Columbia Road Flower Market

I first read about Columbia Road Flower Market fifteen or so years ago in a book called "The Urban Gardener" by Elspeth Thompson.   The book was made up of her newspaper columns for the Sunday Telegraph and covered topics such as her own back garden, her allotment, growing flowers and veggies in her camper van, and various community gardens and places to go for plants and advice.  One of her columns was about Columbia Road and she described it so vibrantly that it was immediately added to my "things to do" list.

By happy coincidence, it was only half an hour's walk from our hotel in Whitechapel last weekend, so, while Andy was working, I headed to the market with determination NOT to buy anything, merely to take photographs.  

I got talking to a lot of the stallholders - I didn't want to take any photos without asking permission and the stallholders seemed happy to chat - and the odd one to charge me a quid for photos taken!  Apparently most visitors don't ask which I think is pretty annoying - after all, these guys are only trying to make a living so could do with more people buying and less people looking.   Saying that, they were a very cheerful bunch and very amenable - especially given that they'd all been up since 4.00 am.   The stallholders generally sell their flowers and plants at Spitalfields and Covent Garden during the week, and then sell what remains really cheaply on Sundays at Columbia Road.  Such beautiful displays.

Look at the heads on these hydrangeas!

I took the photo of the squirrel topiary just for Shannon!

(I'm hoping that the mosaic photos will remind Shannon that we're supposed to be embarking on a Big Project for my back garden - one that has been in the planning stages for two years so far!)

Behind all the flower stalls, there are some beautiful shops - although as I'd got to the market so early, some of the shops weren't open for an hour or so.   One of the shops I popped into had a lovely back yard filled with all sorts of goodies.   I need a bigger garden!  (And a significantly bigger salary!)

As well as chatting with the stallholders, I met a lovely lady at one end of the market and had a chat with her - she told me that the prices were too good to miss and that she stocks a lot of her garden from this market.  I explained I was getting the train to Norwich and really couldn't carry too much - and there was so much choice, that I really couldn't make my mind up what I loved most.   We left it at that, had a chuckle and I made my way back to the other end of the market, but ducking in and out of the shops for a browse.   When I got down to the primrose stall, I was totally transfixed with all the bedding plants - really not my thing at all, a bit too municipal gardens for me - but the colours!   And they were so cheap.   I spent ages chatting with the stallholder and, all of a sudden, a little voice was saying in my ear "go on, you know you want to" and there was my lovely lady again telling me to get my purse out!   What could I do?

Against all my better judgement, I couldn't help myself!  The stallholder and the lady were really laughing at me - perhaps they were in cahoots?  Married even?!   But at two quid for the lot, even if  I didn't get them home in one piece, they brightened up our hotel room no end.   Gorgeous.  Considering they're bedding plants!

Holiday Randoms - Whitechapel

It's not very often I leave Finn - I feel much too guilty for that - but Andy rang to say that he had to work one weekend at Whitechapel and that his employer had paid for a hotel for the weekend. It seemed like too good an opportunity to miss so I asked Amanda whether Sid and Finn might like a playdate and she duly moved into mine for the weekend.

I'd booked my tickets in advance and somehow managed to get first class return tickets for £28 - I have no idea how! I think it was probably so cheap because of the engineering works - instead of the usual train straight through to Liverpool Street from Norwich, I got a train to Ipswich, then a bus to Billericay and then another train to Liverpool Street. Blinking palaver!  But very scenic!

Once at Liverpool Street, it was just a fifteen minute walk to Whitechapel Station, where I'd arranged to meet Andy to get the hotel key. The above picture shows the job that Andy's working on at the moment.

And this is one of a handful of huge cranes they're using.

Whitechapel High Street was full of market stalls selling the most beautiful fabrics and scarves - but I was very restrained - only because I was conscious that, on Monday morning, I'd have to walk back to Liverpool Street and didn't want to carry too much stuff!

Urgh, the smell of this fish stall was rather overwhelming!

Our hotel was on the Whitechapel Road right next door to a mosque, where camera crews had taken up residence to report on three local schoolgirls who had absconded to Syria.  Unnerving stuff.  The plan was that I would run back to the hotel, dump my stuff and then come back to meet Andy at 5.30 pm as we were off to see the Man City v Newcastle game with Ronnie, one of his Geordie workmates, in the pub.

This is the view from our room!   When I got back to Andy's, I was so excited about the view - apparently Andy had dumped his bag so quickly in the room before going back to work at lunchtime, that he hadn't even seen the view, so was as surprised as I was delighted with it!  

Obviously the room provided endless photo opportunities for the whole weekend, including practising with my super zoomy camera!

After the football, we headed to an amazing restaurant - Tayyabs - which apparently was THE place to be seen.   The queues!   We probably only had to queue for about fifteen minutes before being shown to the smallest table in the world in the window, and I think we only probably got that as there were just two of us. Those parties of four or more were waiting much longer - at one point there must have been about fifty people queueing, and, in fact, they were hanging around outside the front door on the road too.  Well worth it though - wonderful food.   (At this point, my 'phone battery had got so low that the flash wasn't working, which is why there are no pictures!)  Really popular restaurant - deservedly so.

Andy had an early start on Sunday - so I was up and about early on Sunday morning too, heading off to Columbia Road Flower Market (post to follow), somewhere I had wanted to visit for - well, it must be fifteen or so years?  I had read about it in one of my gardening books and added it to the ever-growing list of places to visit.  I wasn't disappointed.  And it was only a thirty minute walk from our hotel - which proved quite useful when I found myself heading back to the hotel afterwards with a bag full of primroses.  Why?!!  I had promised myself I wouldn't buy anything that I'd have to carry back to the train on Monday morning. That didn't last long, did it?!

I spotted these beautiful mosaics on a wall outside a school on Vallance Road, E2.   Really fun.

I had a pretty busy morning - I think I must have walked about nine or ten miles in total (posts to follow about the rest of my day's adventures!) so had a lovely couple of hours in the hotel in the afternoon with a good book, before heading to meet Andy after work and a drink in the Blind Beggar, the infamous pub where Ronnie Kray shot a rival gang member in 1966.   There are plenty of plaques and photos around so I had the obligatory photo taken.  Interestingly, the pub was owned by Bobby Moore at one stage - I love google and wikipedia!

So, a really fab weekend - although of course I was riddled with guilt about Finn but we have since had the loveliest cuddles now I'm home!  

Folksy Sale #8

I really need to make more socks - given that I've sold more socks than anything else I've ever made, I'm not sure why I've stopped making them? Too engrossed in the bigger blanket projects and dressmaking, I expect.

Given that socks are such a portable project, I should probably pop them in my bag every time I go down to the caravan for a weekend, or even take them to work to make in my lunchbreaks. Must remember to pack them in my work rucksack!

I love these socks - they're made in Opal wool for a change.  Proper sock wool.  I usually make my socks in Sirdar Crofter which is a very fine double knit wool, or King Cole Zigzag, a four ply wool, which is what the pattern calls for.  Opal wool is proper sock wool and the only reason I had a ball was because Amanda didn't think she'd use it.

  
And one day I might even get around to making a pair for myself - probably when the carpet is taken up in my house and I finally get laminate flooring.   If I were to wear socks in this house, with the amount of Finn's hair all over the floor, I'd end up looking like a hobbit!

Tada! "Beach Huts" Baby Blanket and Scarf

Just before Christmas, I finished another wave baby blanket - for Elle and, subsequently, Molly Rose, who was born this week. All the other wave blankets I've made have been inspired by someone who really knows her colours - Lucy from Attic24 who did textile design at college and who has an unfailing sense of colour and what shades go together.   When I told Shannon I was going to have a go at choosing my own colours, I think we were probably ALL a bit nervous - I do tend to choose lary colours. And we did have a chuckle that the "Susan" blanket was made up of fifteen colours that I really loved but probably didn't go together! However, I think this one's a winner ...

And, because it was a baby sized blanket rather than a double bed size blanket, I had lots of wool left over so decided to make a scarf, which is currently being paraded around Salford and Manchester, draped around the neck of cousin Stephanie!

Although I've used exactly the same colours, I think it looks very different.  With Elle's blanket, I did just four rows in each colour before changing to the next.  But, for the scarf, I knitted three repeats - twelve rows - before changing colour.  

I really can't choose between the two as to which is my favourite.  I think they're both gorgeous!