London: Camden market

It was great to go to Camden Market with Sylvia but also tiring.  I don't remember it being so busy and overwhelming last time.  It just went on forever and there was no escaping the crowds.  When we left  we had no idea how much more there was to see but we had no energy left to find out. 

The market I remember was quite grungy with lots of cheap souvenirs and cheap Doc Martin shoes.  I am not sure that the Doc Martins are still cheap as I did not look at prices (after seeing how expensive they are in the stores and given that I have a few pairs at home).  But there were a lot of shoes, souvenirs, colourful clothes, candles and jewellery.  And that was just in Camden High Street before we got to the Camden Lock Markets.

We walked in the rain from the Camden Town tube station to along Camden High Street to Camden Lock.  The lock on the Regent's Canal is where barges can be raised or lowered by securing them in a lock where  the water is raised or lowered to the part of the canal where they are headed.  I would have loved to see the lock in action but there were no vessels and we wanted to get onto the market.

This is the view from where we walked along the canal.  There were a lot of love locks along the fence.  I am not sure if this is partly ironic to do this so close to the lock.  We walked across the canal on the bridge in the photo where a punk dressed in iconic mohawk hairstyle, tartan and chains was playing music and seeking donations.  This made me smile at the nod to the grungier markets from decades ago.

We walked around admiring the crafts: clocks on old vinyl, candles, sassy quips on badges, artworks, woodworks and the above signs.  One of my favourite signs aimed at Generation X was "I'm so glad I grew up in the 70s and 80s; I did so much stupid stuff and there is no record of it anywhere".  I also liked "Sawdust is man glitter" and "Cinderella is proof that shoes can change your life".

We wandered around the market hall for a while, enjoying checking out all the wares, and trying to be judicious with purchases.  The old buildings of Camden Market were also worthy of our admiration but this was a place for looking up close rather than at the big picture.  Sylvia bought some pretty cute Ghibli badges of Totoro and No-Face.

Beautiful colourful scarves.

Lots of soaps and candles with fun aromas to smell.

The occasional clowder of craft cats.  These cats as a posse looked like they might be out of a spooky movie.

So much to see everywhere we turned.  Lots of colours and temptations.

And it was busy as you can see in this photo of the West Yard area outside the market hall.  The little pods looked cute to sit and snack in the wintery weather but they seemed pretty crowded.

I loved this Boom Cat Books store.  In fact I even bought a book there (Down and out in Paris and London by George Orwell)  There was also a flyer for a book store crawl, which sounded fun.

A large clock, wooden floors, plants, neat rows of books and the occasional pieces of book wisdom.  This shelf says: "You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read" - James Baldwin.

These doughnuts by Camden Cakes were big and beautiful.  This photo shows you how many different doughnuts were on offer but not how huge and amazing they looked.  So tempting when we were getting hungry.  It was time to eat.

We shared a Super Mario Mac and Cheese from the Mac Factory.  It was a rich and creamy  blend of macaroni with mature cheese and mozzarella, white truffle oil, sauteed mushrooms, garlic and a crispy parmesan thyme crumble.  It was so good.

We sat to eat at the West Yard Cafe while we waited for our fresh juices.  Sylvia was so happy to have a fresh apple juice.  I had an apple, carrot and pineapple juice which was so good.  The Turkish food at the cafe looked really good and so did the berries and melted chocolate out the front.

Then we headed down Camden Lock Place to find EB Crystals, which Sylvia had admired online.  The lane was beautiful with all the weathered brick walls with stalls in the middle.

EB Crystals was a really lovely store with lots of plants, wood and, of course, crystals.  We wandered on and spent some money in some souvenir shops.

There were even a few vinyl stores, relics from the past that delight me.  It was just the place to buy a Pulp tote bag.

And lots to make us laugh like these cat t-shirts.

This stall had lots of great signs.  So many.  The we wandered down a lane full of lots of good food and long lines.  By then we were tired and headed back down the high street towards the tube.

Sylvia had earmarked a few of the places she wanted to return to on the high street.  She bought a beautiful blue and gold scarf at Namaste Camden.  I loved how lots of stores on the high street had interesting artwork on the first floor above the shop.  Like this flower power elephant design.

My eye was drawn to this bright green jungle street art on the side of the Bucks Head pub.

We could not resist some of the amazing displays of sweet indulgence at Bubble Waffle.  We shared the poffertjes with chunks of chocolate wafer bars, strawberries and melted chocolate.  It was so rich I wished I had ordered the poffertjes with more berries and less chocolate.  But really good.

Then we took the tube from Camden Town back to Kensington High Street.  I was surprised we had to queue to get into the tube station and walked in a busy line down a spiral stair case of 96 steps.  It was so busy.  Thank goodness the rain had eased off while we were in the market.