Hello world

Having no internet for four days is odd - oddly calming, but also incredibly frustrating. Checking the weather and/or if there really was an Earl of Sandwich/what cooking oil is best at a high temperature and if dogs do in fact see in black and white, etc, etc, is suddenly challenging. What did we do before? remain ignorant or went to queue up at the library behind a load of other people asking for dog biology books, I suppose. I can't even really remember now . . .
Anyway. I can finally do a blog about our (me and son) trip to London. It was time he conquered his fear of flying and saw/heard/tasted amazing things, and was shown where I lived for the first thirteen years of my life - good old Muswell Hill, or at least an offshoot of it.
He was great and didn't yawn at all as I showed him 'the place where the bins used to be', the flat where I first saw a nude man (I couldn't totally explain this as I don't really remember the details other than I had gone there to feed someone's cat) the launderette I used to go to with a copy of the Beano and other nostalgic details.

My favourite shop - ever. Martyns in Muswell hill: still there; thank the lord of dried fruit and special tea.

A tree just outside the flat's gate that I was particularly fond of - a Holme Oak I think

We stayed in a brilliant little hotel called St Athans, just off Russell Square: cheap, friendly and with Old Furniture in the rooms, and still a fair bit of Georgian character about it.
Most of the time we walked - miles and miles and took buses; sitting at the front on the top deck, just like I used to do. I was amazed and so happy to see a re-introduction of the Route-master 'hop-on-and-off' style bus, without however the old warm fuggy smell and with rather more groovy seat upholstery.

We didn't eat in here. I can't imagine why people want to eat cold fish in an over-lit laboratory environment on a grey wet day.

But we did eat in here: Pellicci, on Bethnal Green Road. I wanted to show Ezra a real old Caf; sadly so many have gone now, but this is the real thing: great, warming food, cheery owners Formica tables and original 1920s fittings.

We ate wonderful food: Rasam soup (ow-ow-ow) as hot as I recalled from when I lived just off Goodge Street, at the Ragam; Turkish food, liver and onions at the above mentioned Caf in Bethnal Green Road and lots of crisps (the variety in the UK is boggling); visited art galleries, gawped at ridiculous stuff in Harrods (well, you have to go there once, and Ezra hadn't) looked at The Shard, but didn't go up it (high price tag as well as dizzying height of building) and wandered about The City wondering why so much construction seemed to be going on in this financial mess time - especially that weird edifice that looks like a early-learning centre mobile phone

The Ragam Indian restaurant: somewhere at the back of Goodge Street - I didn't recognise the road as most of it seemed to have morphed into new vast office blocks.

One of many building sites around the City. I like the way they number the floors in big blue letters so construction workers can remember which floor they left the bag of filler on.

And look at this! I just had to stand for minutes staring at the impossibility of this bit of machinery. Like something out of Batman, this giant screw/digger thing (one of many, I suppose) is the reason why so much of London's floor can be delved into at such a depth.

Possibly the highlight of the trip was seeing 'The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime' at the Gielgud theatre: stunningly complex lighting and sound; beautiful, moving, funny, AND, I got a badge as I was sitting in a prime number seat

So may odd things to look at on London pavements, like this Christmas tree netting device, running free after escaping from a Christmas goods lockup somewhere.

And so many windows to look in

And so many silly things to buy

Harrods Dog and Cat clothes display . . . we rather liked the pure silk coat for tiny runty dog back home, but at 180 quid . . . maybe not.

Better than the Tate: a lone and dangerous vegetable in Harrods Food Hall.

Colney Hatch Lane (misplaced blog post)

I'm just re-editing the blog from day one with a view to printing the whole thing up. Somehow this post has moved from 2009; I can't seem to move it back, so . . . here it is, a piece of the past in 2013.

The last part of this time's London perambulations.

Took the 134 bus from Highgate to Muswell hill - my childhood home of 13 years. Most shops have changed, of course, but joy, the pet shop and most important, the old coffee and tea merchants emporium is still there. This ancient shop with its coffee roaster in the window and dark wood shelving stuffed with spices and jams was a place of wonder when I was a child, and still is.
Bought a few packets of nutmegs, mustard seeds etc, and listened to an elderly lady recounting exploits of her morning to the shop keeper.
When she had completed her shopping, she was helped on with her small rucksack, and set off to walk to Kenwood, which I think must be over 4 miles away.
After she had left, the shopkeeper told me the lady had just celebrated her birthday of 103 years. I also left and walked briskly up the road, aching feet bones and dodgy hip forgotten - I am young, I am young, etc.

Looked in on my junior school playground, and then tried to remember where there had been a species of Lyon's tea rooms near the bus station, to no avail.
Bus to Colney Hatch lane, where we lived in a ground floor flat of this block in above photo.

Nostalgia

After going on about the Greek shop the other day (blog post back one) I remembered another favourite shop. In fact this probably was and still is the best shop in North London, possibly the world.
Martyns of Muswell Hill. We used to go in here a lot. Mum would buy tea, coffee and dried fruit, and I would stand by the ancient coffee bean machine by the window and breath in that fabulous aroma of roasting beans. Actually, I'm not sure if it was roasting them, but the smell was intoxicating. It was a sort of metal barrel that turned like a washing machine drum, with a hiss hiss as the beans clattered around inside. I was an inquisitive child, so I can't imagine I didn't ask what it was the machine was doing. I've just forgotten somewhere in the fog of time . . .
I returned to the shop about a year ago on one of my 'wandering around bits of London' trips, in fact I've probably enthused about it before. I was so utterly relieved and thrilled to see it was still there - that I may have danced on the pavement, but I can't remember that either.
The interior was still dimly lit; still the wonderful coffee smell but infused with other scents: vanilla, tea, dundee cakes and probably some good quality dust on the top shelves. The little cellophane packets of herbs and spices were as I recalled, and even the women serving seemed the same? Another generation perhaps.

I think the last memory I had of the shop before my recent trip back, was going in there when I had just nagged my mum to distraction about buying a pair of yellow platform sandals to go with my pink hipster flares. We bought the tea, coffee and prunes and then went to have tea and white buttery triangle toast in 'the lantern cafe' now sadly gone.