Greetings, friends and rellies. We’re still travelling, we haven’t murdered each other and we’re not yet broke. It's been interesting to watch this week's global banking crisis unfold while in Europe - Australia has hardly rated a mention (except when the bloke was taken by a crocodile). We are feeling rather smug that we put our tiny nest egg into a fixed interest term deposit. Perhaps we could offer it to Iceland.
The week in Bath finished on a high note, with the tour of Duchy Home Farm (see previous blog). Even after having been there a week, we were actually not sad to leave our little cottage on the farm just out of Bath. Funny how even the most beautifully decorated and seemingly perfect accommodation can still lack… something. Warmth, connection, soul?
Our experience of London second time around was a much more relaxed affair – we were fortunate to be offered a bed for the weekend at the home of Richard and Rebecca (Pat’s niece) in Ladbroke Grove (a short stroll from Portobello Road). We did lots of walking and ate some superb food – kindly prepared by Richard – including delicious paella. I feel like I let the side down a bit by catching up on some rest and counting myself out of domestic duties, with the exception of a few cuddles with baby Ruby.
Their home is in one of those charming five level buildings with large stone stairs leading up to the entry level and doors to the three or four homes coming off a central (narrow) staircase. Richard and Rebecca occupy the top two levels, and have access to a roof space via a ladder through the skylight! The house has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a huge dining/lounge space that is connected to the large (but poorly designed) kitchen and a little balcony with a barbecue. It was heaven and we were very grateful (once again) for the comfort of a friend’s home.
A definite bonus is that they live within cooee of Holland Park, and the fantastic parks in London again blew me away. Apart from the great play equipment, there are large expanses of lawn dotted with shady trees, squirrels and lots of water features, which we don’t see in Australia. Oh, and at least one café near the play equipment.
On Sunday (28th of September) we walked to the Natural History Museum via Hyde Park and past Kensington Palace. I guess it took about an hour but it was a beautiful day and we really enjoyed watching all the kids and parents playing soccer (sorry, football) and riding their bikes. I could have meandered all day.
At the museum we spent a long time in the dinosaur section. Oliver was thrilled by (and a bit frightened of) the life-sized animated Tyrannosaurus Rex, which was the star of the show. There were skeletons of all kinds of dinosaurs, a mammoth tusk, a sabre-tooth tiger tooth and various other bits of prehistoric anatomy. It must be something that comes with the ‘Y’ chromosome, this fascination with dinosaurs – that and the ability to memorise all models of Fords and Holdens since the 1950s.
After queuing for a while, we had morning tea at the Museum café, where they were advertising fair trade and/or organic items, and cakes made on the premises. Actually most institutions and public places we went to offered great food – even Paddington Station had at least two shops offering organic coffee, and we could have had handmade Cornish pasties, which certainly looked handmade (even though the shop was part of a chain/franchise). There were plenty of healthy options for Oliver, too. Compare this with the food on offer at Australian airports, railway stations and, at the pinnacle of food crapness, cinemas…
Another thing that impresses me (I think) about the Poms is their ability to quietly and patiently queue (I wonder sometimes if their predisposition for patience verges on mere resignation). Actually, a comparison of various nations’ handling of queuing would make a great PhD (I’m sure it’s been done already). The Americans continually check to see if someone is cutting in and whether the queue is fair and equitable. The French are animated in their frustration but respect the right of the people serving to retaliate. The Irish celebrate it as a god-given opportunity for a chat. I put it down to the drink of choice – I reckon tea makes you dehydrated and unable to put up a fight, cola makes you edgy, coffee makes you belligerent and Guinness makes you want to socialise. I’ll let you know what happens in Italy.
Having been now to a couple of markets in France, I reflect on Saturday’s Portobello Market with some disappointment. Quite a bit of the stuff for sale was tacky, the stalls were not presented well, and it was crowded and messy. The volume of tourist traffic was astonishing – pedestrians streamed out of Notting Hill tube station and charged toward Portobello Road, which meant the stalls close to the top of the road were in the box seat to satisfy cashed-up customers’ craving for an apparent bargain. Another reason we didn’t stop for long at any stall was the flow of traffic didn’t easily accommodate two standstill pushchairs. I felt sorry for Oliver, who was sitting at the level of groins and shopping bags. The experience definitely wasn’t conducive to socialising. It was more like participating in one big queue with browsing along the way. So un-European.
Then, as if to emphasise the point, we made our way to the Farmers’ Market at Notting Hill Gate, which was held in the Waterstone's car park in Kensington. The location was simply awful. If we weren’t travelling with a couple of locals, I would have felt the need to leave a trail of (organic) rice to find our way out of the labyrinth. Despite the sunny and warm day it was grey and grotty: industrial waste bins surround the car park, so the smell on the way in was terrible. I think I would have been quite shocked if the chap at London Farmers’ Markets hadn’t warned me. The stallholders, aka stalwarts, deserve acknowledgement for making the most of things: most had gone to a fair bit of trouble to make their stall attractive, when they surely must regard this location as a liability to their endeavours.
However the quality of produce was high – I was surprised to see (again) that meat was on display on nothing more than a bed of ice. Most of it (maybe all?) was vacuum-packed so not exposed, but I can’t imagine a meat producer in Australia wanting, let alone being allowed, to offer his meat for sale without refrigeration. The highlight? We found raw milk and cream being sold by Dave Paul, a third-generation farmer with a Guernsey herd at Olive Farm in Somerset. And it was delicious.
We’d heard that raw milk was available in London but it was still delightful to find it. I don’t how much longer it will be available – according to Dave the demand is there but the food safety authority is tightening the noose of restrictions.
The other letdown about the Farmers’ Market, and why Rebecca rarely shops there, is that it was really really expensive: £20 for a chicken, albeit a free-range (and I think organic) one! We blew £40 in the blink of an eye. Even in this relatively affluent area of London stallholders must have to work overtime to nurture customer loyalty.
There are some keys elements emerging on what, to me, makes a good Farmers’ Market:
- Location, location, location: the San Francisco market demonstrated this well, being right at the ferry terminal and thereby solving the accessibility problem – thousands and thousands of potential customers have to walk THROUGH the market to get to the ferries.
- Good presentation: again, in San Francisco, CUESA (the Centre for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture) had a magnificent permanent display which provided an excellent backdrop for stalls, and the stalls themselves were set up under uniform umbrellas. The market at Bath worked, not because of uniformity but because each stall had a unique character, which the stallholders had clearly thought about.
- Wide range of local, seasonal food: if people can’t get a good chunk of their fresh food for the week during their circuit of the market, they won’t come back. The Bath market, situated next to Sainsbury’s, offered a good compromise and seemed to support business at both the market and Sainsbury’s. I wonder why more farmers’ markets in Australia aren’t held in the car park of independent supermarkets, such as IGA.
- No monopoly: it’s healthy to have more than one stall offering the same item and I don’t think it necessarily dilutes custom. Having said that, there are only so many jars of jam that a market can sustain.
- Clear and honest marketing: I like how London Farmers’ Markets ‘guarantees’ that the produce is indeed being sold by the farmer (or their employee) who produced it – something that FARMA (the National Farmers' Retail & Markets Association) is also passionate about. We were duped into making our way to a market at Westport on a wet Saturday that turned out to be no more than six stalls of crafts set along the river. It was embarrassing to have to amble up the street, nodding at each stallholder while trying to look vaguely interested in the contents, and then repeat it in reverse. This process took precisely 3.7 minutes. It wasn’t a market.
- Good layout: markets that have stalls in a straight line won’t work – and this is where the British queue fetish fails to impress. The markets at which I have felt most engaged have been in the classic ‘donut’ shape, with an outer ring and an inner ring, so you can meander on both sides while moving in the same direction and keep going round if you feel like it, without having to turn around or reach a dead end. This makes you want to exit. Markets also need to feel busy and compact but not too crowded. The French encourage customers to buy up and then take a seat at an adjacent café and eat your purchases with a wine or coffee accompaniment.
Hey, isn’t London noisy! On the first visit we accepted it as part of London’s exhilarating energy. But on our second visit, when we were craving sleep, it was annoying, especially the noise of the police cars, ambulances and fire engines. We have a theory – the police cars, in particular, have their sirens blaring (even when there is no other traffic) principally for effect: they’re really off to the corner store for a packet of fags. Perhaps they just want to feel important. In France the police cars are much more discreet – a short ‘woo-woo’ if someone crosses their path but otherwise they glide around the streets quietly. Even their siren is more laid back, about half the oscillation of their British counterparts. The French are just so cool.
On Monday it was time to leave the UK and Richard kindly drove us to Heathrow on his way to work. We successfully negotiated the new Heathrow Terminal 5 (it was a cinch) and flew off to France after surprisingly little concern that it was an international flight. I won’t be rushing back to Britain, even though we only saw a tiny fraction of the action, but London sure is a great holiday destination.
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Just read the London one. Many thanks for more insights! Funny thing happened after our chat - with map to hand. I noticed how close your are to Cremona. Then I started watching an ABC Sunday night programme on telly, on the mysteries of the Stradivarius violin - made in Cremona where Stradivari lived! There's a museum there where a guy goes round every day playing all the violins in the collection to keep the instruments 'alive'. Apparently the wood 'ossifies' if not subjected to the regular vibrations resulting from playing. Isn't that fascinating?
ML, AM
Posted by: Marg Young | 12 October 2008 at 10:58 PM