Summer in the city

Hackney's cute millennials are out in droves. The smell of burning artisan sausages wafts across London Fields, blue smoke hangs above the wild flower meadow, recumbent bodies dot the close clipped lawns - cargo shorts replace skinny jeans, trailing ethnic print skirts swapped for diaphanous short summer dresses - it's a sunny summer Sunday in East London's sprawling hipsterdom.

We arrived yesterday. Sarah and Rob kindly drove up to the campsite near Chingford and picked us up. Rather than go to their flat near London Fields we ended up at their friend's place in Dalston. They are keeping an eye on it and the resident house cat, Miffy, while her owners visit parents in Canada with their new baby. Miffy lived up to her name and seemed very miffed indeed at this unannounced human invasion. We walked from here up to Stoke Newington. Pausing briefly in front of a vintage clothing store which seemed the size of a B&Q, Sarah filled me in on some socio-economic essentials. Stoke Newington it seems is where bohemians go when they grow too old to be hipsters. I did wonder if she had taken us there so we might feel less conspicuous. Certainly around where Sarah lives I get the impression that I am the only person with natural grey hair. In Broadway market, all the others are a quarter of a century younger, having opted for premature greyness as a conscious style choice.

Even in Stoke Newington I still felt very old, I wondered where retired bohemians went. Perhaps they don't venture out. Everyone else was out, the bars, pubs and restaurants heaved and it was barely evening - around sixish. We had a drink in pub back yard while we waited for Matthew to arrive from Brockley, then went in search of somewhere with a table for five. We ended up at a South Indian restaurant called Rasa Travancore. It serves a menu specialising in Kerelan cuisine which has Syrian influences due to a long established Coptic Christian community on the Malabar coast associated with the spice trade. The resultant fusion is delicious. Undoubtedly the food here is the best from the sub-continent I have ever tasted, and in truth, I struggle to recall a better eating experience anywhere. Maybe some of the meals we had in Sicily were as good, and the food in Hong Kong. What made the meal at Rasa so memorable is it was entirely unexpected. A delightful surprise.

Afterwards we headed back to Lea Valley camping via the train to Walthamstowe Central and the 215 bus which terminates at a stop right outside the campsite gates. It was around 11.30pm by the time we got back. It is a longer journey than to the other sites we have used in Lea Valley near Ponders End. We prefer it as Walthamstowe is a considerably less dodgy place to be after dark than Edmonton Green - the bus station there tends to attract the spaced out and bewildered. Harmless probably, but still slightly un-nerving.

London is exhausting when you are unused to it. We both slept well. Next day dawned wall to wall blue. A sunny Sunday was in prospect. Again we were ferried into the city - our own personal Hackney carriage! We spent most of the day simply wandering through the borough's backstreets stopping occasionally for a coffee or something to eat. After an elevenses macchiata at some coffee shop on top of an old railway viaduct near London Fields station we headed off towards lunch in the Well Street area. Matthew joined us for a pizza at a small hole in the wall sort of place. The pizzas were good the coffee had been good, the weather was great. "All good" as Gill might say. Our native guides pointed out the early stages of gentrification to be noted in the locality. As Rob remarked, 'this place will be next to go'. Even in the few years we have been visiting the area even we can see how it had been ever more colonised by young professionals. I remember having brunch in the area near Victoria Park about five or six years ago, it was quite laid back, now it buzzes with life.

It was entertaining walking back towards Broadway market, through the park then along Regents Canal. There was a festive atmosphere everywhere. Gill and I, lost in a horde of stylish, sassy under 35s. I can see why Sarah and Rob love it here, they have good jobs, a great group of friends and a lively exciting time. However, it's an immersive and exhausting existence I think. Easy from the perspective of a 62 year old to dismiss it as substituting style for substance, but that is not quite the case, more a question of engaging with style as substance. As we wandered through Broadway Market in the late afternoon I half remembered a line from Auden, something about surfaces not necessarily being superficial - and I think there is something liberating and joyous about the ephemeral, the momentary performance, raising a glass that is neither half empty or half full, sensing rather that it will be forever replenished. Only the young can feel that, and the old should rejoice vicariously and not be tempted to advise caution.

This may be the last time we come here. Sarah and Rob are moving to Lisbon in the autumn. As a designer​ Rob can work remotely, quite what Sarah will do is less certain, but she is resourceful, charming and clever, so I am sure things will work out. I am pleased she is making the change. Sarah never took a gap year but moved straight from her Masters into publishing and has done well to become a senior development editor by her late twenties. However, there is more to life than a corporate existence. I think she is overdue a change. Anyway, we are looking forward to visiting them in Lisbon and experiencing the place through younger eyes, just as we have able to become temporary overaged millennials this afternoon in Hackney.