Tag: London

249: move along, please

Aaaand…breathe. The out of office is on, most of the presents are wrapped*, the turkey crown is in the freezer** and the cake is marzipanned and practically hiccupping with the amount of rum it has ingested. The presents for France are in Ealing ready to go over with London sister today, and we had a very delicious lunch at Remoli complete with aperitifs and pudding (affogato, of course). Christmas can now happen.

*Despite definitely having finished the shopping last weekend, I still ended up in Flying Tiger in Ealing Broadway as the stocking presents didn’t look enough.

**We are going to TT1’s for Christmas lunch but the utter horror on Thing 2’s face when she realised this meant I wasn’t doing Christmas dinner was a sight to behold. Yes, I am a sucker but at least I drew the line at buying a full turkey just so I could make soup, despite the face. Boxing Day will be dinner for us then!

On today’s mooch round Ealing we visited the Christmas markets that seem to be popping up in every available shopping centre – the best was at Pitzhanger Manor, but even that was only about ten stalls. London seems to have taken the idea of these markets but hasn’t really managed to get the hang of them. The one in Ealing Broadway Centre was six stalls, half of which were overpriced food and the others were overpriced tat. There is a limit to the number of scrunchies and Swiftie-style bracelets that any one person really needs, and this is coming from someone who remained faithful to the scrunchie throughout the noughties and still has a bagful in case I decide to grow my hair our again. I went to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park once – when it was free to enter – and swore never, ever, ever again. Having said that, the one on the South Bank is nice but there are way too many people at it, and if there’s one thing I cannot be having with in London it’s people who dither about the place. Chancery Lane tube station has been plagued this week by people in rush hour who go through the gates and then just…stop. Even my sunny disposition has been somewhat taxed by these muppets. Add to this people who can’t read the ‘stand on the right’ signs, people who choose to stop in the middle of pavements for conversations, people who walk slowly in busy places (I would have voted for a slow lane on Oxford Street) and anyone who hangs around by the entrances to tube platforms.

Even less fun this week was trying to despatch a parcel to World of Books – Royal Mail was not an option, only InPost or Collect Plus, so I chose InPost as they had two lockers in Epping and Collect Plus are in weird little shops. One locker was full, the other was broken – so I had to go to Ongar. It cost me more in bus fare to post the stupid parcel than I was earning from the books. This is the downside of living in a village in between two small towns, of course. Well, that and the buses which are a nightmare at the moment thanks to roadworks in at least four separate places on the route.

Things making me happy this week

  • Coffee and a catch-up with Rhiannon and cuddles with baby Otis on Friday, and the best (only) mince pie I have had this year made by Raf.
  • A Christmas drink with my lovely colleagues on Thursday at St John
  • Cat socks
  • Starting a non-Christmas themed crochet project
  • The library getting all the books I’d requested in at once – binging Vaseem Khan’s ‘Inspector Chopra’ series. Highly recommended.
  • Richard Franks’ take on teaching A Christmas Carol
  • The expression on my idiot cat’s face when caught with his new catnip banana

Today I am having coffee with Miriam and Edith after a chilly swim with Jill – and then I am going to do as little as possible for several days!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Midnight at Malabar House/The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra – Vaseem Khan

Hogfather – Terry Pratchett (Audible) – and the collected BBC dramatisations of various Discworld novels

Two for the Dough – Janet Evanovich

Making Thinking Visible – Ron Ritchhart, Mark Church, Karin Morrison

228: magic and moonlight

This week’s tube journeys have been accompanied by Joanne Harris’s latest novel, The Moonlight Market, which is being marketed as ‘Neverwhere meets Stardust‘ (the marketing team at her publishers are probably cursing themselves). I love both those books, and also am a huge fan of everything else by Joanne Harris, so that I was going to read this was a given.

But…it’s also set in London. London Below, London Before, London today – the London we see in front of us, the London that might be waiting for us down one of those intriguing little alleyways that the older parts of the City (and the city, I suppose) do so well, the London that might be there if you catch it in the corner of your eye. Clerkenwell and Farringdon have many of these, and I am easily distracted by the thought of magic and adventure.* I blame growing up with books where statues came to life in gardens; where forests grow in naughty children’s bedrooms and you can sail away to the land where the wild things are; where there was a permanently frosted world through the back of a wardrobe; and a house full of Civil War ghost children, ebony mice that come to life and lost jewels.

You might say London has enough stories to be going on with, without making up more, but one of the best things about a city with more than 2000 years of stories and people is that there will always be room for more. London, as Peter Ackroyd and Edward Rutherfurd have proved, is enough of a story in itself.

However, people do keep writing these stories, for which I am profoundly grateful. The Moonlight Market is a story about a London man who works in a camera shop on Caledonian Road (‘the Cally’, as it’s known locally) who falls suddenly, unexpectedly in love with a woman who is (of course) more than she seems. A photographer himself, he discovers that his negatives show things that can’t be seen in daylight, and his search for these places and people lead him to the Moonlight Market on a London Bridge that only exists on moonlit nights. Threaded through this is a fairytale about the doomed affair between the Moth King and the Butterfly Queen, and the resulting war between the Silken Folk of the day and night courts. Like her Chocolat series, magic exists and co-exists with the mundane world, and sometimes crosses over – all the best urban fantasy is filled with possibility, of course, and Harris’s books are filled with it.

If you love urban fantasy and London, here’s a few more worlds you can explore:

  • Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series
  • Mike Carey’s Felix Castor novels
  • Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere (I am extremely disappointed in recent revelations about him, but I still love this book)
  • Benedict Jacka’s Alex Verus series
  • Paul Cornell’s Shadow Police series
  • Christopher Fowler’s Bryant and May series
  • Sarah Painter’s Crow Investigations
  • Neil Blackmore’s Soho Blue (not magical, but worlds colliding and some of the most evocative writing about post-war London I’ve ever come across)

A good writer makes the setting as much a part of the story as the characters and the action. I first understood this when I did a module at uni called ‘The City in the American Mind’, which introduced me to Sara Paretsky’s Chicago through the eyes of V.I. Warshawski. I’d probably be terribly disappointed if I visited – in my head Vic’s office is in a classic noir setting in ‘the Loop’ , there’s vast tracts of post-industrial wasteland, and there’s a Great Lake smack in the middle. Similarly, Dave Robicheaux’s swampy, louche and lush Louisiana (James Lee Burke is the author here) would not live up to my visions, and if I go to San Francisco I want it to be in Armistead Maupin’s 1970s rather than today. Clearly I need a time-travelling Doctor….but again, that’s another story.

*This probably explains why I get lost a lot on the way back from meetings….if I walk down there, surely it will lead to there (it often doesn’t, but what possibility of magic and adventure would there be if I just walked straight down St John Street to the office?

Other things making me happy this week:

  • Coffee with Brian on his last day ever at Museum of London. Hashtag end of an era or something.
  • Trip with some of the team to the Tower Bridge Experience. Team now convinced I know people EVERYWHERE as one of the bridge hosts is a double-ex colleague from both MoL Docklands and V&A.
  • Finishing week four of C25K without injury. Crossing fingers, touching wood etc, and sticking everything together with RockTape.
  • Finishing a sashiko-stitched cat bag
  • Being able to sit in the garden and work surrounded by plants and sunshine. My Beloved’s new garden shelter is coming on well.
  • Taking the lovely Matt Shaw round the site in preparation for a new project, watched by this pretty fox.
  • Cinnamon buns for breakfast courtesy of Thing 2

Things making me fall about laughing this week:

The Museum of London’s new logo. Sorry, London Museum. I can see what you were thinking but sparkly guano and a discombobulated flying rat aren’t doing it for me.

Still, I spotted the model when I was out with the team at Tower Bridge:

What do they want, glitter on it?

Today I am off for a swim with Isla, and I might even make something. You never know….

Kirsty x

Cover image: Network Rail

What I’ve been reading:

The Life of a Scilly Sergeant – Colin Taylor

The Secret Hours – Mick Herron

The Children of Green Knowe/The River at Green Knowe/The Chimneys of Green Knowe/An Enemy at Green Knowe – Lucy M. Boston

The Moonlight Market – Joanne Harris (Audible)

220: a commuter story

On Friday morning I discovered to my utter horror that I’d forgotten to charge my phone overnight and faced the prospect of a tube journey actually having to listen to other people at 6.45am. After only one cup of coffee this is an alarming prospect. There is always one person who feels the need to have a loud conversation on their mobile with someone they have presumably left mere moments earlier. There is also, inevitably, someone with an extremely irritating sniff or cough – sometimes both – who is not in possession of a tissue or, indeed, any manners. There are people who feel entitled to play their music on their phones without earphones, as if we would all benefit from their hideous musical choices. It’s never anything I would ever choose to listen to. I can only assume this is the planet-friendly 2024 version of driving around in a knackered Ford Fiesta with a dodgy exhaust and a massive speaker in the boot, as was de rigueur when I was a teenager. Tube etiquette frowns, for some reason, on throwing oneself across the aisle* and strangling people, and a deep loathing of horrible music is not considered a mitigating circumstance in the eyes of the law**. Being able to immerse myself in the sounds of my choice is really a public service.

As it turned out, Friday’s journey was worth the lack of earphones. There was a small person and his dad. Small person was full of questions and poor Dad was clearly regretting his life choices, probably because he hadn’t had enough coffee either. Peppa Pig Hide ‘n’ Seek on the ipad was not cutting it, and this was even before they got to the Natural History Museum on a rainy day in half term. Small boy was hopelessly excited at the prospect of REAL DINOSAURS and Dad was trying to check emails against a constant bombardment of ‘Is this our stop? Is this our stop? DAD, I found Pedro Pony! Is THIS our stop?? Suzy Sheep, Dad! How many more stops? Are we underground yet? When will we be underground?’ Poor Dad. After a while I took pity on Dad and helped count stations, and answered questions – What’s that on your finger? What are you making? Where are you going? My Things, these days, bring their own earphones on the tube and don’t ask me questions any more – in fact they prefer to pretend I am not with them until we get off the tube and they need the Oyster card.

My absolute favourite moment, however, was when he threw his arms round his dad, gave him a huge squeeze and shouted ‘DADDY! DADDY’ (plaintive ‘whaaaaattttt’ from Daddy)…. ‘I’VE NEVER HUGGED YOU ON A TRAIN BEFORE, DADDY!’ The gentle ping of stony little commuter hearts melting was practically audible.

*also, you’d lose your seat. It’s fierce on the Central in rush hour.

**Law, schmaw. The rest of the carriage would probably help me.

Other things making me happy this week

  • Finally visiting the Barbican Conservatory, for a celebration of their project with Headway East London, a brilliant charity for people with acquired brain injuries. It was like those pictures of concrete cities that have been taken over by the jungle. I liked it a lot
  • A really useful strategy meeting. Adding 70s & 80s rock stars, Prince and Harry Styles to my powerpoint entertained me, at least, and people got extra points for recognising Journey.
  • A partnership event with the Museum of the Order of St John and our lovely illustrator Grace Holliday exploring ‘Fabulous Ferns’.
  • Coffee with Amanda and her Thing 3 on Thursday morning
  • The new series of The Outlaws and a ludicrous new episode of Midsomer Murders

Today I am off to Copped Hall with all those crochet toadstools and cacti!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Sentry/Indigo Slam/L.A. Requiem – Robert Crais

Bridgerton 1-7 – Julia Quinn

The Lost Continent – Bill Bryson (Audible)

218: where have all the weirdos gone?

Yesterday Amanda and I ventured south of the river to tick off West Norwood Cemetery, the sixth of the Magnificent Seven Victorian graveyards – the original plan was Nunhead, but one of my colleagues tipped me off that it was their annual family open day and likely to be infested with Morris Dancers and small children rather than our usual cast of weirdos.

We met at London Bridge, where we both – separately – encountered a man wandering round with some rather grubby cards and a slightly desperate look on his face who was offering to do magic for people for some reason. South London hasn’t really featured on either of our radars, so it was new ground for us – we earmarked the RSPCA shop for a mooch after the cemetery, and we were quite surprised to find that the cemetery was very close to the station rather than a lengthy walk like the others.

West Norwood was the second of the seven to be built but is less higgledy-piggledy than Highgate and Kensal Green, with lots of mowed spaces and a newish rose garden for cremation burials where ashes can be scattered. There are wildlife areas – lots of wild flowers and birdlife, including cheeky robins and wagtails, noisy parakeets and magpies and the odd squirrel.

We are now getting to the age where mortality is making its presence felt and I think we’re quite pleased that there’s only one more to go on the list. We noticed a lot of child and baby burials from the 80s and 90s which made us sad. There are some great tombs, especially in the Greek quarter where there is a monumental chapel being restored with a Heritage Fund grant – a stonemason was at work, in fact, doing something with a chisel in the chapel. We didn’t find a single Martha on the stones – but there is always a Martha! – but did find lots of Elizas. We also found the wonderfully-named Carlton Parchment who, if I ever write a detective novel, will definitely be featured. Oswald Manoah Dennison is buried there, described on his gravestone as ‘The Columbus of Brixton and Empire Windrush pioneer’, which is a wonderful epitaph to be buried under. I love this poem by Dan Thompson I found about him and you can read an interview with him here.

Lunch was at Pintadera, a busy, friendly Italian cafe close to the station and an excellent suggestion by a friend who lives locally. Amanda had the mushroom and nduja pasta special, I had the ravioli with a beef and veal ragu which was delicious. We both had affogatos! Really reasonably priced, and highly recommended if you find yourself in the area.

The RSPCA shop trawl netted me a new pair of linen trousers and a skirt, a book and a pair of sunglasses for Thing 2. I do love a charity shop and this one was a really good one for clothes.

Other things making me happy this week

  • A girls’ night out to the cinema to see The Fall Guy, which just consolidated my love for Ryan Gosling (especially after watching La La Land earlier in the week)
  • Mental health awareness week – we went for a work picnic to get out of the office as the theme was movement. It was raining so instead of one of the local gardens we went to the Barbican, which was a great call by one of my colleagues. So good to step away from the desks and have a chat at the end of an exciting week.
  • And on the way back Esme Young from the Sewing Bee walked past us and I tried really hard not to embarrass myself.
  • Finishing Ashes to Ashes – the Daniel Mays character was completely bonkers, I still love the Gene Genie, but Alex was getting on my nerves.
  • Building an extremely long playlist based on blokes with guitars and angst. It’s great.
  • Coffee with Brian on Tuesday before work.
  • Finally being able to announce that our development is going ahead!
  • Running into ex-colleagues at the Museums and Heritage Show.

And that’s it from me for the week – this week it’s my Irish sister’s birthday (happy birthday!), and a session with my favourite teacher training alliance.

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Bubbles All The Way/Bubbles Reboots – Sarah Strohmeyer

The Monkey’s Raincoat – Robert Crais

The Lost Continent – Bill Bryson (Audible)

Pay Dirt – Sara Paretsky

Necropolis -Catharine Arnold

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

183: oh no, mum’s doing history again

Yesterday I got to spend the day doing one of my very favourite things: talking to random people about history, and London’s history in particular. Even more particularly, New River Head which will be transformed into Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration over the next couple of years.

The occasion was Open House Festival 2023 – a two week celebration organised by Open City when buildings, homes and spaces usually kept behind closed doors are open to the public.

New River Head has been out of use for 70 years, after the New River’s terminus became the reservoirs at Stoke Newington instead of the Islington site and the engines were removed. There’s a lot of interest in our half acre of patchy concrete, cobbles and industrial buildings tucked away behind bits of Thames Water infrastructure, from local residents, illustrators, architects and engineers, historians both amateur and professional, and ex-Thames Water employees. It’s a derelict site in the middle of a conservation area, mostly built by the New River Company itself, and several attempts to redevelop the space have been resisted.

My job today was mostly floating about the place, delivering the odd tour and ad-hoc potted histories of the site which changed depending where I was standing. Having fallen down the Google rabbit hole when reading about the site, and from reading Nick Higham’s excellent The Mercenary River, there’s a lot of trivia bouncing about in this head of mine. There’s an IPA called Five-Inch Drop, made by the New River Brewery and named after the gentle gradient bringing the New River from Hertfordshire to London along the 100-foot contour. The river still provides 10% of London’s drinking water via the Ring Main. Water from the New River was used to fill the tank at Sadlers Wells for the re-enactment of sea battles (and the punters would jump in at the end). A cheeky fox likes to lie in the sun under the buddleia.

The area around the site has its moments too: Myddelton Passage, named after founder of the New River Company Hugh Myddelton, is known for a whole range of anti-social behaviour across time. These days it’s a quiet corner for local youths to conduct some illicit activities, to the horror of the residents, but even way-back-when muggers would lurk in this quiet alley. This meant Victorian policemen on the beat also had to lurk in the area, and a number of them indulged in some ASB of their own in the form of graffiti. A section of the wall is carved with the initials of policemen of Finsbury’s G Division: you can read more about this here. Talk about setting a bad example!

Other things making me happy this week:

  • Thing 1 starting her new college course
  • Rewatching the brilliant Sex Education in preparation for the new series
  • Hiding out from the pouring rain under a gazebo with lots of interesting people
  • Still crocheting mandalas
  • Cinnamon buns made by Thing 2
  • Discovering that our daft pigeons have built a Nerf bullet into their nest
  • Looking down instead of up when walking in London

This week will be focused on National Illustration Day – watch this space!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Story Collector – Evie Gaughan

The Keeper of Stories – Sally Page

The Lost Notebook – Louise Douglas

French Braid/Celestial Navigation – Anne Tyler

The Wanted – Robert Crais

An Utterly Impartial History of Britain– John O’Farrell

Monstrous Regiment – Terry Pratchett (Audible)

182: hot in the City

After a summer of reasonable temperatures, it’s typical that as soon as the new school starts we have a heatwave with the thermometers hitting high twenties by the end of the week. Central London has felt like a sauna, especially when stepping out of the airconditioned offices and training room* where I have been lurking.

Over the last couple of years I’ve seen a few news articles talking about the impact of green spaces on city temperatures, most recently this one based on research published by Friends of the Earth. Apparently green spaces like the parks, with all their trees and grass and things, have a cooling effect of up to four degrees on their local areas with the posh bits (around Hyde Park, Hampstead Heath etc) benefitting most while areas like Islington (with the lowest amount of green space per head of population), Tower Hamlets and the City of London are the hottest. This year is the first time I have worked in the City itself and the difference is noticeable – there was very little difference this week between surface temperature and the Central Line, for example, which is usually my reference point as in heat waves the Central Line is its own little circle of hell. Even in Bethnal Green – where the museum was close to Victoria Park, Museum Gardens, and Barmy Park (officially Bethnal Green Gardens, but the memory of the old asylum lives on) – the air was noticeably cooler. Leaving London by road, even in the cooler months, shows a two degree drop as you hit Woodford and the real start of Epping Forest.

From Arup: The results show temperatures of London’s survey area were 4.5°C hotter than rural surroundings. https://www.arup.com/news-and-events/london-most-extreme-urban-heat-island-hot-spot-compared-to-five-other-global-cities-in-new-survey

18% of London is green space – more than the area of the roads and railways combined – and London was officially declared the world’s first National Park City in 2019. The ambition is to make more than 50% of Greater London green through green roofs, more trees, greening buildings and so on. However – with my cynical head on – I wonder how many of these projects will result in genuine greenery at ground level where people can go and sit under trees in green spaces, especially given the premium placed on land in London. (For what our contribution to Islington’s greenery will be, see here.)

For more excellently nerdy maps, visit Mapping London – here’s one from a 2018 heatwave to start you off, and a Cool Spaces map too.

*What was I doing in a training room? Qualifying as a Mental Health First Aider (I hope – there was an exam and everything!). I did this St John Ambulance course which was quite intense, but really interesting and gave the cohort a chance to discuss lived experience. I still hate role plays though.

Things making me happy this week:

And now I am off for a swim! See you next week.

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Keeper of Stories – Sally Page

Red and Dead/The High Gate/Lark Rising – Violet Fenn

An Utterly Impartial History of Britain – John O’Farrell

Pyramids/Monstrous Regiment – Terry Pratchett (Audible)

180: planes, (lack of) trains and automobiles

I have had much more of a grip on reality this week – whole sentences have tripped off my tongue, tasks have been completed, and the world is a less fuzzy place entirely.

This is just as well, as there have definitely been days this week when I’ve had to use all (both?) my brain cells to thwart the machinations of Transport for London.

On Wednesday I had an appointment to meet Enfield Museum Services team. Enfield is one of the boroughs on the New River between our site at New River Head and the source springs at Great Amwell in Hertfordshire. In 2013 they held an exhibition celebrating the 400th anniversary of the river and they’d kindly offered to show me some of their objects relating to the river.

The closest station to their object store is Brimsdown on the Hertford East line – geographically a 25 minute drive from here, but as a public transport user it appears to located somewhere north of Alpha Centauri on the astral equivalent of an unclassified road. Options provided by the TfL journey planner included two buses and a 60 minute walk from the next town; a bus, a tube, two overground trains and a National Rail train; three buses and a twenty minute walk; two buses, a short unicycle ride and an extra-dimensional portal; but not – whatever tweaks I made to the planner options – the very simple route I eventually took which was the bus to Epping, the tube and a single change for Brimsdown. I got buses back – all three of them – which was simple but still took the best part of two hours to go 12 miles.

There is currently no joined-up public transport equivalent of the M25, or even the North and South Circulars. There are plans for a series of ‘Superloop’ buses which basically follow the circular roads, but these won’t solve the problem of the lack of connection in places like Essex, where to cross the borough by public transport inevitably involves either travelling into Central London and out again, a multitude of expensive buses with limited timetables (Chelmsford only exists once a week on Tuesdays, apparently) – or driving, as although the ULEZ extends out almost this far, the London transport network with its cheaper fares doesn’t.

Thursday morning also demonstrated how disconnected the public transport system is at this end of the world. Epping, my closest tube station, is the end of the Central Line and is essentially a dormitory town for London. The station car park holds the dubious honour of being the largest on the TfL network, and so many people drive in from all over north Essex to access the tube as it’s cheaper to park and ride than it is to pay £25 a day peak-time return from Harlow, our closest national rail station. The car park’s 538 spaces are full by 7am Monday – Friday. It doesn’t help that since the line beyond Epping was closed in the early ’90s there has been extensive residential development in both North Weald and Ongar, which used to be served, and a steady erosion of an already erratic bus service.

‘Peak time’ service between Epping and Loughton has been steadily reduced: pre-covid we were told there would be ‘temporarily’ reduced service while they replaced tracks. We regularly have 20 minute waits for trains to Epping at peak times – stealth obsolescence, according to a friend, who is TfL-adjacent. If enough people are driven back to the roads by poor train service, they’ll have an excuse to close the line due to lack of use. At one point we were given hope by one of the proposals for Crossrail 2, which would have seen this branch picked up by that service and linked to Harlow and Stansted, but our optimism was misplaced. Crossrail 2 was paused in 2020 and the route will eventually link up already existing stations over the border in Hertfordshire, leaving us still disconnected.

A casualty on the tracks shortly after 7am on Thursday meant the line was suspended from Liverpool Street to all eastbound destinations, and unlike further into London there are no alternative lines. If you’re in London and heading east at the end of the day your heart sinks if the line goes down anywhere east of Stratford: the Elizabeth Line has made it marginally easier but there’s still an hour’s bus ride to reconnect with the Central Line (which you hope has been restored by then) and two more buses home if not. This was the route I used on Thursday morning: bus from Epping to Loughton, another to Ilford and then the Lizzie Line – 2 hours and 45 minutes in total. This was only because the 167 arrived first – otherwise I’d have gone via Chingford or Walthamstow. Equally long times for a 25 mile journey into the City. If the government at various levels want us to use public transport and get cars off the roads, there needs to be a joined up piece of thinking that genuinely works for underserved areas which connects up the different services – and we aren’t even particularly rural.

Luckily my day improved immensely: my first meeting was about the new heritage/STEM session that I’ve asked the wonderful Chris Bailey to develop. I first met Chris when he stepped in to cover a Victorian sailor session at Museum of London Docklands and we hit it off over a wide-ranging conversation covering ladies of negotiable affection, Doctor Who, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, how to demonstrate gravity and the dome of St Paul’s with a trampoline, and the wonders of STEM in museums. This week’s conversation covered gravity with the help of a tumble-dryer hose, Samuel Johnson and the variety of beards required for historic interpretation.

In the afternoon I joined Isabel Benavides at Finsbury Library for a family illustration session as part of the Summer Reading Challenge. Issy has just launched her first picture book, Yogi Duck and the Little Chick, inspired by RSPB Newport Wetlands and utterly charming. It’s the end of the summer holidays and parents are in survival mode, plus the weather was very changeable, so the session was quiet. The people who did attend stayed for almost the whole two hours, and we had some wonderfully fantastical conversations about our crafty creatures in yoga poses.

Either a duck in half-moon pose or me hurling myself into the lake.

Other things making me happy this week:

This week I am off work and intend to do some serious pottering, with a side of mooching and and some siestas. Tomorrow is the Copped Hall August Open Day and we’re dragging all the Things this year. There are also school shoes on the horizon but I am trying hard to remain in denial about that.

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading

Asterix omnibuses volumes 3&4 – Goscinny & Uderzo

Open Sesame – Tom Holt

Miss Benson’s Beetle – Rachel Joyce

Unseen Academicals/Pyramids – Terry Pratchett (Audible)

Rivers of London graphic novels – Ben Aaronovitch etc

Miss Percy’s Guide to the Care and Feeding of British Dragons/Miss Percy’s Travel Guide to Welsh Moors and Feral Dragons – Quenby Olson

167: every which way but right

What is it about Clerkenwell and Farringdon? This week I have managed to get completely lost (twice) in the maze of streets surrounding them while trying to find my way back to the office. I think perhaps I get distracted by interesting alleyways and cut-throughs and – once – by a very beautifully executed sculpture of David Beckham’s naked torso, complete with tattoos. I had to go back and look twice, in fact, as it was so well done. Anyway. Where was I?

Oh yes, I didn’t know where I was, and that was my point. The first occasion was on Tuesday morning after having coffee with Amanda, who pointed in the general direction of Farringdon and I still managed to get lost. Eventually I found my way back with the aid of Google Maps, which is FINE if you can make it stay in the direction of travel. If not then you have to walk thisaway and thataway until you work out which way is the right one, and then reverse it in your head.

I got lost again on Friday afternoon after a visit to the Zaha Hadid Foundation and the ten minute walk back to the office on St John Street took half an hour. I didn’t realise how lost I was until I found the Mount Pleasant sorting office – I love that building but it was a long way down Farringdon Road from where I needed to be. It is a bit of a maze of narrow lanes and rookeries round there, and tucked away in all of them are lovely old Georgian squares, Victorian houses and funny little nooks.

I did, however, manage to walk successfully from the office to Bethnal Green and was only a bit distracted by Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium with its window full of furry friends.

This week we also had an ‘all-in’ day at work, when everyone comes on site. In the afternoon we had a workshop on class and class dynamics, run by Tonic Theatre, which was fascinating and uncomfortable in equal measures. From the reaction of our non-UK team members, the British concept of class is more than a bit weird. One exercise was around stereotyping: we were asked to give a working class/upper class sport, saying, food, art form, clothing and name. Another was to think about our own contexts in terms of education, economics, cultural capital and more – and about how that’s changed over generations. Turns out there’s a lot more to it that knowing which knife to use and not calling napkins serviettes or whatever.

Possibly one of my favourite aspects of the new job is being able to do a deep dive back into London history – especially the New River, which is neither new nor a river. The trouble as always is knowing when to surface…

Other things making me happy this week:

  • Long walks in the sunshine: this weekend I’ve covered 40k over two walks. The first was the Moreton and the Matchings walk I did in the rain on the coronation weekend, the second was a slow loop around Tawney Common.
  • On a related note, farmers who cut the public footpaths back in have made it to the list. You know who you are (well, I don’t). If you could see your way clear to hacking back the nettles too, that would be great. Nettles are not on the list.
  • Overhearing one of the trustees talking to ACTUAL QUENTIN BLAKE about ME.
  • Crochet octopi and a Totoro cross-stitch update
Ox-eye daisy season
The church and wedding feast house in the sunshine
Flag iris
This one has gone to live with some kittens
Giant octons at Clerkenwelll Design Festival
Totoro

Now I’m off for a shower and a nap…

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

A Dying Light in Corduba/Three Hands in the Fountain – Lindsey Davis

Zero Waste Patterns – Birgitta Helmersson

Exploring the New River – Michael Essex-Lopresti

That Mitchell & Webb Sound S1-5 (Audible)

157: more holes than the dancers’ fishnets

I am having a thoroughly theatrical weekend. Having not been to the theatre for several years, I went up to the West End yesterday, and this afternoon I’m off to see my friend performing in The Greatest Cabaret Show at our local arts centre. I’m very glad other people are in charge of the organisation of these things, as until Monday I was under the impression we were going to a completely different theatre in another town entirely.

The show was Bat Out Of Hell – The Musical at the Peacock Theatre, described as

…a Rocky-Horror, Romeo-and-Juliet celebration of star-crossed lovers from opposite sides of the tracks caught in a city teetering on the brink of disaster.

https://www.batoutofhellmusical.com/london

I’d add in Mad Max, a bit of the Lost Boys, Peter Pan, flashes of Highlander and a whole lot of glitter. The set was dystopian, with clever off-set camera action projected onto a screen. Costumes were punky, the cast had voices made for belting out Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman’s hits (and they packed in songs from all three Bat albums across the two hour show), pyro effects and a LOT of fans in the audience. What there wasn’t, sadly, was much of a plot – as the title says, more holes than the dancers’ fishnets. I don’t see this following in Mamma Mia’s footsteps and generating a smash film, let alone a sequel, sadly – but oh, it was great fun and I do love a good Meat Loaf singalong.

Falco and Sloan (image from show website)

I was with my friends Alli, Kerry and Elaine, who was driving. Elaine and I have a history of driving-related adventures when we go to see things – see here for the last time we ventured out, and on previous occasions I have had a road-rage incident at the Brentwood Centre (David Essex) and had her convinced I was going into labour on the Southend Arterial Road (also David Essex). This time we battled traffic and a truculent sat-nav, taking in a tour of Shoreditch and bits of Islington on our way to Holborn. We managed to find disabled parking quite close to the theatre, and being classy birds we located the nearest Wetherspoons for food and drink beforehand. London on Saturdays is always a bit odd – hen parties, and for some reason a group of young people with inflatable golf clubs. The staff at the ‘spoons couldn’t have been more helpful, finding us an accessible table in the very busy pub and shooing away poachers. Similarly, the theatre was fully accessible by means of friendly staff directing us to the accessible entrance and zipping round to meet us there, helping with the platform lifts and escorting us through the building. It was so lovely to be out and giggling, although I have to apologise to Alli for making her almost spit wine across the table with a wildly inappropriate comment. At London prices you can’t afford to waste it!

Group selfie by Kerry!

Other things making me happy this week…

  • Lots of walking – solo and with Sue and the Bella-dog, seeing herds of deer enjoying the early sun and rabbits skipping about the place
  • A lovely handmade Mother’s Day card from Thing 2. I’m glad one of them acknowledges my existence.
  • The lake is almost in double figures – a swim with Sue followed by a bacon butty and a mug of tea was a perfect way to start the weekend
  • Trying Tunisian crochet again – more socks!
  • An interesting visit to the Institute of Making at UCL with a colleague to find out about their materials library
A cross between a sweet shop and a lab
Late afternoon walk, big skies
BEEEEEEEEEEEEE
These cat’s eyes are adorable

And now I must go and get ready to go out again!

See you next week,

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Cold Days/Skin Game/Peace Talks – Jim Butcher

Making Money/The Truth – Terry Pratchett (Audible)

The Bullet That Missed – Richard Osman