Keep Walking

"Keep walking. Keep walking. We have only begun and we have a long way to go."

Those are the words Wyona kept uttering at the top of Portobello Antique Market, urging us not to stop too long at any one shop. Rebecca and Wyona warmed themselves with sips of mulled and spiced apple cider. Wyona flipped through scarves -- pashmina, pashmina and wool blends, and all of the new styles, which the shop keepers assured us were the very last ones they had.

I wandered from one side of the street to another, charmed by the antique toast holders and crumb scoopers, which I never intend to buy.  There were old volumes of books, and maybe the piece de resistance, children's toys -- frogs and snakes that could be slapped on the ground and then would crawl away.  We have viewed them enough to know that when children play with them, they leave grease spots on walls, and pick up any sand or gravel that they hit on the ground, making them useless in about five minutes.  Better we should just buy scarves.

Rebecca had found red gloves the day before -- at a second-hand thrift shop, of which there are five on her own High Street here in Woodside Park -- one supporting the North London Hospice, and ones for Bernardo's Homes, Romanian Relief Fund, Heart and Stroke Foundation -- a cause for all. These are the gloves she has been searching for in the previous months, trying on pairs in every glove shop in France. Nothing like second-hand success in your own neighbourhood.

She is photographing the displays in a store that has models of old sewing machines in the windows and on its walls, even though we were told to view as we walked through Portobello Market.