Although it is Saturday, I am wide awake at half five in the morning. Brain still busy from the week, not registering the freedom to slow down. Sleep will not come back. So I get dressed in the dark, and sneak out of the house to buy a paper. As the garage has been razed to the ground in a radical rebuild, it means walking up to town. The residential side streets are empty, except for the odd purposeful cat streaking across the road, but on St Peter's Street the first fruit and veg traders are starting to set up. Stalls line the street - mostly just metal skeletons, but a few have come to life, with striped awnings, fake turf, and serried ranks of produce - all monochrome in the faintest of morning light. There's the odd hoarse shout and ribald quip, but in the main it's quiet focus. This is a well-rehearsed dance - the way the van is packed and unpacked, what goes where, which goes first. These are the professionals. Things are displayed carefully in vegetable slopes designed to catch the eye. Later the other stall holders will turn up. Their job is easy in comparison. Their goods do not bruise, or squash or roll. Belts, books, bags, clothes. Durable and biddable. Some make an effort, with velvet drapes, and hanging displays.
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| No point polishing a turd |
It's an arrestingly unattractive stall. I love it.
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