The World's Dictionary

It's Sunday morning, but we're all here. Fossickers, wanderers, seriously determined buyers.

I drop my gold coin into the Rotary Club entry bucket, and turn right into the crowd.

There are glints of copper and brass straight ahead: old fireside woodboxes and copperart reproductions.

Thickly glazed, orange and brown ceramics, straight from the back of someone's mum's kitchen cupboards.

Trendy young things wearing Ray Bans rummage through piles of 'authentic vintage 1980s' clothing.

I am not here to buy, but to research: to browse, watch, and get a feel for the place.

And yet, I still come away with three bunches of fresh flowers, six vegetable soaps, and five of the rarest Richard Scarry books ever to bring a smile to a four year old boy's face.

And before I know it, it's all over. An Orwellian voiceover - BBC English mashed with broad Australian - announces:

'It is 12.30pm and the market is now closed. No more sales are permitted.'

And slowly the cars reclaim this space.