Last week I was fortunate enough to visit London again. It was an unscheduled trip as last minute change in flight schedule required me to stop over at Heathrow airport for transit to another flight. Good thing though was that there was an extra six hours till that flight would depart. I took the opportunity to take a short trip to London, specifically to check out the Portobello antique market that was open every Saturday. Oh, did I mention it was Saturday morning when my plane landed at Heathrow?

As soon as I got cleared from customs, I took the Heathrow Express to Paddington which was a very smooth ride lasting only 15 minutes. From Paddington it was a mere few minutes to Portobello by taxi. By the time I got to Portobello, the crowd was beginning to gather. There were still some dealers unpacking their stuff so I guess I wasn't that late.

I was absorbed in scanning the contents laid out within countless display cases from one stall to another, searching for that faint signal indicating presence of vintage military watches. Several dealers sold vintage watches but not military ones, and certainly not as many watch dealers were present compared to three years ago when I was there. In fact, I couldn't even find those stalls selling NATO straps. There were at least a couple when I was here last time.

Anyway, about that signal. I did locate it, several in fact. There were couple of vintage watch dealers in the Good Fairy antique market. One of the dealers here was David. I'm sure you might recognize him if you've read my previous review. He's the one who carried vintage military chronographs and a Rolex WW1 trench watch. This time though he had several non-chronographs. He had a few WWWs, French issued Stowas, black dialed Zodiacs, and a very yummy looking Zenith DH.

Here's a WW2-era Jaeger, a non-issue but interesting nonetheless.

I thanked David for allowing me to photograph his watches and was about to leave but David stopped me. He revealed one of his treasured items from his secret green denim bag.

It was a Longines WWW, also known as the "Greenlander". Wow, what a beauty. It was my first time to actually see one in person. It was very chunky looking WWW unlike other ones. I really liked the way how the tritium had aged.

David showed me a few more watches along with accompanying documents. I was surprised by his record keeping ability. By now it was getting close to 11 in the morning and, you guessed it, Portobello was really crowded. I wished him luck and left the market.

Here's a few photos I took on the way to Picadilly Circus to have lunch. It started to rain and the temperature started dropping.

There was a tall clown in front of the Sega game center handing out leaflets. I didn't have much time so just took quick photos and went to the station to take the tube to Paddington.

After four hours I was back again to the platform that took me here. This was my third visit to London and by far the shortest one. I was kind of saddened to see decrease in watch dealers at Portobello. Oh well, I hope things turn out positive next time. Hope you enjoyed the photos!