Antique Hunting in Covent Garden!!

On my last trip to London, I had some time to kill. So I took off by foot to Covent Garden..

For those familiar with Mumbai, the Covent Garden Market is a beautiful, extremely well maintained version of the Crawford Market in VT. The structures look very similar...The Market layout is pretty much the same..The comparison unfortunately has to stop there...

This is an antique hunter's paradise...Some stuff is exorbitantly priced. I guess anything sells in the name of antiques....

Some others seemed to be having a cranky day...told me not to take pictures, I guess they realised I wasn't the kind to splurge the pounds...

The musicians in the open restaurant area were a delight to listen to....They make the atmosphere just so festive...

And there was just so much colour and tinsel and glitz to please my eye...

Coasters with the name of most traditional pubs in England...When I first landed here, I wondered why most of the pubs were named Hares and Hounds or The Wellington or weird ones like the Slug and the Lettuce ( Why would you want to drink at a pub named that??). In every nook and corner of England, you would find one of these. I realised later that these were the English way of doffing their hats to pubs older than their entire family history in their area.

These telephones, I have always had a fascination for them. The first telephone I remember at my father's house, was a big black one, even fatter than this, and it used to be such an effort to put your finger through the right hole and dial the number...If you managed to dial five numbers right, what a sense of achievement it gave!!

If I had had a dress on, I might have purchased a set of these to dress up for the evening to have a spot of tea with scones!!

The British know how to preserve their history...Guess they have been doing it right for a long long time....If you are in London and have some time on your hands, it's a delight to roam around this tiny market which has open air eateries and road side entertainment and a lot of old junk to rummage through...