Since I posted yesterday from our niche in Tier 4, we – all of England, at least – have been confined once more in lockdown.

It can hardly have come as a surprise. For many days, the media have been predicting that lockdown was imminent. Anyone who has daily checked the continually accelerating increase in numbers of infections, hospitalisations and deaths must have realised that it was only a question of “how soon?” In some ways, it’s a relief now that it’s settled.

Let’s hope that people will now obey the rules so that we can stabilise the situation and give the vaccination campaign a chance to make its all important difference.

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Today is again a typical British winter day: cold, yes of course, and also spitting with rain.

Cold and spitting with rain
Photo by Tigger

Despite the less than pleasant conditions (“feels like 1°C”, said the Met Office), we went out. We had a task to perform. Yesterday, I mentioned that we had called in at the dry cleaner’s in Amwell Street and that I would explain the reason on the morrow, that is, today.

You may recall that, rather than do our laundry ourselves in a crowded launderette with the obvious risk that this implies, we have been having it done as a service wash by a local launderette. This seemed an ideal, if lazy, way to do the job. However, it wasn’t long before a problem arose.

After one wash, we discovered that several items had not been returned. We contacted the launderette’s manager who apologised and compensated us for the missing pieces. We were happy to consider the matter closed but it happened again: several items were missing from the next wash and at least one from the wash after that.

On these later occasions, however, the management was less forthcoming about the matter, expressing doubt that different loads could be confused – something we proved was possible by producing a sock that was not ours but had been included in our last load.

Having reached this point, we felt we could no longer use that launderette.

The dry cleaner’s in Amwell Street

The dry cleaner’s in Amwell Street has a notice in the window advertising laundry service washes. Yesterday, we popped in to discuss the matter and so today took a load of laundry to them. We will collect it on Thursday. Let’s hope all goes well this time.

Coffee in view!

Myddelton’s deli is just a few paces down on the other side of the street. Coffee in hand, we made our way home.

Perhaps the weather will kinder tomorrow and we can enjoy a “proper” walk.

If we had hoped for another sunny, blue-sky day today, we were disappointed. It felt much colder than the advertised 5°C and I felt the need to put on my gloves during the home run from the deli, despite carrying cups of hot coffee.

Dull, cold and cloudy

This photo of a familiar view sets the meteorological scene.

Whose shoes?
Photo by Tigger

I have noted before how inhabitants of this neighbourhood show a penchant for disposing of possibly reusable items by simply leaving them in the street. We discovered a number of examples today. The first was this pair of shoes, seemingly suitable for further use.

A pleasant path

Tigger suggested we visit Percy Circus, one of our favourite haunts in more clement weather, and our way to it took us by this pleasant path. You would hardly guess that it passed through a residential estate of apartment blocks.

Spare wheel

Was this wheel forgotten? Or replaced and discarded? Can it be reused?

Shyly blooming

We found these flowers shyly blooming amid robust green leaves. Are they celebrating spring early or summer late? More proof, if any be needed, of our changing climate.

Flowering border

In a corner by buildings, was this flowering border with small flowers peeping out from protective foliage. All that was missing was the humming of bees.

Kitchen sink and companion

And so to the pièce de resistance, as promised in the title, an actual kitchen sink, accompanied by what looks like a broken gas meter. Looks in pretty good nick too.

Percy Circus

We arrived at Percy Circus and performed our photographic salutations to this pleasant spot. It was too cold to sut on a bench but, all being well, we shall return to do just that in warmer weather.

Below is King’s Cross Road

Not far below is King’s Cross Road carrying streams of traffic but it hardly disturbs this quiet oasis which is protected by not leading anyway of significance.

A hint of blue sky

Looking up the hill, I saw a hint of blue sky. Is the weather changing for the better?

Clouds and sunshine

As we neared the deli, we were treated to a pretty evening sky of blue, mottled with sunset-tinged clouds. A promise for tomorrow?

Cinderella shoe

Has Cinderella passed this way? A lone shoe, bereft of its companion, languishes in the road. Who dropped it and why? Will someone find a use for a single shoe? We shall never know…

We picked up our coffees at the deli and saw that they now had Portuguese custard tarts. How could we resist? We didn’t even try!

On the way, we called in at the dry cleaning establishment in Amwell Street. I will explain why tomorrow.

This small creature just arrived (I didn’t see exactly how) on my computer screen. S/he ran to the top and walked along it from left to right (from my perspective).

Then s/he turned and came back the other way.

S/he displayed her/his wings briefly and then folded them under the wing cases again.

A moment later, s/he spread her/his wings again and flew off, too rapidly for me to see where to.

I am willing to guess it’s a beetle of some sort but that’s as far as my knowledge takes me! What fascinating companions we share the planet with!

It seems, then, that not all insect life dies off or becomes dormant in winter.

We recently had a fairly large spider on the ceiling but s/he disappeared after about 24 hours. I didn’t take a photo unfortunately but will try to do so if s/he (or another) reappears.

As the deli closes at 3pm on Sundays (I don’t hold it against them because they work hard and open seven days a week), we decided to go for our walk before lunch instead of afterwards.

Sunshine in Myddelton Square

When the sun shone, it was quite pleasant out but the clouds kept obscuring the sun. At those moments it was easy to remember how cold it was (“feels like” 0°C).

Another sad specimen

This poor tree must have been dead even before its ungrateful hosts threw it out.

Hopeful pigeon

There were a few pigeons prospecting for food and even finding some on the, to us, bare pavement. When I stopped to photograph this one, he stopped too, less in order to pose, I imagination, than in hope that I had something to donate. Unfortunately, I didn’t. Did I say I am fond of pigeons? (I think I must have! 🙂 )

The sun peeps out

The sun peeps out between the clouds, throwing into relief the complex network of tree branches. I wonder how the squirrels in their dreys fare when the leaves fall off.

Skimpy top, bushy body

This tree has a strangely denuded top. Perhaps they stripped it to make room for their tree-top decoration. It made me think of the mast of an old-time sailing ship.

A remnant of the past
Photo by Tigger

Tigger noticed this curious remnant of the past. It is in a passageway between houses. The passage is short and leads only to the back gardens of the houses. However, these remaining streaks of paint strongly suggest that here was once a street name. Many streets in this neighbourhood still have names displayed in the old way, painted on the first building whereas the modern habit is to affix a metal plate. This suggests that this passage was once a thoroughfare with its own name. Was it perhaps closed when the buildings in the next street were put up and blocked it off? I don’t know. Perhaps I will find out one day.

Myddelton Square and St Mark’s

This is a familiar scene but I liked the effect of sunshine and shade together with the beautiful variegated sky. If only all winter days were as beautiful as this!

Amwell Street

Before going into the deli, I stood in the road in Amwell Street to take this photo. I thought I was safe because I couldn’t hear any motor vehicles. Then I injudiciously stepped backwards and nearly collided with the cyclist you see on the left!

Inglebert Street and St Mark’s
Photo by Tigger

Tigger took this photo looking along Inglebert Street towards St Mark’s Church. It shows off the lovely sky.

Tigger’s master plan was to go to the deli for coffee and for those oh-so-tasty Portuguese custard tarts.

Coffee and muffin

Unfortunately, they had no custard tarts. They did have other tasty-looking cakes, both big and small (it’s wonderful what a range of goods from fruit to grocery they stock in their small shop). We chose banana and walnut muffins. Were they delicious? Yes, they were!

I’m still looking forward to lunch, though 🙂

I was working away at the computer this morning quite happily, with a good connection to the Internet. Then the line dropped. This happens occasionally and is usually solved by the traditional formula of “turning it off and on again”. I did this… several times but to no avail. A problem beyond the ordinary seemed to have occurred.

Our Internet Service Provider (ISP) is Zen Internet. They have a very good reputation and I have always found them reliable. Technical support hours are somewhat limited but when support is available, I have always found them most helpful.

This is the third router that we have had during our long relationship with Zen. The first was provided by Zen but we bought the other two ourselves from retailers. I recounted the installation of the current router in All I want for Christmas is a… router! Setting it up was very easy as much of the process was done automatically by the router itself.

The first thing to do was to use my phone to check Zen’s Service Alerts site to see whether there were known failures in our area. There were none.

The next thing was to log on to the router and see if anything could be done via settings. To my surprise, my attempts to log on all failed with an error message telling me that username and password were incorrect. I knew they were correct because I had recorded them in my password file. What was to be done now?

I remembered that when we bought the router, it had factory-set username and password. These were admin and admin. What if I entered these instead?

I tried it and it worked, delivering me to the set-up screen. I would have set up the router again from scratch but I knew that once I put in the basic details, the router would complete the job by itself automatically. I did this, remembering to go into the settings to change the username and password from admin to something of my own.

Then came the moment of suspense: would the computer be able to connect to the Internet? No! It woudn’t! It was receiving a strong enough signal from the router but just not connecting. Time to call those nice people at Zen!

The support person who answered was, as they always are, polite and attentive. He listened without interrupting while I told my story and asked him whether there was perhaps a local failure that had not yet been posted on the site. No, there were no failures.

He then asked what router I had and proposed to go through the settings with me. When we came to the username and password to connect to our account, I realized where I had gone wrong: I had entered, not the connection username and password but the username and password to access our acciount on Zen’s website! No wonder the router could not connect.

Opening the router’s configuration panel once more, I entered the corrected username and password. Even before I had clicked “save” and exited, I could see that websites were loading in my browser. We were back online!

The only question that remains is why the line dropped in the first place and why, this time, switching off and on didn’t cure it. Maybe the router is becoming a little old and will need replacing sometime soon. I hope that by then the shops will be open so that we can buy a router over the counter rather than have to order one online and wait several days, bereft of Internet, until it is delivered.