Jacques Prévert 1900-77

The weather is cold and grey but we must make the most of it. We set out bravely, clutching the bag with our Jusaka reusable cups, only to face disappointment.

Jusaka – closed

We found Jusaka closed, despite them assuring us that they would be open at weekends from now on.

OK, then, plan B!

Queueing for the butcher’s

We walked down St John Street and turned into Chadwell Street. My attention was caught by this unusual gathering of people. It seems that they were queueing for the butcher’s shop on the corner. The queue stretched along in front of the neighbouring shops and turned the next corner. How long will it take them all to be served, I wonder. It makes me glad to be a veggie 🙂

Myddelton Square garden

We walked through Myddelton Square garden. In summer it had been busy but today I spotted only one other person, sitting on a bench. Not even any dog walkers.

If you have read other recent posts of mine, you will probably guess where we were heading. Yes, to Myddelton’s deli.

Coffee and custard tart
Photo by Tigger

As we intended to continue our walk, we decided that it was best to drink our coffee right here even though the weather was hardly propitious to sitting out on the pavement. As a treat and consolation prize, we lashed out on Portuguese custard tarts with the coffee. Delicious!

Scaffolders at work

For entertainment we watched a team of scaffolders assembling materials to build scaffolding on the front of one of the houses. Their task is slightly complicated by the fact that these houses have basements which have to be included. They obviously know what they are doing l, though, and for them, it’s literally all in a day’s work.

Amwell Street

If Amwell Street seems quiet for a Saturday, that’s not unusual for a street where many of the shops are specialist shops, some of which only open rarely. Despite this “exclusive” atmosphere, the street possesses not one, but three barbers’ shops. Can they all possibly make a living? Do they cut one another’s hair, I wonder?

It’s true that barbers’ shops have proliferated in recent years so that there are often several in a single shopping precinct. I have no idea why this is so. Men’s hair and beards aren’t growing any faster than they used to, are they?

Wharton Street (and the BT Tower)
Photo by Tigger

From the deli we strolled down Wharton Street. In the background you can just about make out the BT Tower. This has changed its name several times since it was completed in 1964 but is gradually losing its purpose, overtaken by developments in communications technology. The design included a revolving restaurant at the top but a bomb placed in the toilet in 1971 caused it to close, never to open again.

Autumn-clad house

We stopped to admire this house prettily decorated with autumn foliage.

Prideaux Place
Photo by Tigger

Another pleasant street is Prideaux Place. It is lined with trees and is very quiet. Cast-off leaves carpet the ground, conferring an almost rural feel.

Percy Circus

This led into one of my favourite places, Percy Circus. The houses not only follow a curve but stand on a relatively steep slope which, so I read somewhere, caused problems for the builders and delayed completion. Whatever the difficulties, they seem to have solved them with commendable results.

Central garden, Vernon Square

Venturing on, we entered Vernon Square, a place we have not visited often before. Like many of the squares in this district, it has a central garden which may have been private to residents originally but is now public. If the weather had been more amenable, it might have been pleasant to sit here for a while.

King’s Cross Baptist Church

One of the present residents of the Square is the King’s Cross Baptist Church (or “Chuch”, according to the website). I know nothing about the age or history of this church but was intrigued by one detail, spotted by Tigger: they advertise that they provide services in English and French. Can there be so many francophone Baptists living in the area that it is worth having special services for them? Apparently.

The Castle
Photo by Tigger

On the way home, Tigger photographed the Castle in Pentonville Road. We have visited this pub perhaps a couple of times to have their vegetarian Sunday roast, which is quite good. What caught our attention today, however, was the racket emanating from the roof terrace. Perhaps there was a private party in progress but whatever it was, it seemed a very jolly – and noisy – affair.

Today’s ramble was a return to our lockdown walks when we were confined to the local area. Now that London has been put in Tier 2, travel is again discouraged and we are encouraged to stay in our neighbourhood. I very much enjoyed those local explorations which taught me to look closer and deeper and led me to discover things I would not otherwise have done. Today I recovered some of that pleasure and interest. I look forward to more discoveries awaiting the curious gaze below the more obvious surface of the world.

It’s not cold today (a relatively sultry 15°C) but it is wet. We might not have stirred out at all but for the fact that we had goods to pick up from Argos, an item that had not been ready yesterday (see yesterday’s post).

Busier than usual

We started, as usual, with a visit to Jusaka which has in a sense become our clubhouse as the staff are more like friends than baristas. We found it busier than I have seen it at any time since the arrival of Covid. This is good, as it helps the business to survive, though it might make it awkward to find a suitably separate place to sit. We sat at our “round the corner” table which transient customers tend to miss or avoid.

Decorated latte
Photo by Tigger

We had the same order as always, latte for Tigger and a “black americano” for me.

I have for years drunk both coffee and tea without milk, so this seems quite natural to me. Not to other people, however, as baristas often ask “Any milk with that?” or even bring a jug of hot milk with the coffees to our table.

High Street in the rain

The High Street was slick with rain and the heavy cloud overlay made it as dark as evening. This sign warning of road works and possible delays up ahead somehow added to the oppressive mood.

Two more clossed businesses
Photos by Tigger

These seem to be two more businesses that have closed down though whether because of Covid or for other reasons is not clear.

Two ways to track and trace
Photo by Tigger

I mentioned the other day that the QR code system that started as a perfectly good way of recording your presence in a cafe or restaurant now works only if you have the official app installed on your phone. This business provides two ways to do it, however, the official and their own. Good for them. I hope more businesses follow their example. The app is unpopular and is not generally used and dissenters are not going to be easily coerced into using it. It is better to have unofficial systems that work than an official one that does not.

As for us, we picked up our item at Argos and then hurried home like two dormice scurrying to their nest.

The title refers to a curious incident earlier in the day. Just after lunch, the doorbell rang. I went to the door to find a man wearing a high-vis jacket.

“Did you report a dead fox?” He enquired,

Dead fox? No, sorry, no dead foxes here. Can’t help you with that..

“Oh, all right, then” said he and politely took his leave. I almost felt as though I had let him down somehow…

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.

Following our plan of “staying local” while London is in Tier 2 of Covid restrictions, we went for a neighbourhood stroll this afternoon.

The Tram Shed aka the Mall

We took off along Upper Street where I photographed the Tram Shed. This is now a Grade II listed building. According to Historic England, it was built in 1905-6, though I believe that this structure possibly replaced a forerunner on the site. In the 1940s it was an electricity substation, perhaps supplying current for the public transport network. In 1979 it became the Antiques Mall that has been sorely missed since the antiques dealers were evicted and its use was changed to single occupancy.

Into St Alban’s Place

We turned off Upper Street into this unpromising-looking passage way. It passes through a sort of tunnel and you could be misled into thinking that it gives access only to backyards.

In fact, it leads into a residential estate known as Old Royal Free. This was built on land that originally held the Royal Free Hospital. This institution was built in the mid-19th century as new premises for the London Fever Hospital that had been evicted from its site at King’s Cross to make way for the new railway and station. It later changed its purpose to a general free hospital. Some traces of the original installation still remain, as we shall see. For a history of the Royal Free, see here.

Entering the residential area

It this point, St Alban’s Place is still narrow and quiet (note the speed bumps) but is more obviously residential.

Flowers around the door

This house has flowers around the door like a country cottage. I think they are artificial but they add a touch of colour.

Children’s playground
Photo by Tigger

In the middle of the estate is a large children’s playground enclosed by decorative wrought iron railings. It wasn’t busy on a weekday but there were a couple of mothers with small children making use of the amenity.

Handprints

The railings were decorated with a set of tiles bearing handprints of children and painted silver. (The angle of the photo is a little awkward because I was avoiding including any children in the picture as parents tend to be sensitive about this. Understandably, perhaps.)

One of a pair of gates

To leave the estate and progress into Liverpool Road, you pass through either of a pair of gates. These, I believe, are remnants of the Royal Free establishment.

The north gate

We in fact left through the other gate which is a few yards to the north of the first one. Here we are looking back at it.

Gate to the street

That is not the last of the gates, however, for there is one more. The street gate allows for the entry of vehicles as well as pedestrians, It encloses a yard which also serves as a vehicle park. If ever there was an actual gate, it no longer exists.

The North Lodge

The gateway is flanked by a pair of lodges unimaginatively if accurately called North Lodge and South Lodge, respectively. The picture shows the former. These lodges would presumably have accommodated caretakers in the days of the hospital but are now private homes.

The Angelic, previously The George

We made for home along Liverpool Road. On a corner (opposite Sainsbury’s, scene of our Sunday shopping runs, stands this rather grand pub. These days it goes by the name of The Angelic but was originally called The George. Records of its existence go back to the early 19th century but I am uncertain as to whether this is the original building. It could be, I suppose.

You can see that there is a clock on one of the façades. I have kept an eye on it ever since I came to the Angel. For a number of years it worked but showed the completely wrong time. Now, I think, it has finally stopped and I doubt whether it will ever run again.

To end with, here is a skyscape by Tigger.

Skyscape by Tigger