It was foretold in the cobbles, in the knowing clatter of pigs’ trotters   stumbling in the gaps between   the watchful eye of the bobby and bobble-hatted boys   wielding power in sticks   before they drove double-deckers   between trestles and traders on headscarved patterned pavements   before Joan’s Cafeteria where order and ordered are reflected in  tiered cakes and  overall stripes   before these marketeers bantered over the size of sausages with someone that could be my nana.   before the Coffee Pot café where my Stokie oatcakes arrive   cheese oozing from crinkled layers   towards the gold-bordered edge of this white china plate ritually flipped for a makers mark.