Flora Malton

The great grey river stretched into the horizon. The sun was big and low in the sky. The air was very fresh and the clear sky streaked with smears of pink and orange. We had only a little left of the day. From our spot on the Globian Sluice, a steel grating promontory, we could see the gaunt cranes of DP World London Gateway port, smoking factories across the water on the Isle of Grain and a ship or two, loitering. Behind us, a blanket of fields and marshes, populated only by all kinds of native birds darting in and out of the hedgerows. And beyond, the City of London displayed its sparkling collection of cut-glass towers and they looked very shiny but very small from our perspective.

Splats of calves’ liver in a puddle of blood; rabbits, headless, stretched and stripped of fur; and plucked poussins, nestling together in plastic trays. All garnished with sprigs of parsley. Welcome to Jago’s butcher, Chelsea Green, where the liver is ‘as tender as a butcher’s kiss’, as Rob the butcher tells me as I consider raw flesh through the glass. A few doors down, the cobbler runs what was previously his father’s shop. He has worked on the green since he was a child, and returns your shoes in a bag made of thick white paper. Then there’s Sign of the Times, a dress agency, selling secondhand designer clothing at reasonable prices. It is clean, clear and well laid out under bright, white and unflattering lighting.