I noticed the other evening at the bottom of the hill that Brooklyn has a sign in the window saying it is 'under new management'. I do not know if this means that they have been able to sell the business or not (they were advertising, variously the lease and the business for sale a few weeks ago), but at least trade is carrying on. They may not have been having an easy time as the works undertaken by Thames Water in Walthamstow High Street have meant that the central portion of the street has been closed to pedestrians. This splits the customer footfall in half, which will not have helped, though those customers who have taken the path past this shop will possibly have had a closer look at the goods on offer than they would have done had the market been there. Swings and roundabouts, as they say. The works have however seriously disrupted the market and probably reduced the overall number of shoppers.

Nevertheless, in the bottom end of the High Street businesses seem to be bearing up reasonably well to the recession so far: Children's Empire still proclaims a closing down sale, but does not appear to be actually shutting as yet, and the serious discounts offered by many of the other retailers for several months now have not been followed by their demise. Sadly, the money-lenders, pawn shops and betting shops have also not found the crisis of capitalism too difficult. Nor have the street scam artists, who have returned with the warmer weather.

The addition of the new Rossi's cafe has greatly perked up the atmosphere in the mid section of the market between St James's Street and the corner of Willow Walk which is shared by Hair and Beauty UK Ltd and Vanity Hair and Beauty.

The corpse of the dinosaur that was Woolworths has not yet started to rot and make the street smell, and I notice they still keep a few of the lights on inside the building to deter vandalism and intruders, but I do wish we would have some news soon about new occupiers for the premises, as in the long term empty shops are bad for all the rest of businesses on the High Street. Rumours is now also shuttered. The Rumours lease is being advertised, rather ominously, by Strettons. This is a local commercial property agent which to my mind at least, has an unhealthily oligopolistic market position locally. They seem to take an age to shift the properties on their books and often find uninspiring new tenants when they do.

There are still some green shoots of business confidence though - the refit at number 96 continues and there is an advert in the window of Shanze Hairdressers for staff. We may or may not be broke but we are all trying our best to be beautiful.

I have also noticed we are retaining our romance, or at least our happy interest in celebrating the rites of spring, as the Windmill had a number of candlelit dinners going on in it when I strolled past with my beloved.