I mentioned in yesterday’s post that we had an appointment at Apple’s Covent Garden store today. This is because Tigger’s iPhone needs attention.

Tigger’s iPhone 8 has been suffering from battery problems, as did mine, though for far longer. It is only recently, however, that these problems – rapid loss of power and failure to hold a full charge – have become urgent enough to need correction. Batteries are of course the weak part of all electronic gadgets, especially of mobile phones, which we use intensively and keep recharging. Using a phone as your camera is arguably the best way to ruin the battery!

On Wednesday evening, therefore, we made contact with Apple via chat. The conversation followed the pattern of mine as described in Battery failure, except that Tigger didn’t lose contact as I did and everything proceeded smoothly. Having run the analytics test, the technician agreed that the battery needed replacing and made an appointment at the Apple store for 1:30pm today.

I shall accompany Tigger but I don’t know whether they will admit me to the store as well, as they are limiting the number of people present on the premises. If not, I will find somewhere to wait in Covent Garden until Tigger reappears.

Catching the bus

We set out at noon, catching a number 19 bus which took us to Covent Garden.

Neal Street

We walked up Neal Street which was decorated with coloured hangings.

The Piazza

When we reached the Piazza, it was still too early to go to the Apple store, so we thought about grabbing a quick lunch.

North Hall

We walked through the market building (above is what is called the North Hall).

Orée, Wellington Street

We spotted this place, called Orée, with a sign over the door reading “Sandwiches”. As we didn’t have a lot of time, a sandwich lunch seemed a good bet.

We bought two salad and halloumi rolls, a cup of tea and a cup of coffee. The rolls were the small round ones. The filling was plentiful with two good strips of halloumi but, even so, I was not expecting the price: £15.50. Someone’s taking the p***.

We waited until nearly 1:30 and then made our way to Apple. We went through the now familiar routine: taking of our temperature and delivering a dollop of cleansing foam onto our hands. We were told that I could wait in the queue with Tigger but not go into the store with her. I was expecting this.

In the queue

We joined the “queue”, which isn’t really a queue because you go into the store when you are called by name, not when you reach the head of the queue.

Inside the Apple store

When Tigger was called, the person who called her very kindly allowed me to go into the store as well and sit in the waiting area. On the right in the above picture is the spiral staircase that I referred to in my previous posts, ironically, as “the staircase to heaven”. Tigger disappeared up this.

The waiting area

I sat and watched the activity going on around me, trying to guess what the various customers had come for, or what those in the waiting area with me were waiting for.

Tigger reappeared much sooner than I expected and told me that her phone would be ready for 2:35. As it was rather warm in the store, we decided to go for a walk until collection time.

King Street

We passed by King Street (above) and made our way to St Paul’s Church.

St Paul’s Church

In front of the church is a pleasant garden which was presumably the churchyard until it was closed to burials and later landscaped. We chose a bench and would have stayed there but for the fact that it started raining.

Interior, St Paul’s

The church was open and so we did the sensible thing and went inside.

St Paul’s was designed by Inigo Jones and built in 1633. It is now a Grade I listed building.

We sat at the back (note the yellow adhesive tape closing off some rows of seats for the purpose of social distancing) where we had a good view of the church but also took a quick walk around before leaving.

When I had collected my own phone which Apple had taken in for repair, I had been kept waiting a long time. I warned Tigger of this though I really didn’t expect lightning to strike twice in the same place. Oh, but it did!

At first, they had trouble finding Tigger in their list and then they told us that there were delays. In my case, I had been left standing during a long wait but today they did at least usher us into the waiting area where we could sit.

Then we waited. The “delay” proved to be an hour long and Tigger was finally summoned to collect her phone at 3:35. At last we were free to go.

Garden façade

As we left Covent Garden, I photographed this building with a plant bedecked façade. I’m sure there’s a technical name for this but I don’t know what it is.

Tigger remarked, and I agreed, that waiting around is tiring, especially when you don’t know how long you will have to wait. We made for the bus stop without more ado.

Jusaka

We did stop off before going home. No prizes for guessing where!

While I would compliment Apple on the courtesy and attention we received from the staff who dealt with us, I have to wonder about all the waiting around that we endured. If it had happened only to me or only to Tigger, I would have put it down to a hiccup in the system but, since it happened to both of us and on separate occasions, it seems to be more than that. Perhaps they are understaffed or are taking on more work than they can deal with in a timely fashion or perhaps the organisational changes necessitated by Covid-19 have distorted the smooth running. Whatever the reason, it needs attention.

As for us, we now have our phones in good working order again. Let’s hope it’s a long time before we have to go through this rigmarole again!

Despite the remarkable advances in technology that we have witnessed in recent times, there remains one annoyance in the home which has so far not been resolved. I speak of light bulbs. These devices still fail at regular intervals – often far shorter than their advertised lifetimes – and need to be replaced. Apart from keeping a set of spares, there is little one can do to mitigate the problem.

In recent days, two bulbs have failed in our flat. I replaced them with spares, putting the duds aside until I was ready to go to the shop for replacements. I did that today.

Ryness, electrical suppliers

Our nearest supplier of electrical goods is this shop on the corner of Baron Street and White Lion Street. It is a branch of Ryness, who sell both wholesale and retail.

To visit the shop, I put on a face mask, as we are supposed to do these days. When I arrived, there were a couple of customers in the shop but the premises is large enough to allow that number of people to keep distance as we are supposed to and so I went in. The customers also wore masks.

I noted with approval that the once open counter has now been surmounted by a transparent barrier in which two small apertures allow smaller articles to pass between customer and assistant and that in front of this, on the customer’s side, a pedestal has been installed, on top of which is a machine for electronic payments.

Dotted about were several notices requesting customers to wear face masks in the shop and offering to sell you one if you are without.

I had to await my turn and so had time to notice all this. I also noticed that the shop assistant was not wearing a mask. Am I right to find this odd?

The goods I required were an ordinary bulb for the kitchen area and a tubular light for the bathroom. The latter consists of a tube folded into a rectangle about 5½ inches square. As I usually do, I gave the assistant the duds to make sure he knew which items I needed. (Also because they retain them for recycling.)

That little lot came to £12.87 which I paid by tapping my credit card on the aforementioned payment machine. If I didn’t blink at the price it is because at the rate at which these things fail, I have had plenty of opportunities to become inured to their price. I won’t bother telling you what these things used to cost for fear if being dismissed as a whingeing old fogey.

Tigger had to go in to the office today and so I have spent it on my own. I am looking forward to her return at about 7pm. Tomorrow, we have an appointment at the Apple store in Covent Garden. This time, it is Tigger’s phone that needs seeing to but I will say more about that in due course.

By the way, I have just seen a news item to the effect that “Apple becomes the first US company to be valued at $2 trillion”. Not sure I can think of anything useful to say to that! 🙂

Today has decided to be mostly rainy. Not that I am grumbling about it because, apart from a few light showers, it has not rained, properly speaking, for quite a while and there must be a need for it. As a bonus, too, it lowers the temperature.

Despite the rain, we went out for a little expedition. We caught a number 30 bus to Baker Street.

Baker Street in the rain

Why Baker Street? Well, why not? It’s as good a place for an urban stroll as any other street. The photo shows a typical view of Baker Street in the rain. Sorry if that disappoints fans of Sherlock Holmes expecting to see Hansom cabs plying fir hire!

Stopping off for coffee

We stopped for coffee at a coffee shop called Pure. We sat on chairs outside under the shop awning, not realising that they had an indoor seating area downstairs. Not that it mattered really, because the awning kept most of the rain off and we had the benefit of the fresh air.

Metal screen

I photographed this façade because of the unusual metal screen across the front. This creates an open air atrium in front of the main building. In a city where space is at a premium this seems a strange waste. Aesthetically, it is quite pleasant, I suppose.

Repeating the pattern

Further along, the pattern of the screen is repeated though here it doesn’t seem to serve any specific purpose other than decoration.

Shop selling games

I didn’t pay any attention to this shop specialising in games (games are not an interest of mine) until Tigger pointed out a particular item displayed prominently in the window.

Fancy playing Pandemic?

Well, why not? As the old saying puts it, “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good“. Personally, I have enough trouble with the real pandemic to not wish to play games about it as well. But that’s just sourpuss me.

Handsome building

I admired this building on the corner of Portman Street and Bryanston Street. I would guess that it is late Victorian but I could of course be wrong. I imagine it was originally an apartment block though today it is a DoubleTree hotel.

Curiously bulbous building

Compare it with this curiously bulbous building on another corner. It somehow reminds me of the rounded gun turrets in World War 2 bomber aircraft (see here, for example). In its defence, I suppose it’s better looking than some modern horrors.

Aboard the number 30

Nearby was a bus stop where we boarded a number 30 bus to take us back to the Angel. Outside of rush hours, many buses carry few passengers and often don’t need to halt at bus stops as there is no one wishing to get on or off. Bus travel has become pleasant again, at least for now.

Some years ago, Transport for London installed displays at bus stops. These show which buses will call at the stop in the next few minutes. These were (and are) very useful. Unfortunately, many of these displays malfunctioned and instead of replacing them, TfL simply removed the defective ones. Tough luck if you found yourself at a stop that had no display.

This used to bother me as I often needed to know which buses would arrive at a stop and how soon. In recent years, this problem has found a solution, though no thanks to TfL. If you own a smart phone, you can now install an app that, depending in your location, shows on a map the positions of all nearby bus stops, the buses that stop at them and the expected arrival times of the next few buses to reach that stop.

There are several of these that all perform well and have individual points in their favour and it is perhaps unfair to single out just one. I will, however, say that the one we use is UK Bus Checker. This works both for London and for other towns whose bus information is available for capture by apps.

As more and more displays break down and are removed from London’s bus stops, the app becomes ever more useful!

The title of this post may sound rather like the name of a pub but I hope to justify it as we go.

Tigger was supposed to go into the office on two days this week, Monday and Tuesday, but was asked at short notice to swap Tuesday for Thursday. Thus, she was unexpectedly at home today.

We progressed slowly through the morning to lunchtime when Tigger suddenly proposed that we go for a walk. So of course, that’s what we did.

The weather was warm (around 22°C) and humid. The forecast was threatening rain and even thunder storms but we set out bravely.

First call – Jusaka

Our first call was at Jusaka – unsurprisingly – where we sat at the back, in our usual seats in “the old days”, you know, before Covid.

St John Street/Rosebery Avenue

After coffee, the weather was still dry so we thought we should go continue our walk. Here we are on the corner of St John Street and Rosebery Avenue.

Social distance bea

On the corner of Rosebery Avenue is an establishment that looks as though it might be a cafe or a restaurant though it is closed at present. So who was this figure sitting demurely at a table like a customer?

The clue is the motto on his tee shirt. It reads

I’m a social
distance bear
<  1m  >

I’m not sure what role he plays in the organisation unless it is to be present at the entrance when the place is open as a reminder to customers to keep their distance.

From what I’ve seen of the way people are behaving now, he has his work cut out.

The foyer, Sadler’s Wells

We passed in front of Sadler’s Wells Theatre and I took a quick photo of the foyer through the glass entrance doors. Not that we have ever been to a performance therein or are likely ever to do so.

Shakespeare’s Head grape vine

I mentioned previously that there is a grape vine seemingly trying to escape from the garden of the Shakespeare’s Head into Myddelton Passage and that in the unusually warm weather lately it has produced bunches of tiny grapes. We thought we would take a look at how they are progressing.

Bunches of grapes on the vine

The answer is that they are progressing quite well. There are some well formed bunches of grapes and while some are still green, a lot are convincingly black. Not that I think they will ever be edible, much less able to produce juice for wine.

We now felt a few drops of rain and thought it bast to head for home.

Wood pigeon

I did stop to phototgraph this wood pigeon walking along the top of a trimmed hedge. In Islington we are blessed with numerous parks and gardens and plenty of trees so that wood pigeons are almost as common a sight as the feral or street pigeons. They are often seen feeding together. The two populations remain distinct, however, with different habits and lifestyles.

Sunday is traditionally the day when we do the week’s shopping at Sainsbury’s. During the lockdown, Tigger coped on her own but since last week, I tag along too, as I always used to do.

The store opens at 11am on Sunday and that’s when we went, knowing that it is relatively uncrowded at that hour. Following the rules, we wore face masks in the shop. So did most of the other customers, though some were wearing them incorrectly. Why? There is plenty of information on how to place them so no one can plead ignorance.

If you are not going to wear the mask correctly, then at least have the courage not to wear it at all. Nobody is impressed by you leaving you nose uncovered or wearing the mask wrapped around your chin. You just look like the idiot that you are.

Most of what we wanted was on the shelves, though with some notable blank spots. Don’t blame Covid-19 for this though, because missing items has always been the besetting sin of this branch of Sainsbury’s.

Watching the world go by from Jusaka

Having completed the task, we stopped off at Jusaka for coffee and a rest from our labours. We sat on the soft seats at the back (those stools are a bit hard on the derrière, believe me) and watched the world go by outside. And there was plenty of world going by, too. The streets were quite busy for a Sunday morning.

The shopping awaits

The shopping – trolley plus bag – sat and glared at us throughout and we were aware we would have to deal with it eventually.

We at last bestirred ourselves and set off for home. We passed close the the so-called Angel Building on the corner of St John Street and Pentonville Road.

Moth on the window
Photo by Tigger

On one of the large windows, Tigger noticed this moth resting and took a photo of it. It is of a different species from the one seen in our front door yesterday but what species they are, neither of us knows. Must ask for a book on butterflies and moths for my birthday! I used to enjoy a closer relationship with these interesting creatures, as recounted in Garden tigers.

Garden tiger moth

Though butterflies receive the most attention from people, there are in fact far more species of moths in the world. Estimates vary, but according to some counts, there are ten times more moth than butterfly species. There’s a fact to keep in mind for the pub quiz night!