I’d lived in Battersea for years before I discovered there’s a traditional greengrocer’s just seven minutes’ walk from my block. And even though I’ve been frequenting Thurgood’s for a good few years now, I still get a tingle of anticipation each time I set off for their small but invaluable establishment. A proper greengrocer’s in Battersea! What new seasonal produce will be in stock? Once – just once – there was black cabbage, but, to my own bemusement, I was too scared to buy any. I wish now I had. Today, for the lucky sum of £7.77, I came away with a bag of English Cox’s, a few tomatoes, bananas, four blood oranges (hooray! the first this year, and one of my personal harbingers of spring), flat leaf parsley, a cos lettuce, a handsome swede (for Burns’ Night), two limes, one lemon, minimal packaging, and two bunches of scented cheerfulness. They look and smell gorgeous. Cheerfulness, a pound a bunch. That’s a bargain in my book.
Later in the year, there will be Cyprus potatoes with chunks of red earth still clinging to their skins, English asparagus for roasting, Scottish raspberries, nectarines… Long live the greengrocers!