Top of the morning to you, London Walkers, wherever you are.
The big story in London this weekend is a retail story.
Oxford Street, the biggest, busiest, most important shopping street in London, is about to be pedestrianised.
Well, a great big chunk of it.
From Monday.
And Oxford Street is BIG business.
Something like 300 shops.
And on a busy day, upwards of half a million people making their way along it.
Half a million!
But sure enough, London Walks is going contra-flow.
Always drink upstream from the herd and all that.
So while everybody else is looking at London’s biggest shopping street, we’re heading off to what may be its tiniest.
And arguably its cutest, most picturesque shopping street.
Kensington Church Walk.
In, hey, you guessed it, Kensington.
Now here’s the contrast.
Oxford Street, 300 shops.
Kensington Church Walk? Six or seven little shops and businesses.
Oxford Street, half a million people on a busy day.
Kensington Church Walk? Maybe 85 shoppers on an average day.
Eighty-five!
Oxford Street, a river of humanity.
Kensington Church Walk, barely a trickle.
And what a lovely trickle it is.
It’s just a stone’s throw from one of London’s great shopping streets, Kensington High Street.
But getting there takes some doing. It’s not an easy find, even though it’s less than a hundred yards from the High Street.
And when you do find it, well, you’re in a different world.
You’d be tempted to think you’d stepped through the looking glass.
And found yourself in a little side street in village Wiltshire.
A little pocket of London that somehow seems to have escaped the 21st century.
Anyway, I’ve betaken myself, and my microphone, to a relative newcomer to Kensington Church Walk.
An exquisite little chocolate box of a gift shop called Fable & Mirth.
My Kensington Walk goes along Kensington Church Walk, so I’ve got to know Neely and Sarita, the sister duo who’ve brought this little touch of beauty and joy and delight to Kensington.
In fact, last summer I interviewed them for this podcast. Got their story.
And now it’s return visit time.
Last time we found a quiet corner in St Mary Abbots Church and settled down for a chat. That interview was mostly about Neely and Sarita. They are, after all, like most Londoners. Incomers. They’re from Wolverhampton. A couple of young women – sisters – from Wolverhampton. And now they’re in Kensington Church Walk, in their very own little gem of a gift shop. I thought, ah, there’s got to be a story there. So that podcast was principally about Neely and Sarita.
Change of pace this time round.
I’ve made a beeline for the shop itself.
And got Neely and Sarita to give me a little tour of Fable & Mirth.
Here we go.
[Fable & Mirth Tour follows]
Timed perfectly, wouldn’t you say. Well shot of all the Oxford Street hoop-la. And Christmas shopping season just now coming over the horizon.
And before we go, a word. Our word of the day.
Matrimony.
A particularly appropriate word for me today. Because I’m at a wedding. In Sevilla.
Now, matrimony means marriage. Wedlock. But go poking about in its roots and look what you find.
Mater.
Latin for mother.
There she is. Right at the heart of the word. Motherhood is its cornerstone.
I’d been told matrimony originally meant ‘preparation for motherhood’. That’s more an explanation than an exact translation. But the mother is unquestionably there. Built into the word.
And I like that. A familiar word opening a little door. You go through it and discover something you hadn’t noticed before.
Rather like turning off Kensington High Street and finding yourself in Kensington Church Walk.
A little discovery. And suddenly the familiar world is richer.
Anyway, from Fable & Mirth to matrimony. From Kensington to Sevilla.
There’s a wedding to get to.
London Calling. London Walks connecting. This is London. This is London Walks. Streets ahead. Story time. History time. Meet some Londoners time.
See you tomorrow.