The Expected......

Well I'm back from London and had an incredible time...   It will take a few posts to share it all.
But I definitely had two favorites.  One was totally expected and one totally unexpected..

The expected favorite was Portobello Road Market. When you got off the tube, you didn't need a sign for direction....you were literally carried along with the crowd.  Thousands of people (not hundreds) show up every Saturday year round - rain or shine.  AND it's two miles long.  It was pouring rain the first Saturday I went and I had so much fun I went back the next Saturday and it was 39 degrees and a bitter wind which didn't deter a soul.

It is exactly this way every Saturday as it is the only day for the outdoor vendors. 

But besides the outdoor vendors each building has small shops and some are even a maze of  small stalls.  It was in the back of one these I found two older ladies selling exquisite bits of vintage lace ( I will show later as I have time to unpack and sort and photograph my treasures.)

Surprisingly  this market is not that old and only dates back to the 1940s when "rag and bone men" gathered there with their carts and it gradually evolved to antiques, bric-a-brac, and farm goods etc.

The rag-and-bone men  scavenged unwanted rags, bones, metal and other waste, from the towns and cities where they lived.  They sold rags to the local paper makers. White rag could fetch 2–3 pence per pound, depending on condition. Coloured rag was worth about two pence per pound. Bones, worth about the same, could be used as knife handles, toys and ornaments. Metal was recycled for all manner of uses....

There was anything and everything you could imagine for sale...the old and valuable and the new and the tacky.  I especially enjoyed all the vintage jewelry... stalls and stalls of it..

and the antiques as well.  I didn't buy a lot but each purchase was special and will bring back wonderful memories of my days at one of the most famous markets in the world..