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”.

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.