Today’s little stroll had a definite destination and this defined our route to a large extent.

Public hire bicycles aka “Boris bikes”

This station of public hire bicycles is in Claremont Square. The first time I become aware of systems like this for bicycle hire was on our second trip to Paris (see Paris 2008 under September 6th.) Their Vélib’ scheme (now called Vélib Métropole) was possibly the first of its kind in Europe. Sometime afterwards, London acquired its own system, quickly christened “Boris Bikes” after the then Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. This scheme, which requires fixed docks for the bicycles when not in use, has been superseded by the several schemes for free-standing bicycles but is still probably the most used.

Walking through Claremont Square
Photo by Tigger

We walked through Claremont Square under a cloudy sky. The sun broke through at one moment but by the time I had reached for my camera, it was hidden again.

Pumpkins for Hallowe’en

We spotted this pair on a doorstep. The larger looks quite cheerful and the smaller one rather sad. Perhaps he knows what happens to pumpkins after All Souls’.

On the actual evening of Hallowe’en, if it’s the same as in previous years, our doorbell will ring several times and we will ignore it as many times. This date never used to serve as an excuse for petulant children (and often, their petulant accompanying adults) to bother citizens in the name of “Trick or treat”. This is a purely American habit that has been copied in the UK for no very good reason. Maybe Covid will quieten things down somewhat this year. We can but hope.

Flowers in the steps

We passed through Myddelton Square as we so often did during the period of lockdown (see posts on those dates). One of the sights that I admired (and photographed then) was the flowers growing on some of the front-door steps. They made a pretty and colourful display. These have now died back somewhat but still maintain a presence, I like them and hope to see them flourish again next year.

No roses but berries

In the summer I photographed roses blooming over this fence in Chadwell Street. They have now disappeared and have been replaced by a fulsome crop of berries.

Tigger has a nicer picture of some berries:

Red berries
Photo by Tigger

At the end of Chadwell Street there are some shops. Today we noticed a change.

It’s a strange thing that we notice when things have changed but have difficulty remembering what was here before. I do recall that there was a children’s bookshop here for a while but what else escapes me. At the best of times, new businesses have a struggle to establish themselves and become successful but Covid has made things so much worse. We have seen a number of apparently robust businesses fold up and die, unable to survive the downturn in custom. I hate to think how bad the situation will become unless we conquer the pandemic. That in turn depends on government making sensible rules and people obeying them. At the moment we are falling lamentable short in both these departments.

Thai food but no longer
Photo by Tigger

In St John Street is another sad example of the above mentioned troubles. For months, this business remained shuttered with “Coming Soon” notices, so much so that we joked that it would never actually open. It did, but only briefly, just before Covid struck, and now it has succumbed like so many others. Dreams of fortunes to be made have turned into nightmares of money lost in failed enterprises.

You might have guessed that we were in St John Street on our way to Jusaka for coffee and you would be right. After that, we went, as the title hints, to Argos. This Argos is not the famous ancient city in Greece but the catalogue store of that name in the UK. Tigger had ordered some items online and we were going to collect them.

One reason for patronising Argos and other stores in the UK is in order to try to reduce our reliance on Big Bad Amazon. If we can buy what we need elsewhere, we do so.