Since returning to the UK I often think that we have lost winter. The weather seems to drift into a damp, cool state from October to March without getting very cold. Frosts are much rarer than 20 years ago and snow in S England is almost unknown.

As a result spring seems to come earlier. Chives have been growing again for the last month, welsh onions and wild garlic are above ground already. It seems unnatural for mid February.

Anyway with one clump of chives over 12 cm high, I managed to have my first harvest this afternoon. Made chive oil to go with our bifteki tonight.

When travelling abroad I have often enjoyed visiting food markets. In my town we are blessed with a market twice-weekly but although there is a decent vegetable seller and other food sellers of mixed quality the choice is very much what you can buy in a supermarket. I had read quite a bit about Borough Market being a very interesting one in Mark Hix's column in the Saturday Independent Magazine.

This last Saturday we went there and I got just as much of a thrill from it as markets I have been to in France, Germany or Spain. For me it is unusual in that it is a permanent covered market - not something we see here in smaller towns - and is partly under the railway line between London Bridge and Charing Cross stations. It is also just south of Southwark Cathederal.

There were a number of fishmongers with a much larger variety of fish than I am used to where we live. It was really good to see that people were not just buying cod or haddock! There was a very aromatic stand selling middle eastern food - the smell of the herbs and grilled meat had my mouth watering well before my lunchtime.

There were a number of good cheese stands. Most offered samples - a practice widespread on the Continent but infrequent here - and none of the ones I tried was disappointing. A Welsh stand offered excellent Caerphilly and I was tempted by this stand offering Comté cheese from France.

There were also good vegetable stands offering a wide range of fresh veg, herbs and mushrooms. On one I was pleased to see that some older carrot varieties were sold along with the common orange ones.

In case you are not aware, carrots used to be either white, yellow or purple like some of those above. However, the Dutch managed to breed an orange-coloured variety (orange is the colour of the Dutch royal family) and orange carrots became almost universally grown.

Since we had no means of refridgeration, we left meat and fish alone. However the wild mushrooms were very tempting indeed and made for a good sidedish for our Sunday lunch. Where I live, I have never seen wild mushrooms for sale.

So for anybody living withing a short distance of London Bridge....I certainly recommend Borough Market. The only downside for us was trying to get a coffee. Most cafés had huge queues and the one we went to had very good coffee, not so good pastries and meringues, high prices and poor service (£27 for four of us).