Another day, another cake. The boy turned, well, still three years younger than me on Monday. The sour cream chocolate cake was covered in sour cream icing and surrounded by plump, perfect raspberries on a cake stand the colour of a boy’s birthday.

We have a good time, we do. I thought the two of us hanging about around the house all day would lead to no work getting done ever, but in fact – well, I don’t know what he gets up to, but I’ve appeared fairly capable of getting things done when things need to get done. Dinner reservations at Moro? Done. Tickets to Rome? Done and done. Wait, no, I mean, I get work done too. Work! With money! It is possible.



Weekdays, we have midday lunch breaks at the kitchen table. Sometimes, after, we take walks in the ’hood. We find one-pound deals at the Berwick Street market – a pound for a bowl of aubergines, a pound for a bowl of tomatoes, a pound for a bowl of sweet tangerines. “They don’t look too smart,” the grocer said, about the little rounds of orange, each fitting into a closed palm, “but they taste luvly.” Truly.

“The Ber-wick Street market is great,” I was saying to Marc the other day, “and I am never buying fruit and veg at Tesco again.” “Why would I?” I said, “when I can just go to Ber-wick Street?” “Ber-wick Street,” I said, “who knew?” “It’s pronounced,” he said, “Berrick.”

The thing that I like, too, about the Berwick Street market, is that some thirty years ago my mum used to shop down the same dirty lane. I was fondling the goods at Borough Market one Saturday when she called on my mobile. “Oh!” she said, “you are at Borough Market! I used to do my grocery shopping there when I lived in London.” “I really doubt you shopped at Borough Market, Mowmy,” I said, “you didn’t have any money.” “Yah, Borough Market,” she said, “near Soho, a small, filthy street and all the vegetables were very cheap.” “I think, Mowmy,” I said, “you mean Berwick Street market.” Those were the days I was still pronouncing it Ber-wick. “Yah,” she said, “Ber-wick Street market.”