Yesterday I discovered Brixton Market.  I was led there from Clapham Common, following a serendipitous route along which I was encouraged to appreciate the diversity of London’s suburban Victorian architecture.  There were a surprising number of rather lovely big, white, square detached houses with proper sash windows, and one with a beautiful, slightly dilapidated conservatory attached to the side through which – tantalisingly – I could see a painting on an easel…  There were an extraordinary array of windows, never have I known such variation.  Never have I looked so consciously.

The indoor market was a hungry person’s heaven.  Past all the piles of glistening fish,  there appeared passages lined with little wooden tables and chairs (retro, vintage, boho chic? What is the term for that decor that is artfully battered and disingenuously artless?) and tempting menus written in a Gallic script on blackboards.  I had goat’s curd with courgettes, lemon and mint, then crab tart, all served on enamel plates with blue edges, in keeping with the French doll’s house charm.  And Somerset Pomona (brandy and apple juice – an excellent combination). They were even selling Brixton honeycomb – bees in Brixton… why did that surprise me so much?  Perhaps because my mind sees bees in flowery meadows; a bee would be sadly lost and confused in Electric Avenue.

After lunch we emerged on the other side of the indoor market, and – still savouring a salted caramel ice-cream – there appeared ahead the most appalling building I have yet set eyes on.  Any shred of faith in 1970s town planning that may have existed (doubtful) promptly expired.  We beat a hasty retreat and ended up in Hatton Garden, and that is another story…