ten days into our london holiday, i found myself on hold on the phone, cup of tea going cold, waiting to speak to the airline about possibly resheduling our flight home. we were due to leave that night, but the airports were still closed due to ashy skies. three hours and forty-two minutes of hold music later, i had five minutes of pleasant chat with a helpful man in india, and hung up with a numb and sweaty ear, and a new departure date three days away.

with a whoop, we pulled some clothes on and burst out into the sunshine. the columbia road flower market would still be on for a good three hours or so. though of course, we weren’t there for the flowers, oh no.

i still had fond memories of my cupcake at treacle from four, count ’em, four years ago. where does the time go, i ask you. such worrisome concerns dissipated as we moseyed about the shop, which seems to have doubled in size since our last visit. there were some very covetable bits of crockery on display, as well as candles in such flavours as cucumber sandwiches.

and there were the cupcakes, in two sizes and several variations of chocolate and vanilla, displayed in large drawers behind the glass counter at the front. the smiley shopgirl was dressed up like the technicolor 50s, and gamely encouraged us to choose exactly which cupcake we wanted. mine was perfectly nice — the cake itself had a light chocolate taste and a fine, crumbly texture, and there was just enough of the not-too-sweet frosting — although much of my enjoyment came from standing in a doorway, trying to keep out of the way of the flower market crowd, by a window display of novelty puppy dog mugs.

i had also been looking forward to visiting rob ryan‘s shop, ryantown, which did not disappoint, filled as it was with his wonderfully schmaltzy papercuts. even the plate glass window was not spared, nor a very desirable umbrella with £45 price tag.

resisting the urge to buy stuff makes me hungry, so i was pleased when we made it to the end of the road, and my sister pointed out campania gastronomia, where lunch could be had. ’twas a homely sort of place, with rickety old tables and chairs, yellowing snapshots tacked to the wall, and a clatter of mismatched cutlery and vintage china. every torta and pudding on show looked hopelessly homemade too, in a good way, mostly.

but we wanted savoury. to share, a very pleasing antipasto board with three sorts of cheese in different degrees of stinky saltiness, and as many kinds of cold meat including great pink circles of pistachio mortadella. there were slippery strips of marinated capsicum, and olives, and hunks of bread drizzled in oil, and even after that, i still thought that i’d be able to tackle the sausage risotto.

i was wrong. it was a veritable lake of salty, buttery rice, with nuggets of meaty sausage all the way through. it was delicious, and i wished i could’ve eaten more of it. as it was, i couldn’t eat more of anything, not even the fat chocolate biscuits i’d seen on the way in, sandwiched with ricotta, and then wrapped up in a twist of greaseproof paper.

we were all smiles though. we felt like we’d won the grand prize, not having to get on the plane that night. the possibilities were endless.