High Street

Spent a few days last week down in Whitstable. It had been some ten years or so since I was last there and though undoubtedly a little more touristy it still manages to avoid being like a novelty model village. The high street has working fishmongers, butchers, bakers, greengrocers, hardware shops etc all run independently, just as you used to find on any high street before the advent of the supermarket and which, you still find in most of mainland Europe (though yes I have heard the reports of Boulangeries closing at an alarming rate). It is not so much that one should be nostalgic for such times or romantic notions of ‘community’ but a working high street (and I would contrast this with the boutique foody artifice of Borough Market) just makes the quality of life so much better.