I wasn’t feeling at my best today and Tigger, being at work, was not there to inspire me and jolly me along. But the sun was shining and I had no real excuse for malingering, so I eventually managed to persuade myself to get up and go out.

An old friend – the Curvaceous Tree

To encourage myself, I started with a visit to an old friend, the Curvaceous Tree. Lit by sunshine, it seemed particularly benign with the wisdom of its great age.

One way to deliver them

I regularly see a pile of free newspapers here. They are still tied and I assume that the person charged with delivering them simply dumps them here. I wonder who removes them.

Something on the wall

Wandering through Myddelton Passage, I noticed a movement of something on the brick wall. Can you see what it is?

A squirrel

Squirrels receive mixed press, I know, but in towns people generally seem to like them. As a result, town squirrels are apt to be bolder than their country cousins, hoping passers-by will feed them, as indeed many do.

Watching me carefully

This one held his ground while I photographed him, no doubt hoping for a hand-out.

Spa Green

I passed through Spa Green but didn’t tarry there. I noticed that there were a few people sitting on benches in the sun but, to be honest, I felt it was a bit too chilly for that so I walked on.

Rawstorne Street

I crossed St John Street into Rawstorne Street. Its name comes from brickmaker Thomas Rawstorne who built the street in the late 18th century. Unlike the classic Georgian style houses, these, of fairly modest design, don’t have the open “area” giving access to a basement but instead have an opening in the pavement, covered with an iron grille, which provides some light to the basement windows.

Hermit Street

From Rawstorne, I entered Hermit Street, built in the early 19th century and also of rather modest style. It was originally called Buxton Street after Jedediah Buxton (1707-72) who was a rather curious character with a passion for numbers and mental calculation despite being relatively uneducated. The street was renamed in 1937 but why it was then called Hermit Street, I have not so far discovered.

Christmas decorations still

This window caught my eye because it is still apparently decorated as for Christmas. Perhaps they keep Christmas all year round in this house.

One of the neighbours

I spotted one of the neighbours, ensconced on a window sill perhaps hoping to be let in. Though he was aware of me, he evinced no interest and I respected his privacy.

Friend Street

Hermit Street leads into, or becomes, Friend Street. Originally called Brewer Street, it was renamed in 1936 in honour of George Friend, founder in 1780 of the Finsbury Dispensary.

Friend Street leads into St John Street and from there it is but a few steps to home where I rewarded myself with a pot of tea and a slice of toast with Marmite. Yes, in the Marmite stakes, I am definitely a fan.

Tigger sent me some of her photos taken on the way to work and here is a selection.

Once the Angel Hotel

Tigger photographed the dome of what is one of our favourite Angel buildings, once a hotel, now offices. If she needed an excuse (she didn’t!), it was because…

Perched on the mast

…she was intrigued by a bird that was perched right on the tip of the mast on top of the dome.

Here are some blossoms:

They say a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush but, personally, I prefer to see them at liberty in the bush, like this one:

A bird in the bush is where it should be

When I started this blog, SilverTiger at home and abroad, in July 2019, it at first received very few visits, as is usually the case with a new blog that has as yet to become known. In the early months, the blog might receive 2 or 3 visits a day. This did not worry me because, firstly, it was to be expected and, secondly, I was writing mainly for myself, treating the blog as a diary.

Some of the visitors came to the new blog from the old one, SilverTiger, and it is only fair to say that their visits and comments were most welcome and encouraged me to continue.

Gradually, though,over the one year and eight months of the life of this blog, visitor numbers have gradually increased and so has the spread of nations from which these visitors come.

To be honest, I am at a loss to explain why this is so. I cannot imagine what visitors, especially those whose first language is not English, can find of interest here, especially since the pandemic has, as it were, clipped my wings (can tigers have wings? 🙂 ), and I write about strictly local rambles. But there it is: people visit the blog and their visits are always welcome (especially if they click “like” or, better yet, leave a comment!).

What prompted me to put finger to keyboard today, however, is that yesterday was a bumper day for visits, both in the number of visits and the number of countries from which these visitors came. Please believe me that in posting these figures, I am not boasting. I am quite mystifed (though pleased, of course) as to how and why so many people have found their way here.

WordPress gives figures for the number of visitors and the number of “views” (the number of clicks on any prt of the blog). and provides a list of the countries from which they came. Figures for yesterday show:

210 views by 182 visitors

from these countries
(in order of number of views from each)

As I say, yesterday was a bumper day and I don’t expect to see another one like it. Then again, who knows? 🙂

You may remember me recounting how we took the laundry to Amwell Street on Monday and how it took two of us to carry it (see A bitty day). Today was the day when it would be ready for collection and as I am on my own (Tigger being at work)), I thought I would have to make two journeys to bring it home.

Spitting with rain

I was therefore not looking forward to it, especially as I found it was spitting with rain when I set out.

Tree no more

In Inglebert Street, I saw that this lovely old tree has been cut down. I had admired it and photographed it. I don’t doubt that there were valid reasons for its destruction but it is still sad. I hope they will plant a new young tree in its place.

The loaded trolley

When I entered the dry cleaner’s shop, there was a surprise awaiting me: they had managed to stuff all the laundry into the trolley! I would only have to make one journey to transport it home, after all.

The way home is up a gentle slope. You hardly notice it when you are walking unencumbered but when you are dragging a loaded trolley, well, then you do notice it! Fortunately, we do not live far from the dry cleaner’s and I was soon home.

In view of the weather, I was tempted to call it a day but then I reflected that I had “budgeted” for two journeys and, as I had made only one, perhaps I ought to go out for a walk as well. So I did.

Window box

For once, I kept my eyes open for window boxes but there were not many to be seen. I “collected” this one and…

Another window box

…this one. The flowers make a pretty display but the effect is spoilt by the product label that has been left adhering to the box.

Doorstep boxes

As an alternative to window boxes, some houses have boxes or planters in front of the door. What should we call these – “doorstep boxes?”. Whatever we call them, they are pleasant to see and brighten up the premises and the street.

Barber’s shop – still closed

I passed by ELP Barbershop which, you may remember, is the one that offers customers a beer with their haircut. I wonder whether they will continue the practice when they eventually reopen. After such a long forced cessation of trade, I imagine they will be counting every penny they earn. If you look in the mirror at the back of the shop, you will see my reflection! Yes, I knew it was visible and it amused me to include it.

Brownings Garage

I always take note of Brownings Garage when I pass that way. This is because I used to work in a garage during vacations when I was a student. I was employed to serve petrol and oil but was also called on sometimes to help in the repair shop. In the evenings, when the rest of the staff (and the owner) went home, I would be left in sole charge of the place. I have happy memories of my time there and so tend still to be interested in garages and petrol stations.

In Wharton Street I was charmed by several displays of flowers. To start with, these star-shaped flowers. I’m not putting captions because I don’t know the names of the flowers.

A tree and some front gardens made a colourful display. Here they are in detail:

Whatever their names, they are certainly very bright and cheerful .

Charging the car

I see this car being charged from the street lamp quite often and assume the car owner lives nearby. I sometimes feel as though I am a time traveller who has been shot forward into the future. As a child and teenager, I lived in a house with a street lamp outside it. If you had told me then that a day would come when people would charge their electric cars from street lamps, I would probably have thought you were delirious from reading too much sci-fi! Yet it has come to pass and today we are living in a world that was scarce imaginable even decades ago. Will the next few decades also bring us technical novelties that today we cannot even imagine? In one sense we are all time travellers, ever rushing forwards through time to new adventures.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1809–92

The Eagle

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

I had a rather busy morning. Tigger has a new phone (as I think I mentioned) and she suggested that I might like to take over her old one. It’s an iPhone 8, like my current phone, but has twice the memory and as you can never have too much memory these days, it did seem to make sense for me to swap.

Moving all your data to a new phone used to be a complicated and time-consuming activity. Not these days, at least, not if you are migrating from one iPhone to another. In that case, the process is virtually automatic and, once set in motion, completes the changeover all by itself.

Everything seemed to go smoothly and within a very short time, I had in my hands what appeared to be a perfect clone of my old phone. Just to make sure, I tried all the apps. Everything was fine until I came to my bank apps. Understandably, banks don’t take lightly the idea of moving their apps from one phone to another. Before the apps will work on the new phone, you have to perform some validation checks. Eventually, I managed to satisfy all of them except one: my credit card app.

There are several ways to set up the app and all of them failed. I ran the checks again and again but to no avail. It was time to call the bank.

What with people working from home and doing their banking online, when you phone a bank, you inevitably find yourself in a queue. When at last I managed to speak to a human, I explained my problem with the app. He politely informed me that he would have to contact their technical people to find out what to do. There was a queue fir their attention so this would take a while. In the meantime, he would put me on hold.

When he came back, he proposed talking me through the set-up procedure. I must say, he was an extremely patient man and did his best to help me. We tried several times to set up the app and it failed each time. I went back in hold while my helper queued in his turn to speak to technical support.

We went through several iterations of this procedure. Eventually, our man returned from his latest chat with tech to say that they had deleted my account and this should make the set-up work at last. It didn’t.

Then, just when we seemed to have exhausted all possibilities, he spotted that one little detail that had been missed. We fixed it and… bingo! The app loaded and worked.

I think I must have spent an hour in the phone and that, together with the time I had spent before that trying to get the app to work, used up a large chunk of the morning.

Tigger is at work Wednesday to Friday this week and so I an on my own today until the evening. After lunch, I managed to convince myself that I should go out for a walk. I did go but, to be honest, my heart was not in it. I took a few photos along the way but not many. Tigger sent me some of hers so I will add them as a bonus!

Leak repaired

The water leak in Claremont Square has been repaired but for how long?

Afternoon sunshine in Amwell Street

From Claremont Square I crossed Amwell Street into Great Percy Street.

I mentioned the other day that I hadn’t been keeping tabs on the neighbourhood’s window boxes so today I looked to see what was available in Great Percy Street. Not a lot, it seems, and I collected a grand total of three.

I think this is the best of the three, both for the amount and variety of plants.

This one is quite pretty too. It will be interesting to see how the plants change through the seasons.

Percy Circus

On reaching Percy Circus, I thought about sitting there for a while but decided to keep walking.

Path to Bevin Court

I took this path from Percy Circus to the housing estate called Bevin Court. This part of the walk is still quite bare from winter. Perhaps it will become greener soon.

Green grass and daffodils

Further up, there is green grass and daffodils growing in the shade of the trees.

Tree sheltering daffodils

I continue to enjoy and admire these mature trees growing in so many parts of the borough, not only beautiful on their own account but also encouraging birds and other wildlife.

Cruikshank Street – one the the neighbours

Walking up Cruikshank Street, I met one of the neighbours, enjoying the sunshine.

A mood of feline calm

Although I spoke to him politely, he maintained a mood of feline calm and immobility so I thought it best to leave him in peace.

And now, as promised, some photos sent by Tigger. They were all taken “somewhere in the city”.