Tag: exploring

215: next stop, Islington

This week I’ve spent a lot of time on buses on my way to and from visits to interesting people. I like London buses. They are reliable, cheap and almost never involve changing at Bank station. They’re also above ground so hopping on buses around the borough is helping me consolidate my mental map of Islington – this week I connected the dots between Highbury and Islington Green, for example. I now know that the number 4 bus will get me back to Barbican from Finsbury Park, and that it’s no slower than taking various trains.

I like to sit on the top deck when I can, as you’re above the shop fronts and can see the bones of the buildings above them. Islington, bordering the City, has elegant squares (especially in the bit around New River Head where we’re building our new Centre) and brick villas and terraces – home to the Charles and Carrie Pooters of Victorian London. There are modernist council estates like Berthold Lubetkin’s Spa Green Estate and Bevin Court. Interesting buildings include a gorgeous Art Deco cinema (now a community hub) in Upper Street. Exmouth Market has traditional tiled pub fronts, and the old Metropolitan Water Board HQ (also New River Head) oozes Edwardian grandeur at the front and 1930s sweeping glass brick glamour at the old Laboratory building. There’s Islington Green, a tiny square where the statue of Bob the street cat holds court. There are also ridiculously posh corners like Highgate Village, and of course the gothic glories of Highgate Cemetery.

The Pooters, residents of Islington – Diary of a Nobody, George and Weedon Grossmith

There are railways and stations and canals, including the very long Islington Tunnel, and for some reason a lot of theatres in pubs, and medieval wells where people would go to take the waters. The more time I spend on buses and visiting new places, the more I like it. I’ve even stopped getting lost on my way back to the office.

Other things making me happy this week

  • A visit to Artbox in Islington, an arts organisation working with adults with learning needs
  • Coffee with Amanda
  • Finishing Silent Witness – all 27 series!
  • Mike Bubbins’ sitcom Mammoth (BBC) and Deadboy Detectives (Netflix)
  • A walk in the early morning woods on Monday
  • Book recommendations from a colleague – finding a fellow fantasy fan is always good. Also, I read the start of a book over someone’s elbow on a busy tube and it looked really good so I had to buy it. Not even sorry.

What I’ve been reading

A Court of Mist and Fury/A Court of Wings and Ruin/A Court of Frost and Starlight/A Court of Silver Flames – Sarah J. Maas

Notes from a Small Island/A Walk in the Woods – Bill Bryson (Audible)

Mrs England  – Stacy Halls

199: there’s a map for that

I picked up book called Map Addict in a charity shop a few weeks ago, by a chap called Mike Parker who apparently does all sorts of stuff on radio and telly about maps. I hadn’t heard of him, as he’s not doing it on Absolute Classic Rock, and I can’t bring myself to commit to Radio 4 quite yet. He may not still be doing it, I don’t know – I checked with my beloved who listens to R4 in his van, but he hadn’t heard of him either. Anyway, this book is described as ‘a tale of obsession, fudge and the Ordnance Survey’ and while I haven’t come across the fudge yet I am enjoying the story of the Ordnance Survey, and associated things like the politics around the prime meridian, the A-Z and the tube map.

Perhaps surprisingly for someone with no sense of direction, I love a map. I am building up my own little collection of OS maps, although sister Tan will tell you that me possessing a map is not the same as me being able to locate myself or, indeed, anything else. She has an excellent sense of direction, whereas I can’t find myself on a circular route unless we start at the beginning. Heck, who am I kidding? I can’t find myself in a large Sainsburys. I have found the OS map app very handy in the last year or so, as it has a little arrow that shows me where I am and which direction to go next. I love walking around my local area (aka ‘the flyblown wasteland’ as Tan refers to Essex) and take mental notes of footpath signs to explore when I’m rambling. If I can locate those on my paper maps when I get home I can plot out a rough route, and just hope I can follow it…

Google Maps is more of a challenge, however. On the rare (usually only once per driver) occasions I was handed a map and asked to navigate in those exciting pre-SatNav days, I discovered that the only way I can make sense of them is to hold them in the direction of travel. If you try this with Google Maps the phone autorotates and so it can take me three or four attempts to make the little blue arrow go down the right road. As for TfL directions which say things like ‘continue down Acacia Avenue for 500m’, well – this is fine when you’ve just got off a bus, but less so when you’ve exited a tube station from several levels underground and have no idea which way that is. External meetings in my new role were an adventure for the first couple of months as it was always hit or miss whether I could navigate back – my mental map of Farringdon is a bit better now, fortunately! I had the same problem when I started at Docklands, as Canary Wharf was very disorienting and the museum wasn’t very well known. After a few months I start building up my mental map, and I try and take different routes around the area to embed it.

As a form of illustration and source of information, though, maps fascinate me. When my Dad would occasionally have an interview in other parts of the UK – like England! – I loved to look up places around it and find funny village names on the map (Piddletrenthide, anyone?). I like the OS maps for finding little curiosities like archaeological sites – even if there’s nothing to see there now, I like knowing that something was there once. The London Underground map is a work of art, and colleagues have been known to use me as a travel planner (although not for walking routes), and I can spend hours falling down the rabbithole of sites like Bombsight (sadly not working at the moment), Layers of London and the Booth Maps, making links between modern and old London.. Maps in fantasy novels enchant me, and I’ll be making a trip with my team to the British Library’s current exhibition Fantasy: Realms of Imagination later this month.

Anyway, Mike Parker’s book is great – if you, like me, enjoy finding out how places like Greenwich became the centre of navigation (to annoy the French, apparently), and whose brilliant idea it was to triangulate the whole of the UK and what happens when bits fall into the sea, then I recommend this book as an entertaining and informative read. I’ve just ordered his book on the history of public footpaths, too, and added a few more to the wishlist.

Other things making me happy this week:

  • New Year’s Eve with friends
  • New Year’s Day swim with several of the same friends
  • A mooch round the market with Miriam (and a new jumper)
  • Early morning hot chocolate with Amanda
  • Finishing the Temperature Supernova and deciding on this year’s tracker
  • Finishing my very snuggly cardigan using The Maker’s Atelier Raw-edged coat pattern, and binding my Double Down Dress
  • Seeing my sister’s company featured in Woman’s Weekly magazine this week
  • Not the flipping rain though, no. Or tube strikes when I have to get to work. Not them either.

See you next week!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Map Addict – Mike Parker

December/Wine of Angels/Midwinter of the Spirit – Phil Rickman

The Man Who Died Twice/The Last Devil to Die – Richard Osman (Audible)