Tigger is on holiday from work this week. We had originally planned to go away but the pandemic out paid to that idea. Still, a holiday is still a holiday and welcome in spite of the situation.

View from Moreland Street

After the ritual visit to Jusaka for coffee, we set off down Goswell Road. We had no fixed plan and turned left along Moreland Street by mentally tossing a coin. We noticed this tower block nearing completion but with a section near the top still being filled in. Every new building seems to be taller than those that preceded it and the London skyline is becoming ever more cluttered with these eyesores.

Into City Road

Moreland Street led us into City Road which, as its name suggests, is the main route into the City of London. If we continued in the direction in which the photo is pointing, we would arrive back at our starting point, so we cast about for another direction to take.

Oakley Crescent

Opposite was a minor road which curved to the left, hiding most of it tantalisingly from view. It was familiar to us from passing it every working day on the way home but we had never been into it. So that’s where we went next.

Is it a cul de sac?

Once we rounded the corner, however, it began to look as though it was a dead end. We continued, though, because in London things are often not quite what they seem.

St Peter’s House

We stopped to photograph this building called St Peter’s House. These days it is divided into “luxury” flats but that was obviously not its original purpose. I don’t know how old it is, possibly 19th-century (though I stand to be corrected). I do know, however, that it was once the vicarage of St Matthew’s Church. The church was damaged during WWII and all traces if it have disappeared under more recent buildings.

That leaves a slight mystery in my mind: why, if the church was called St Matthew’s, was the vicarage named after St Peter? I don’t know but I expect someone somewhere does.

A way out?

We walked to the end of the crescent and found this alleyway. Would this prove to be a way out? There was one way to find out…

A community garden

The alley led to a gate that was promisingly open, and the gate led into what looks like a small community garden. The garden, however, had no other exit. Impasse!

We had to retrace our steps back to the City Road.

Ghost sign, Nelson Terrace
Photo by Tigger

We walked along City Road to the next turning which was Nelson Terrace. Tigger photographed this ghost sign still visible on the corner house. We could easily make out the word “BEANS” but the rest was a little difficult to read. We decided in the end that it said “BEAN’S EXPRESS CARRIERS”, but with remnants of earlier and/or later signage faintly visible. Whoever Bean was, he seems to have quit the scene long ago.

A pleasant view along Sudeley Street

The road bends to the left and becomes Elia Street. Elia? There is only one person of that name having connections with Islington that I could think of.

The Charles Lamb
previously the Prince Albert

Whoever named this pub the Charles Lamb was of the same opinion. Charles Lamb was famous for his essays, some of which were published under the pseudonym of Elia. He lived with his sister (with whom he composed Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare) at several addresses in Islington. I should really say whoever renamed the pub as this mid-19th-century hostelry was originally called the Prince Albert. I don’t know when it was changed.

Colebrooke Row

Elia Street leads into Colebrooke Row. The greenery on the right belongs to Duncan Terrace Gardens, the park built over the course of the New River. On the other side of the garden lies Duncan Terrace about which I have also written.

Both streets are pleasantly quiet because they are closed to motor vehicles at the City Road end, though there is an well used exit from Colebrooke Row for cyclists.

Smith’s clock tower at the Angel

This led us back to our starting point at the Angel crossroads and Jusaka, where we collected our cups, which we had left there pending our return, and made our way home for lunch.

How long will London remain in Tier 2 and will it even be moved into Tier 3, as there are whispers that it may? As long as it is so, we will have to stay close to home and rediscover the pleasures of local explorations.

Roughly a year ago, I had a series of appointments at the dentist’s for their specialist to carry out root canal work. Not much fun, that, unless you like lying on your back for the best part of an hour with your mouth jammed open while someone plies a drill and and periodically asks if you are OK, to which you can only answer “Ung ung…”

Anyway, once the fun part was over, the dentist made an appointment for a year later to check the work and see that all was still in order. I dutifully entered this appointment in the calendar on my phone, setting two alerts, one for a week ahead and one for a day ahead. No chance of missing the appointment, then, eh?

Somehow, I must have missed the one-week alert because the first reminder I saw was on Sunday (yesterday), telling me that I had a dentist’s appointment on the morrow (today) at 8:30 am. Oops!

The first thought that occurred to me was “Will the appointment even take place as the dentist’s surgery had concelled all routine appointments because of Covid?” There was now no way to verify this because you can’t phone the surgery at the weekend.

This left me with three possible courses of action:

1. Assume the appointment has been cancelled and not go.
2. Get up early, get ready and go to the surgery and see what happens.
3. Phone the surgery as soon as they open and ask whether I still have an appointment.

While option 1 was tempting, it seemed impolite, not to mention that they might charge me a fee for not turning up. I wasn’t keen on 2 because I know from experience that during the pandemic they don’t admit you to the premises without an appointment, which involves you in explaining your business by shouting through a closed door in the street. I therefore decided on the third option but as the dentist’s reception opens at 8am during the week, that left half an hour for me to make the call and then go to the surgery if the appointment was still extant. Also, you can expect that on a Monday morning, the phone line will be jammed with calls from patients with urgent problems that have arisen during the weekend.

Ho hum, there was nothing for it but to set the alarm nice and early, have breakfast, wash, dress and be ready to rush out to the surgery, if necessary.

This morning, then, I prepared myself and, at 8 am on the dot, made the call. The robot voice told me the surgery was closed. I waited two minutes and called again. This time the robot voice confirmed that the surgery was now open. The phone rang briefly and then the robot returned to tell me that they would answer my call “soon”.

It’s bad enough having to listen to someone else’s poor taste in music but much worse when the music is continually interspersed with advertising… and the advertising keeps repeating until you are thoroughly sick of it. And the advertising is interupted by the robot telling you how important your call is and that a human will answer it “soon”. And the longer this torture lasts, the less time I will have to rush to the surgery for my appointment… assuming that I have an appointment.

A receptionist eventually picked up my call.

After the usual civilities, I enquired: “Can you please confirm whether I have an appointment at 8:30, please?”

“No,” came back the response, “because there are no appointments at 8:30 today.”

After a moment’s thought, she asked whether she should check my appointmennts for me. I said yes; she did; and there weren’t any.

There followed an awkward pause while I thought what to do next. Ask to make a replacement appointment? Given my chronic inablity to make decisions at any time, let alone on the spur of the moment, this was too difficult a poser, so I said goodbye and cut the connection.

So here I am, in the words of the song, “All dressed up and nowhere to go.” But I am at least ready for whatever else the day has to offer.

Jacques Prévert 1900-77

The weather is cold and grey but we must make the most of it. We set out bravely, clutching the bag with our Jusaka reusable cups, only to face disappointment.

Jusaka – closed

We found Jusaka closed, despite them assuring us that they would be open at weekends from now on.

OK, then, plan B!

Queueing for the butcher’s

We walked down St John Street and turned into Chadwell Street. My attention was caught by this unusual gathering of people. It seems that they were queueing for the butcher’s shop on the corner. The queue stretched along in front of the neighbouring shops and turned the next corner. How long will it take them all to be served, I wonder. It makes me glad to be a veggie 🙂

Myddelton Square garden

We walked through Myddelton Square garden. In summer it had been busy but today I spotted only one other person, sitting on a bench. Not even any dog walkers.

If you have read other recent posts of mine, you will probably guess where we were heading. Yes, to Myddelton’s deli.

Coffee and custard tart
Photo by Tigger

As we intended to continue our walk, we decided that it was best to drink our coffee right here even though the weather was hardly propitious to sitting out on the pavement. As a treat and consolation prize, we lashed out on Portuguese custard tarts with the coffee. Delicious!

Scaffolders at work

For entertainment we watched a team of scaffolders assembling materials to build scaffolding on the front of one of the houses. Their task is slightly complicated by the fact that these houses have basements which have to be included. They obviously know what they are doing l, though, and for them, it’s literally all in a day’s work.

Amwell Street

If Amwell Street seems quiet for a Saturday, that’s not unusual for a street where many of the shops are specialist shops, some of which only open rarely. Despite this “exclusive” atmosphere, the street possesses not one, but three barbers’ shops. Can they all possibly make a living? Do they cut one another’s hair, I wonder?

It’s true that barbers’ shops have proliferated in recent years so that there are often several in a single shopping precinct. I have no idea why this is so. Men’s hair and beards aren’t growing any faster than they used to, are they?

Wharton Street (and the BT Tower)
Photo by Tigger

From the deli we strolled down Wharton Street. In the background you can just about make out the BT Tower. This has changed its name several times since it was completed in 1964 but is gradually losing its purpose, overtaken by developments in communications technology. The design included a revolving restaurant at the top but a bomb placed in the toilet in 1971 caused it to close, never to open again.

Autumn-clad house

We stopped to admire this house prettily decorated with autumn foliage.

Prideaux Place
Photo by Tigger

Another pleasant street is Prideaux Place. It is lined with trees and is very quiet. Cast-off leaves carpet the ground, conferring an almost rural feel.

Percy Circus

This led into one of my favourite places, Percy Circus. The houses not only follow a curve but stand on a relatively steep slope which, so I read somewhere, caused problems for the builders and delayed completion. Whatever the difficulties, they seem to have solved them with commendable results.

Central garden, Vernon Square

Venturing on, we entered Vernon Square, a place we have not visited often before. Like many of the squares in this district, it has a central garden which may have been private to residents originally but is now public. If the weather had been more amenable, it might have been pleasant to sit here for a while.

King’s Cross Baptist Church

One of the present residents of the Square is the King’s Cross Baptist Church (or “Chuch”, according to the website). I know nothing about the age or history of this church but was intrigued by one detail, spotted by Tigger: they advertise that they provide services in English and French. Can there be so many francophone Baptists living in the area that it is worth having special services for them? Apparently.

The Castle
Photo by Tigger

On the way home, Tigger photographed the Castle in Pentonville Road. We have visited this pub perhaps a couple of times to have their vegetarian Sunday roast, which is quite good. What caught our attention today, however, was the racket emanating from the roof terrace. Perhaps there was a private party in progress but whatever it was, it seemed a very jolly – and noisy – affair.

Today’s ramble was a return to our lockdown walks when we were confined to the local area. Now that London has been put in Tier 2, travel is again discouraged and we are encouraged to stay in our neighbourhood. I very much enjoyed those local explorations which taught me to look closer and deeper and led me to discover things I would not otherwise have done. Today I recovered some of that pleasure and interest. I look forward to more discoveries awaiting the curious gaze below the more obvious surface of the world.

It’s not cold today (a relatively sultry 15°C) but it is wet. We might not have stirred out at all but for the fact that we had goods to pick up from Argos, an item that had not been ready yesterday (see yesterday’s post).

Busier than usual

We started, as usual, with a visit to Jusaka which has in a sense become our clubhouse as the staff are more like friends than baristas. We found it busier than I have seen it at any time since the arrival of Covid. This is good, as it helps the business to survive, though it might make it awkward to find a suitably separate place to sit. We sat at our “round the corner” table which transient customers tend to miss or avoid.

Decorated latte
Photo by Tigger

We had the same order as always, latte for Tigger and a “black americano” for me.

I have for years drunk both coffee and tea without milk, so this seems quite natural to me. Not to other people, however, as baristas often ask “Any milk with that?” or even bring a jug of hot milk with the coffees to our table.

High Street in the rain

The High Street was slick with rain and the heavy cloud overlay made it as dark as evening. This sign warning of road works and possible delays up ahead somehow added to the oppressive mood.

Two more clossed businesses
Photos by Tigger

These seem to be two more businesses that have closed down though whether because of Covid or for other reasons is not clear.

Two ways to track and trace
Photo by Tigger

I mentioned the other day that the QR code system that started as a perfectly good way of recording your presence in a cafe or restaurant now works only if you have the official app installed on your phone. This business provides two ways to do it, however, the official and their own. Good for them. I hope more businesses follow their example. The app is unpopular and is not generally used and dissenters are not going to be easily coerced into using it. It is better to have unofficial systems that work than an official one that does not.

As for us, we picked up our item at Argos and then hurried home like two dormice scurrying to their nest.

The title refers to a curious incident earlier in the day. Just after lunch, the doorbell rang. I went to the door to find a man wearing a high-vis jacket.

“Did you report a dead fox?” He enquired,

Dead fox? No, sorry, no dead foxes here. Can’t help you with that..

“Oh, all right, then” said he and politely took his leave. I almost felt as though I had let him down somehow…