On a chilly, wet day it would have been tempting to stay indoors eating toast accompanied by pots of tea. Fortunately, the need to go shopping overcame our torpor.

In Sainsbury’s

As usual, we surfed the shelves at Sainsbury’s and had soon collected our purchases and passed through the checkout.

Encouraging you to walk

After a slow lunch, we went out again. If you have an iPhone and have updated it to iOs 16, you may have noticed that it comes with a fitness app that looks like the above. This is quite good in that it encourages you to walk a chosen distance each day and to “close the ring”. It was useful today as it tempted us out into the wet and windy weather.

Visiting the goldfish

We set off down Pentonville Road where, in front of a block of flats is a pond with goldfish in it. We paid them a visit. There is a sort of horrid fascination about watching fish and imagining being with them in the cold water! (We incurred suspicious looks from the caretaker who probably wondered why we were photographing goldfish! Well, why not…? 🙂 )

Pentonville Road in the rain

After this momentary diversion, we continued down the road towards King’s Cross and St Pancras.

The clock tower of St Pancras Station

We arrived at the two stations that sit looking at one another across a narrow road, a legacy if the days when the then new railway companies were trying to steal a march on one another and corner the lucrative routes.

Hurrying to their train

We walked through King’s Cross Station departures and watched a line of people hurrying to their train. Did I wish that I too was going on a trip? Actually, no, but perhaps that will change when the weather improves in spring and summer.

The departures hall

We entered the departures hall, whose roof is supported by the remarkable and innovative tree structure which provides a maximum of open space by avoiding the need for pillars.

A view from the terrace

We ascended to the terrace where you have a view of the hall and, in particular, the the station Christmas tree.

Neon Christmas decoration

We crossed from King’s Cross Station into St Pancras and on the way we encountered this decoration made of neon lights. Is it supposed to represent something? I couldn’t make out anything, whether pictorially or in text.

St Pancras Station

We entered St Pancras Station which was fairly busy though not as much as we have known it on some occasions. In particular, the usual slow-moving queue for the Eurostar was missing.

In EL & N

Amusingly, the same thought occurred to us both independently: to go to EL & N for coffee as we had not been there for a while. Through the window we saw that one of the booths (the one called Brussels) was free. Tigger went in to secure it while I went to the counter to order the coffees.

The station “Christmas Tree”

St Pancras Station has in own unique version of a Christmas Tree. This is a tree-shaped collection of elements suggesting the architecture of the station itself, topped with a representation of its famous click tower.

The “tree” (detail)

This close-up of part of the “tree” shows how it is constituted.

Midland Riad in the rain

We walked out into Midland Road and the rain. A glance at the fitness app showed that we had “closed the ring” for today and that we could therefore take the bus home with an easy conscience!

Aboard the 214

Six minutes later, a number 214 bus arrived at the stop. We went aboard and were carried up the hill back to the Angel.