The Beauty of East London

A certain routine is emerging in my life. I'm not sure if I find it comforting or disconcerting, but it is definitely very me. Don't get me wrong, when it comes to the wonderful scale of OCD strength, I score fairly low. I'm not the sort to stack my t-shirts exactly on top of one another organised by colour. Nor do I walk the same way to the tube stop every day or have certain foods on certain days. But I do like to explore on the weekends and be boring during the week. When I was still new to London (and wasn't working), I went exploring a lot more often during the week and had a lot of relatively boring weekends. Now though, I'm back to doing what I did in Dublin: Turn off my personality during the week and then come back with a vengeance on the weekends.
I could now muse endlessly about the pointlessness of gainful employment, my frustration with the corporate world and other seemingly lefty, but in fact quite conservative views of mine. But I will refrain for now. You never know who's listening.
Instead I'll look on the bright side of life and focus on the weekends. The past two Saturdays were beautifully sunny, which inspired me to go on long walks/runs/cycles around east London. I love the vibe of this part of town, the run downedness of the old industrial architecture, the barge life on the canals, the small town feel mixed with lots and lots of foreign influences and - I admit it - the shops, bars and cafés that attract the trendy crowd. I tend not to hang out there, but they do give the area a special something and make people watching heaps more fun.
No sunny Saturday is complete without a visit to Broadway Market, where I get a Vietnamese Macchiato at Cà Phê VN, sit on a lounge chair and watch the world go by. The market is always worth a wander too. I give two thumbs up to the apple and pear pick 'n mix, the pork from Downland Produce, the organic fruit & veg stall whose owner saved me from certain death by stupidity last week when I decided to run there in the blazing sun. I arrived there bright red and exhausted, having taken the long way via Bethnal Green Road and not taking into account the temperature.
A few kind words, a banana and an organic nettle lemonade later, I was fit as a fiddle again and ready to get a load of summer dresses reduced to 5 quid. Great stall too, by the way. Belongs to a mad lady who designs her won stuff, but has it made in India. She's expecting a new shipment soon and has to shift the old wares.
The place stands in stark contrast to another one of my Saturday favourites: Roman Road Market. If you want fat birds with screming kids, cheap clothes and stuff that fell off the back of the wagon, this is the place to go. I don't like any of the above, but I still find myself strangely drawn to it.
Yesterday, I took in a third (so-called) market: Spitalfields. It stands in stark contrast to the other two in that it isn't really a market in the traditional sense. I love what they have done to the old Victorian building and I must admit that some of the shops and cafés in the area are not bad at all. But overall it is an excercise in Yuppie self-validation through wannabe ruggedness. Maybe I'm doing them wrong, but I feel that if the market did not add value to the area in a quite graspable financial way, most of its visitors would not think twice about demolishing it. At the moment it still stands, though, and I came away from there with a new haircut and a saylor's top that I found in the street. So I'm happy.