Hackney Road is unsentimental place on any day of the week. It's Sunday and the alternating wholesale handbag shops, fried chicken joints and strip clubs are closed, there is no sign of life. But what's this? Is that really a palm tree rustling behind that van? And look a girl laden under a burst of bright colour and there's a man and his little daughter struggling with a Christmas tree. As with so often in London, unpromising arterial roads hide gems.

Running parallel to Hackney Road and surrounded by council estates is a quaint cobbled street of Victorian terraces called Columbia Road and on Sundays there is a flower market. I was with my ex-girlfriend, Alice. When we lived together she used to buy flowers to decorate our flat whilst i prepared lunch. My flat is now flowerless and the fern we bought together is dying but we are still firm friends.

Photo: Paul-in-London

The street is packed with people and the air alive with Cockney Market banter. It offers value for money. You can buy huge bunches of tulips for £5 and plants as big as trees for £10 (plants as big as trees are probably just trees). If you want a even more of a bargain come about 2pm when the traders want to get rid of everything and go home.

Photo: Ewan-M

The shops along the street sell household brick-a-brac, there are restaurants and people selling coffee and bacon sandwiches. Halfway down the road is The Royal Oak, once famous for scenes of astonishing early morning hedonism as local ravers used to turn up when the clubs closed, it's now of course a Gastropub.

At the end of the road (no. 80) is The Birdcage where on a Saturday night they have karaoke. Last time i went a portly moustached gentleman brought the house down with a rousing rendition of “I am what I am.” I didn't make it to the flower market the following day.