It’s another grey day but as it’s neither cold nor raining, I don’t mind, especially with coffee in view and good company in which to drink it.

Busy Pentonville Road

We needed to pay another quick visit to the bank which took us into busy Pentonville Road. That business dealt with, we could go for our walk.

Road still dug up

On emerging from the bank, I took a quick photo of the dug-up road. The works are for repairs to the gas main and should have been finished by now but have over-run. This is hardly surprising when days pass, as today, with no work being done. The works have reduced the road here to single file, leading to delays and tailbacks, not to mention extra pollution for the people living here so you would think that they would make an effort to complete the job as soon as possible but that is apparently not a priority.

The Hummingbird – humming no more

We passed in front of the Hummingbird Bakery and found it had closed permanently. Has it been a victim of the pandemic?

Other branches remain open
Photo by Tigger

Happily for the company, they have other branches that remain open. Not every business is as fortunate.

More closed shops

In St John Street, these shops are also closed, their interiors emptied of fixtures and fittings. Many familiar names will have disappeared from our streets by the time the emergency ends.

Christmas decorations finally gone

I photographed this shop several times because its Christmas decorations remained in place well into the New Year, in particular, a large bow of ribbon on the door. The decorations have finally gone. Are they preparing to reopen?

Clock working but showing the wrong time

Another sign of neglect: at Treacy’s undertakers in the corner of Arlington Way, the clock is working but showing the wrong time. It has been thus for months. Surely, it cannot be that difficult to put it right?

Make today be the one

In the window of a (closed) shop in Arlington Way is a poster with an enigmatic motto: “Make today be the one”. Does that mean anything to you? It means nothing to me but then quite a lot of things about life today escape me!

Galaxy Nails

At Galaxy in Arlington Way, they are no doubt brilliant at nail care but…

Make an “appoitnment”

…at spelling, not so much!

The secret’s out!

I don’t doubt that the Harlequin pub has a fine garden for customers but, surely, it can’t be “secret” if you tell everybody about it, can it? Or am I being unreasonably picky? (Yes, probably!)

Safe storage for keys

Outside a premises in Arlington Way, we saw these keys. Has someone forgotten them? Or found them in the street and out them here for the owner to find? I don’t give much for their chances if not reclaimed soon.

Spring blossom
Photo by Tigger

Also in Arlington Way, Tigger photographed these flowers telling us that spring is here, whatever the weather is doing.

The pub vine – still no sign of life

In contrast, the grape vine round the garden of the Shakespeare’s Head still looks dead. I am wondering whether they have pruned it too severely and killed it. It’s perhaps not my place to worry about it but I enjoyed watching the grapes growing and maturing last year and had hoped to see them again this year.

A London plane tree

And so to the plane tree of the title. I have mentioned before that I am rather ignorant when it comes to the names of plants and trees. Today, however, Tigger resolved to teach me what a London plane tree is. You recognise them by the clusters of round fruits. Good: lesson learned!

Strange patterns

I was also struck by the strange patterns in the bark of this tree, like messages in some strange script.

Window box

I haven’t been keeping up with progress among the window boxes but I photographed this one in River Street to be going on with. Last year, a window box competition had been organised but I think the pandemic disrupted it. Perhaps they can start one this year. Might be fun.

Approaching our goal

River Street leads us to our goal at this group of shops. Tigger needed to call at the pharmacy and while she did that, I went into Myddelton’s to start the coffee. Tigger joined me there. Then, coffee in hand, we made for home.

Today has been a bitty day in several ways. We went out twice and those outings were bitty as was the weather which was a mixture of cloudy, sunny and rainy.

This morning we took the laundry to the dry cleaner’s in Amwell Street. There was rather a lot of it. In addition to a stuffed shopping trolley, there was a stuffed pillow case. Tigger took care of the trolley while I carried the pillow case. The only way to carry a stuffed pillow case is to clutch it to your bosom, using both arms, a posture that ruled out taking photos.

After depositing our laundry, we crossed the road to Myddelton’s where we bought coffee to take home, carrying which again ruled out photography.

This afternoon, Tigger needed to go to the bank to sort out a matter and, of course, I went along too.

Rough garden

In Pentonville Road, in front of some offices, is a neglected garden. Somehow, despite the neglect, daffodils have managed to grow and make a fine showing, almost creating a pretend woodland scene.

Tiger, tiger

In the window of a charity shop, we saw this splendid tiger. Just imagine cuddling up to that at night in bed! I felt a little sad that he had been abandoned, perhaps by some child now grown up and casting aside childhood possessions.

Islington High Street

After the bank, which was quite busy, we set off along Islington High Street. By now, as you can see, it had started to rain, which was somewhat of a disincentive to long rambles. Happily, it soon stopped.

The York

As a goal, Tigger proposed buying coffee at Redemption in Islington High Street. On the way, I photographed the fine Victorian pub, The York. As we see it today, it was rebuilt in 1870.

Outside Redemption

Tigger went into the coffee shop to buy the coffee. I could probably gone in as well, given that we are a “bubble” of two, but I thought it easier to wait outside, even if it did make me feel like a dog left outside the supermarket!

The sun came out

While I was waiting, the sun decided to put in an appearance and I thought I should take a photo of it!

The Business Design Centre

We passed by the Business Design Centre, the 1986 front end (now Grade II listed) of the old Royal Agricultural Hall whose other side I have also photographed more than once (for example, see Visiting Musgrave Watson’s sculpture).

Angel Centre, back entrance

While we were in the area, we thought we might as well take a look at the Angel Centre to see what they have been doing to it while the builders’ screens have been hiding it. As we approached via the back entrance, we found a light display of a type that is common enough these days, so no excitement there, then.

More lights

Inside were a few more lights but work is obviously still progressing so I shouldn’t be too critical, I suppose.

What’s this strange contraption?

What, indeed. Much obviously remains to be done before this construct’s nature and purpose reveal themselves.

Courtyard and Angel Wings

Work is still in progress in the open courtyard area so, again, it’s too early to come to any conclusions as to what the finished product will look like.

Chapel Market

We walked through Chapel Market whose market, as I have mentioned before, is closed on Mondays. I still took a photo, though, for what it’s worth.

Baron Street

And here we are, nearly home, in Baron Street. Now that our ramble is over, the weather has changed for the better. That’s how it goes.

As I said, a somewhat bitty day. Let’s see what tomorrow brings.

I don’t have particularly large hands and no one ever described my fingers as pudgy. I would class my manual dexterity as good and have never had any difficulty with the more intricate tasks of life. However, there is one field in which I do have difficulty and this is particularly annoying in view of the amount time and energy I devote to it.

In case you haven’t guessed, I will tell you that I am referring to the use of my smartphone’s on-screen keyboard.

Before we changed to iPhones, we had used several Blackberry phones with physical keyboards. Whatever else you may say about Blackberries, their keyboards were, in my opinion, ideal.

Having migrated to an iPhone, I was faced with the problem of trying to type text coherently with an on-screen keyboard and finding it frustratingly difficult. Note that I don’t blame the design of the iPhone and I see other people typing away apparently without difficulty. No, I accept that the problem is in me, that is, in my fingers.

You can imagine my predicament when you read that I write my blog almost exclusively on my iPhone. When I am composing a post, the air is frequently blue with swear words!

It did not take me long to wonder whether using a stylus would prove beneficial. Over the years, I have acquired and used numbers of these. Success, I have to say, has been limited.

I am not very clear as to the technology involved but I know that the iPhone requires what it called a “capacitative stylus”. These typically resemble a small ballpoint pen with a rubbery cushion in place of the nib. The iPhone’s screen is designed to expect contact from something similar to a finger and, therefore, the rubbery cushion on styluses tends to be fairly large – 6 millimetres being the average diameter.

How big are the individual “keys” on the iPhone’s keyboard? Yep, about 5 to 6 mm. You can of course enlarge the keyboard by turning the phone 90 degrees into the “landscape” position but this creates problems of its own.

Given the similar sizes of the “keys” and the stylus nib, it’s not surprising how difficult it is to type a sentence without mistakes from mis-keying and how easy it is to type the wrong character.

The other day, rummaging in a drawer, I found a stylus that I hadn’t used for some time. It was quite small and, I noticed, had an unusually small rubber nib. This proved to be a “light-bulb moment”: what if the narrower point made it easier to hit the right key? And so it proved.

For several days, I used the small stylus exclusively and then tried using one of my usual ones again. Yes, there was no doubt about it: using the narrow stylus I made far fewer mistakes.

The small stylus, though it had served to prove a point, was a little too small for comfort so I looked on the Web, searching for styluses with narrow heads. They turned out to be somewhat elusive.

There are expensive ones with a disc on the point and there are equally expensive ones that are described as “active”, which means that they need to be electrically charged before use. Styluses with ordinary rubber, but narrow, nibs are few and far between.

New stylus

I finally found one that seemed to fill the bill. It is in the photo above. It has a rubber nib at both ends, a conventional 6mm one and a smaller one. I estimate the area of this smaller nib that actually touches the screen to be about 3mm – just the sort of thing I was looking for.

Being as long as the average ballpoint pen, this stylus is easier to handle that the tiny one I was using. I have used it to write this post.

Verdict? I still make mistakes and the surrounding air still sometimes takes on a cerulean hue but the mistakes are fewer and I can say that the new stylus has proved to be a success. I will buy some more because I like to leave one in the bedroom and carry another one with me in my handbag.

It amuses me to think of Babylonian scribes using a stylus to impress cuneiform characters onto clay tablets and myself, thousands of years later, also using a stylus, albeit with a rubber tip, performing very much the same actions, but “impressing” characters via an electronic keyboard!

We did go out again but, as the title says, “just for a short walk”, really just to fetch coffee.

Rough lawn

On the way, we admired this rough lawn. It hasn’t been mown for some time and consequently has flowers and other plants than grass growing amicably together. I don’t know whether it has been left rough on purpose to provide a habitat for plants and creatures that are usually swept away by mowers or whether it is neglect. I hope it is the former.

Rain clouds

I took this photo of a familiar scene with a lot of sky in it to show the weather. The sky was promising rain and in fact started to make good on its promise a few minutes later.

St Mark’s Church
Photo by Tigger

Tigger took this rather nice photo of St Mark’s Church with her new phone’s camera. I said her photos outshine mine now and here’s proof!

We weren’t sure whether Myddelton’s deli would still be open as I thought they closed at 3pm on Sunday. So we walked down one side of Amwell Street (from where the above photo was taken) and then back up on the other side.

It turned out that the deli was closed. Happily, we had another string to our bow: a little further up the road is an establishment called Ground Control. The terrible pun indicates that it is a coffee shop.

From the terrace of Ground Control
Photo by Tigger

There was a queue outside Ground Control but fortunately only a small one and it was soon our turn. Tigger waited outside at first, where she took this photo, and then joined me inside.

Another day, perhaps
Photo by Tigger

Tigger also photographed these cakes, ready bagged to take away. Tempting, but we were being good today. Another day, perhaps.

Trees in blossom
Photo by Tigger

As we rounded the corner of the reservoir, we saw this tree prettily in blossom and Tigger photographed it.

Flowers
Photo by Tigger

Tigger photographed these flowers as well. They are so pretty and contain a promise of spring.

We were soon home where we drank our coffee and relaxed. Well, it is Sunday, after all!

Happy Sunday, everyone!

It is Sunday again and that means, as Sunday usually means, that we are off to do our weekly shopping. As I have already mentioned, I think, I quite like our shopping trips. Why? I don’t really know, but perhaps it is the simplicity and the predictability of it.

Baron Street

The weather, as you might be able to see from the above photo, is cloudy-sunny and it is quite warm (around 10°C) but rather windy.

The olive oil stall

The olive oil stall has been set up away from both the main market and the Farmers’ Market. I don’t know whether this is by personal choice or by some quirk in the assignment of locations. Sole-product merchants always intrigue me because there is a certain mystique about them: while participating in the general run of retail life, they stand out as individualists with their own expertise and arcane knowledge.

Over the last few weeks, I have noticed that, week by week, Chapel Market is becoming ever busier. It’s as if people are gradually deciding that the crisis is over and are emerging to take up their normal lives again. This is worrying because the pandemic is far from over (the rate of new infections has in fact been increasing again recently) and people should still be following the restrictions. It’s hard to do this with people literally rubbing shoulders with you in the streets.

Chapel Market

In the foreground is the stall run by the fruit and vegetable shop beside it. The main gaggle of stalls is further down but, even so, you can see that the market is already quite busy. As well as being the location of the market, the street is an important way through to Sainsbury’s and other larger shops and this increases the amount of movement in and through it.

In Sainsbury’s

We were a little later today than usual and by the time we arrived, the store was already busy with queues at the checkouts and particularly at the self-checkouts. (I wonder how many items “accidentally” escape being tallied at these checkouts.) Using them no doubt saves on wages for the store but does nothing to help preserve people’s jobs. Should we not boycott them for that reason?

Queueing for Waitrose

Sainsbury’s opens earlier than both of its neighbours, Waitrose and Marks & Spencer. Perhaps it pick up extra trade as a result. We rarely shop at these other two, except occasionally for specific items, so our shopping is done and dusted while customers for the other two are queueing to be let in. What, smug, me? Surely not 🙂

Chapel Market

As usual, Tigger took charge of the shopping and I hurried ahead with the cup holder to Mercer’s for our coffee. They know me know now and greet me in friendly fashion despite the fact that all I buy is a couple of coffees once a week.

In Mercer’s

I soon had our coffee and rejoined Tigger in the street for a quick walk home while it was still hot.

Now that the shopping has been done we can relax. What will we do with the rest of the day? That remains to be seen. We may go out again, if we feel like it. If we do, I shall be sure to let you know! 🙂