Another sunny day - and the breeze is a warm one. Queensway happy again with cups of coffee and pints of beer. Restaurant touts handing out their cards as usual but people lingering. A good day to go over to Greenwich.
The main covered market is too crowded to enjoy, especially at the good end, which is so packed that actual eating looks hazardous. Lots of crafts for sale. More fun though at the open air antique market up the road. Not all antiques but retro jewellery (from the '70's!), old books, gramophones, vintage clothing, metal signs. And then there's the Junk Shop - yes, that is its name, though the letter slot has a notice saying no junk mail. The shop is an astonishing warren of collectables - everything imaginable, from sheet music to tin boxes, antique dolls, an Edwardian school desk not that different from the one I used in grade one, books, old postcards, china. I love the antique chemist's bottles, in part because I remember the village doctor's office in my early childhood. There was no pharmacy and the doctor prescribed medicines from the dark brown and deep blue bottles lining his shelves - ones that looked much like the ones we saw in Cuba half a century later, or here today.
We have a couple of small bottles of our own in our coat pockets - airplane size wine bottles refilled with wine and ready for our stop at the Indian Veg. they're happy to supply wine glasses - and unlike Ontario there's no corkage fee. Actually, when we stopped once at a village in Quebec there was no corkage fee either - and it seemed to be more than the quality of my French preventing the waitress from understanding the concept. Very civilised. And the food here always good.
The main covered market is too crowded to enjoy, especially at the good end, which is so packed that actual eating looks hazardous. Lots of crafts for sale. More fun though at the open air antique market up the road. Not all antiques but retro jewellery (from the '70's!), old books, gramophones, vintage clothing, metal signs. And then there's the Junk Shop - yes, that is its name, though the letter slot has a notice saying no junk mail. The shop is an astonishing warren of collectables - everything imaginable, from sheet music to tin boxes, antique dolls, an Edwardian school desk not that different from the one I used in grade one, books, old postcards, china. I love the antique chemist's bottles, in part because I remember the village doctor's office in my early childhood. There was no pharmacy and the doctor prescribed medicines from the dark brown and deep blue bottles lining his shelves - ones that looked much like the ones we saw in Cuba half a century later, or here today.
We have a couple of small bottles of our own in our coat pockets - airplane size wine bottles refilled with wine and ready for our stop at the Indian Veg. they're happy to supply wine glasses - and unlike Ontario there's no corkage fee. Actually, when we stopped once at a village in Quebec there was no corkage fee either - and it seemed to be more than the quality of my French preventing the waitress from understanding the concept. Very civilised. And the food here always good.