed loads of cash, I could easily have spent it all – vintage books, old china, glittery (and very short) dresses, scarves, jewellery and beautifully bound notebooks all nestled together invitingly, cunningly placed to get me to open my purse. Dozens of stalls selling different ethnic foods (very cheaply) and drinks (overpriced) encourage you to make a real day of it and stay from 10 until 6.

As it was, we stayed about four hours which was quite enough and pretty hard on the feet and calf muscles. We walked all around Camden High Street, the market and Camden Lock and just people watched and browsed.

The place is like a rabbit warren, and we did waste a lot of time getting lost and looking at the same row of stalls twice on more than one occasion. I bought a pretty little brass and red stone brooch in the shape of a masquerade mask, and a notebook with a leather cover that had been embossed to look like a tree with a fancy metal clasp. Sounds dull I know, but I like them, and next time I direct a panto and want gothic or glitzy costumes I will certainly pay it a visit up here – you can get the lot!

It seems incredible that all these small business men and women are making money, but I guess they must be to keep at it. I imagine the rents for the beach hut style sheds they trade from must be pretty high as it is such a tourist trap (it was heaving with Americans on Tuesday) although there is very little else in the way of overheads to consider. The choice of goods is incredibly eclectic, and The Hubby spent ages browsing an old vinyl record stall looking for LPs by the Sex Pistols and The Clash. Not because he wanted to buy them, but because he wanted to prove to me that his old vinyl collection in the loft is worth a fortune so I don’t chuck it away!

It must be nice not to have to work and to be able to spend your days doing stuff like this which you like and which doesn’t actually require much money to do it. I used my season ticket, and because he travelled with me, The Hubby’s travel card only cost £9.20 instead of the usual off peak rate of £13.80.  Lunch was £4 each, and a coffee from Nero’s on the way home was the only other thing we bought apart from the little pressies mentioned above.

The only slight downside of the day was the machines at the ticket barriers at London Bridge station seem to have buggered up the magnetic strip on my season ticket which is now not working in the barriers either at Victoria or on the tube. I’ll have to go and get it changed on my way home tonight at the ticket office, which will be accompanied by much irritated clucking from the Network Rail staff for causing them extra work (although it’s their bloody barriers which have done the damage in the first place) and a lecture about not mistreating the new one; such are the crosses I have to bear!

Anyway, for a few hours I regressed to my inner hippie. I think you are allowed to do that at (whisper) fifty one! There is nowhere else like Camden where you can mix with such a wide range of nationalities and alternative individuals, not even Brick Lane or Soho. It was a great day out, and one I aim to repeat at some stage in the future, hopefully when perhaps I’m more cash rich!