The trains rumble past on the bridge above with a sound like thunder, turns into a magnified rattling in the tunnel that hides the glass-roofed market below. There, underneath the high arches of the bridge lies Borough Market with its delicate and ornamented iron structure, painted in emeral green and butter yellow, making you think most of all of a colourful greenhouse.
There is a smell of fresh fish, from the prawns and oysters and salmon that lie there with their staring eyes on a bed of ice; of olive oil, freshly baked bread and garlic-like truffles. Of ripened, red apples and tomatoes. And from time to time, still that same thundering rattle above when the trains rush past, reminding you that you are still in the city, even if in that moment it seems far away.
The market lies there in the Triangle, among narrow, twisting streets between tall, old storehouses and Southwark Cathedral; in streets that still eccho of the stage direcrions of the Bard. Above it all looms the glistening Shard, a broken piece of glass among the broken ruins of old Winchester, a decaying rose still hidden by the Thameside.
Reminding you that time is transient and transience is time. *
