Columbia Road - In Retrospect

So back to regular posting.  I do have the odd thing or two that had been set aside over the year.  Are you ready for it all to finally be revealed?  Are you rested and refreshed?  Here's something I always meant to post that was part of our wander around the East End of London.  Hope you like it!

We at Passage Paradis seem to have a gift for showing up in out of the way places and finding our destinations closed.  (Does this sometimes happen to you?) ....and....(What up w' tha'??????)

This is what happened when we went along to Columbia Road in London last March.  On a 

TUESDAY.

OK.  Should we have been paying closer attention?  After all Columbia Road is famous for it's flower market.  Which takes place on Sundays.  So you know, after all that heavy commercial activity

of a Sunday afternoon, maybe the shopkeepers, stall minders and even the local residents would just........

like a rest.

And as disappointing as this can be.....(as much for Blog Readers as for Blog Writers, I concede.......) 

really, the Paradis family doesn't mind sooooo terribly much! 

Why?  Well because.....neighborhoods are usually so blissfully peaceful when the shops are closed.

Pubs are less crowded.  So no waiting for your drink. 

  Plenty of seats and no sharp elbows at the bar.

Accordingly, the customer can be better satisfied.

And it saves Mr. Paradis SO MUCH DOSH!  There is less of the desultory hanging about on curbs, checking his email, the latest New York Times report, Tube timetables, emergencies at work.   And saves him dodging sidewalk denizens, too, who never turn out to be his wife............

because his wife, SHE, aka mlle paradis,

is still in somewhere poking her nose into things, weighing the conundrums of "cash" relating to "carry".  The physics, probabilities and mathematics of time times speed equals travel plus breakage? Absolute volume vs. relative weight calculated against long term ergonomic and aesthetic satisfaction.   

As it all factors into the existential question represented by an overhead compartment of an overcrowded airplane i.e., voices in her head some less familiar than others.  (Do you also see an alien in this photo attempting inveighing coercive consumption?  No?????  Uhhhhh.....never MIND!)

So the good news, when contemplating a life, or even a moment in one's life, of teetering on the edges of becoming unhappily "threadbare".............   

is that, shop closures notwithstanding 

On a quiet sunny day, in a village part of London, nifty little coffee bars.....and cheery delicious Spanish restaurants usually ARE OPEN anyway.

And if the sun has been shining.  IT WILL HAVE BEEN A GREAT DAY FOR A WALK.

What do you think?