SATURDAY We had a late get-up and mucked around upstairs for a while then walked up to Waterloo and caught the tube out to Camden Lock Market. It was quite busy out there and the crowds only added to the atmosphere of the place. The market consists of about 20 acres of tiny shops, lean-to stalls and narrow alleyways, with Camden Canal running through the middle. It is a haven for punks, buskers, tramps and all sorts of arty-crafty and ethnic people. We wandered around amongst the rows of stalls and I bought a nice chunky jersey for ten quid.
After we’d had a cup of hot chocolate at a cafe, we wandered round some more and Linda bought a hand-knitted jersey from Nepal for £27.
When we got back to Waterloo, lo and behold, we ran into Chopper!¹ He was waiting for a train down to Portsmouth where Ali Reid² is working on a farm but he flagged that away and came back to the pub with us where we spent most of the afternoon talking about old times.
In the evening, linda and I went to see “Return to the Forbidden Planet”³ at the Cambridge Theatre. Billed as Shakespeare’s forgotten rock and roll masterpiece, it was a hilarious send-up of Shakespeare and 1950s Sci Fi horror films. After the show we went for a curry then went back to the pub.
¹ John “Chopper” Darling was a shepherd from New Zealand that I had worked with during my days as a shepherd. I had no idea he was in the UK, yet here he was, shuffling across the concourse at Waterloo Station looking like a cross between a tramp and a farmer. Chops (as we called him) was something of a piss-head and was renowned for being one of the most untidy, dishevelled and easy-going people you would ever meet.
²Linda’s cousin and another high country shepherd currently in the UK. Ali was working on a sheep farm near Plymouth.
³Combining comedy, shlock science fiction and slapstick, this hilarious show ran until 2014. I wore the t-shirt I bought that evening for years afterward!
CurseOfTheTraveller 