Fishy feasts on the South Bank

This weekend is the Thames festival - a celebration of the end of summer and an opportunity for fun on and around the winner.

It's a well-established event, although this is the first year I have been along. Events are scattered all along the river, but we mostly explored around Southwark Bridge and Bankside. The bridge was closed to traffic and instead of cars there were stalls and a huge communal dining table. On the bridge there was a fishy theme, sustainable fish in particular. For £10 you could have dinner (if you bought a ticket early enough) made from discard fish and waste vegetables. Alternatively, for a small donation you could get a bowl of cooked red signal crayfish, an alien species which damage riverbanks and have driven out the native white-clawed crayfish. The crayfish were fiddly (you throw away a lot more than you eat), but sweet and juicy. And you get to feel virtuous about eating them.

I listened to a talk about sustainable fishing (the world of fishing turns out to have much to do with the world of banking, and as with many forms of food production in this country, the big outfits seem to have most of the power and money).

There was a giant fish-shaped cake with gingerbread biscuit scales individually decorated by children. There were even chips, also made from cake. Later on the cake was cut and everyone in the vicinity got a free generous slab of cake. The "chips" didn't have any icing on, but you got a squirt of jam so it looked like ketchup on a oversized chip.

There were gourmet food stalls at the south end of the bridge- everything from biodynamic burgers with Stichelton cheese to paella to mezze, plus cheeses from Neal's Yard Dairy. And fish and chips, of course (the fish all had to be sustainably sourced). Tnd there were even more food stalls along Bankside outside Tate Modern (home-made ice-cream, coffee, fajitas, cupcakes and more).

Festival events continue on Sunday - sadly I doubt there is any more free cake to be had.