Piccadilly Market -- Last Notes

... crab for sale in the market ...

We went to check out the Borough Market last Sunday. Unfortunately the Borough Market is held on Saturdays.

Next we tried the Piccadilly Market. It is held on Sundays.

I like walking into this market Sunday mornings.

Every time I have been there, a revival group is singing hymns, clapping their hands, and inviting people to join them. Rebecca asked me the name of the tune. I thought it was “What a Friend Have in Jesus”. She thought it was “Come to Zion, Come to Zion.” Both hymns could be attached to the same melody.


I have been looking for a new bag, one that has a thick shoulder strap and a light weight bag. I looked through the Chinatown Market when I was there. And I searched for one at the Piccadilly Market. At one stall my eye went off of the bags and toward the man who was roasting nuts ... because ... he was yelling at a person across the way.

They were exchanging insults about who belongs in Britain and who doesn’t. Neither of them had accents that would lead me to believe they had been born in Britain. Finally the ultimate in insults was thrown! “Go back to Malta where you belong.” At these moments I wish I could stare right at what is happening to get the full impact of it, instead of keeping my eyes downcast or pretending I am not hearing. Or I would like to have my camera clicking. What stops me is that I don’t want to get close enough to the fight to become part of it.

Piccadilly Market -- a price for everyone

I watched a woman in colourful ethnic African dress who was pulling a plastic milk crate on wheels that was loaded with coffee mugs. The mugs were emblazoned with the words, Diamond Jubilee, and had the Queens face on them. They were the kind of cheap mug that I might buy in a Dollar Store...or might not. buy Her voice was clear and could be heard for half a block both ways. She was calling to people to look at her cart of mugs. At the same time she was also having a side argument with the man at the stall beside her.

“Get out of here. You are scaring away my customers,” the shop keeper was yelling to her.

She would ignore him, then taunt him, move a few baby steps, stop, let her voice ring out again, trying to get people to buy one of her mugs. The more she ignored him, the louder he shouted at her.

My guess is that she didn’t have a license for the market and he did.

She wasn’t getting any customers. Neither was he. Shoppers were hurrying on past to where shopping was calmer, as did Rebecca, Duncan and I.

Arta