A farmers’ market has just opened round the corner from us, in William Ellis School playground, so naturally I went along to mock.

They won’t catch me with all this organic, green, environmentally friendly nonsense. To me, all it means is expensive.

How I giggled seeing all these inner London families in their Barbours and green wellies as if they had just walked round Buttermere in the Lake District, as opposed to up Kentish Town Road.

They were ever so excited and pleased with themselves, but at the same time self-conscious. I overheard one NW5 dad looking round at the other families, just like his own, and saying “Isn’t it just so-oo NW5?”

This is a bit hard to explain, if you do happen to live in Buttermere. Forty-five years ago, when we moved into this area, the desirable local postcode was NW3, meaning Hampstead.

Since so many young professional middle classes have arrived over here, NW5 has acquired its own image, signifying young caring couples with lovely children — the sort who squealed with delight when the farmers’ market arrived on our doorstep.

I went round, scoffing, at stalls saying Farmer Ted’s Veg, Back to Nature, Food Fore Thought, Hand Picked Shellfish, Ten Day Hung Lamb, Biodynamic Quality. On a stall called the Parson’s Nose a butcher in a bowler hat was selling Wild Garlic Sausages and Wild Black Boar.

They must be taking the mickey, I thought, it’s a film set, left over from Little Dorrit. None of them are farmers. They’re all from Central Casting.

It’s interesting and I suppose heart-warming that in these hard times, farmers’ markets are doing well, when they are not cheap. I said that to a few of the stall holders and they all denied it. They said the prices compared well with the supermarkets. However, I saw a punnet of raspberries at £2 which looked just the same as the raspberries I bought the day before in a stall outside Kentish Town Tube station for £1.

Ah, I was told, they probably came from some deprived Third World country. Everything here is produced within 100 miles of London. English raspberries, at this time of the year? Yes, but they are the last crop, grown under cover.

I talked to the market manager and he said that not only had produce to come from within 100 miles — which means they have had to ban people wanting to sell grouse or organic olive oil — but that the people selling must be the producers.

I did overhear one young man on a very busy cake stall shouting into his mobile. “Mum! We’ve sold all your carrot cake!” Could still have been an actor of course, following his script. Oh I’m so cynical.

They were doing brilliant business. Today, apparently, there are 16 farmers’ markets all over the London area, which attract more than 30,000 worshippers every weekend who spend more than £6m a year.

I came home to find my wife had been there and had bought some bread. I didn’t ask how much. Keep it as your secret, pet, it will only upset me. And also some raspberries. Bloody hell, woman, I can get them for £1. Yes, she said, but these are local English, and not covered in carbon monoxide fumes. I have to admit they were delicious.

I wondered if I should join in, get myself a stall. After all, I live only 100 yards not 100 miles away and I do grow apples, tomatoes and pears in my back garden. I went out to have a look, but the only ones left were all rotten and droopy. Aren’t we all?

I chased away some squirrels that were trying to dig up my bulbs — then I had this brilliant idea. The local paper, the Camden New Journal, had a half page of recipes for cooking squirrels — roast stuffed squirrel, squirrel jambalaya.

Sounded well tasty. Grey squirrels are a menace, in fact there’s a bounty on them in the Lake District as they try to protect the red squirrel. So I’d be doing good, saving my bulbs, and making some money if I could kill a few and sell them at the farmers’ market.

Skinning them, hmm, that could be hard, but all those NW5 dads in their green wellies, surely they could soon get the hang of it. Disgusting, said my wife, and you’d have the animal rights people after you. Anyway, no-one would buy them.

I rang one of the directors of the London Farmers’ Markets, Mark Handley, and said I had this great new idea, selling dead squirrels. It’s not new, he said, one of their butchers is already selling squirrel — and rook.

Rook. Now that is gross. Let’s just hope it is organic and biodynamic.