Dear diary-masquerading-as-a-blog,
Oh dear. We all know that these are the worst kind of blog posts. I’ve waited too long, haven’t taken any photos for weeks, and now there’s just a crazy mess of random stuff waiting to be blogged about with no narrative coherence whatsoever.
I could give up entirely, declare blog bankruptcy for September and start again next month. But that would obviously be contrary to my archivist heart. So, instead, I’m going to junk the whole pretence of narrative coherence and go with a post-modernist take instead…
I’m queuing for a drink at an underground bar/music venue in Hoxton. From behind me, a woman reaches out and taps gently on the shoulder of a younger woman in front. “Hey, are you here on your own? Feel free to come sit with us, if you’d like. We’re very friendly and we don’t bite.” This is how you know you’re in a good place, isn’t it? The woman accepted her offer, I got my beer and the crowd clearly loved our evening of Anthony Blaize and Tabi Gazele. At work the next week I reported back to Tabi that we really did leave in a happy buzz and felt that we’d been let in on an amazing secret. Her voice is incredible. If you can, I highly recommend listening before you read any more of this post.
Katie and I sequestered ourselves in the living room to watch a six-part 1972 Jon Pertwee adventure, The Sea Devils. As you do. It really upped my appreciation of Jo Grant – she’s much more resourceful than I remember. Midway through our Indian delivery arrived and we tucked into our curries. I realised that I kept glancing at Katie’s plate, expecting her to have leftovers that I could steal, but we’re too much alike as siblings for that to work and everything was eagerly consumed.
In contrast, I was surprisingly bad at remembering to eat during my night out with Tash this week. We just sat outside at a pub table near work, drank our Heinekens and talked about anything and everything until I arrived back at Tulse Hill station and realised that I’d had half a packet of salt and vinegar crisps. Thankfully, Tulse Hill is the kind of place where you can score six chicken nuggets and chips for £2.49 at 11.15pm on a Wednesday night (cash only). They were delicious.
Shopping for a baby shower is stressful. I keep trying to out-think everyone else who will be shopping for the same baby. Can I be the cutest? Or maybe that’s a trap… maybe the the best thing to do is to turn up with something practical, and then you look wise and knowing. But I’m not wise and knowing about babies, and anyway it’s too late because I’m already in love with the ‘activity fox’. It clearly doesn’t offend Frankie and Anya too much because they tagged along with Andrew and Bonnie a few weeks later in a return visit to Tulse Hill, during which London decided that it was summer again and we celebrated with ice-creams from Brockwell Park Café.
Our guest room has chalked up another visitor! I trundled my mum’s little black suitcase all the way from Brixton before we headed out for Turkish food with Randi. I think I’ve conjured up the only Turkish place which includes what is effectively a burrito on their menu but I am not complaining. Unexpectedly, the lights went down at 9pm and a belly dancer appeared, shimmying around the room to the rhythm of her finger cymbals and balancing a giant sword on her head.
Sanna and I are sitting outdoors by the fountains at Granary Square around the back of King’s Cross. A man barrels up to us out of the darkness, waving a phone around, explaining that he has no signal and could he please borrow my phone to call his friend? I freeze, stuck in that tricky zone between wanting to be nice and not wanting a stranger to run off with my phone. But then inspiration strikes. “Is a hotspot OK?” He thinks. “Yes, yes, a hotspot would work.” He hands me his phone instead, I connect us, and then he either calls his friend or performs a gorgeous spot of improv. Either way, he appears to be drunkenly jubilant and thanks me in various languages before running off again. I feel like I was handed a real moral dilemma and totally cheated.
I gave blood today! My first time since 2014, since Brits are not allowed to donate blood in the US, and the nurse went through my questionnaire with a straight face before teasing me that despite the gap in my records I’d never be able to run away from them forever. I’m especially fond of medical professionals this week, since my dad had a spell in hospital (he’s OK!) and, although this is a giant cliché, you really never stop being impressed by NHS staff. ❤
The last time I saw my something-cousin-Tessa-something-removed was in 2011 when I stayed with her family in Los Angeles. (I lazily failed to blog that trip, but I remember loving that family and wrote in my journal that they were all “polite, welcoming, warm, funny, clearly very creative and stylish”.) Now, very excitingly, Tessa is studying in London and joined me, Tash and Cormac to revive the tradition of eating my mum’s famous summer pudding (made with blackberries from the garden) and custard. “It’s like the most English thing our family ever did!” notes Tash.
Here’s a catchy tune I found tacked on to the end of an old cassette from the era when I was very young and very into copying things between audio tapes:
This is it
It’s happy learning
Fun and music all the way
Lots of smiles
With happy learning
As you practice every day
On the tape it sets up a nice introduction by Floella Benjamin about counting numbers, but now the final line strikes me as a little threatening. What happens if you don’t practice every day?
This Bank Holiday weekend Randi and I took the slow train to Dartmoor in an ongoing quest to explore the UK’s National Parks. I’ll cheerfully admit that we can’t compete against the US for sheer awe, but the British version of a National Park will still provide impressive walks through beautiful countryside and/or other people’s fields of sheep. I had actually forgotten when we planned this that I had already visited Dartmoor a decade ago, but this time we did things our style by rolling up to Exeter Central and then joining a small but merry band of travellers on the ‘Country Bus’ to the village of Moretonhampstead.
I was, in fact, that person who had phoned Country Bus (“the local bus operator with a friendly face”) in advance to check if they took contactless cards, and the guy at the other end (who was indeed very friendly) confirmed that – as of a few weeks ago – they did! “But, just to let you know, it’s not like using your card at Sainsbury’s where you can just tap and be done. You really have to hold it.” He was right, but I was still very impressed by the technological advance. And so we rattled on happily up and down narrow country roads (and past a road sign which said “CAT’S EYES REMOVED” which disturbed Randi as apparently they do not use this term in the US) until we arrived at our destination.
From here we followed a simple formula of eating large breakfasts, going on long walks and then eating large dinners. Wisely we decided to shell out for a paper map rather than relying on our phones, which was good because (a) I don’t think Google Maps is quite comfortable with hiking, and (b) on our second day we encountered a pair of proper walkers – one of whom sounded like a cousin of Gyles Brandreth – on top of Manaton Rocks. They were surprised and impressed that we had made it but also preemptively horrified that we might be using our phones to get around. Fortunately I could put their minds to rest with our laminated ‘Around & About’ (£3.99).
It was a simple but refreshing break, topped off on Tuesday night by the new season of Bake Off for which we were joined by Randi’s new friend Hala who had – surprisingly – never watched it before. Here’s to gentle vibes.
On Friday evening I skipped out of work (not literally, but close) to meet Randi on platform 4 at Blackfriars station for a Mystery Train to a Mystery Station and then a nearby Mystery Location. (This was a good format – I like mysteries!) The Mystery Station turned out to be Sydenham Hill, which feels like it’s been built in the middle of a forest, and from there we walked to Sydenham Hill Wood which is a fantastic example of the amazing places which lurk undiscovered all across London. Back in the nineteenth century there used to be a railway running through this area and it’s possibly the first time in my life where I’ve looked down from a bridge at ex-railway track – now very much a wood again – and thought “hmm, maybe we didn’t really need that one”.
Our expeditions into wild frontiers continued at the weekend with our fifth London Loop walk, from Chigwell to the ridiculously-named Havering-atte-Bower. I did promise I wasn’t going to do an in-depth review of each walk, and that is still true. I stand by that. But this walk was notable for several reasons:
- It rained a lot. We hadn’t prepared for this eventuality, and had a low moment as we fought through some mud and brambles in the rain and wondered what on earth we were doing with our weeknd.
- After asking for directions from a uniformed staff member in Hainault Forest – very much still in the rain – she pointed us on our way before adding “and if you see three cows… tell them I’m looking for them”. Only in Hainault.
- By the time we reached Havering Country Park the sun had come out and we could enjoy a picnic overlooking London and some beautiful giant sequoia trees imported from California. Who knew?
- The bus service in Havering-atte-Bower is subpar.
Other than lots of London-based walking, the highlights of the last two weeks have been seeing Daryl and Ermila again on one of their many quick visits, heading back to Dishoom (dining tip courtesy of Catherine and AJ) for brunch – it’s as good as you would think – and catching the stunning play The Lehman Trilogy near the end of its West End run. This is a three-act, three-hour story (adapted from the original Italian, which is five hours) of Lehman Bros bank starting from its beginning as a rural store in Alabama run by three Jewish immigrant brothers from Bavaria. The actors playing the three brothers go on to play every single other character in the drama right up until the demented implosion of the bank in 2008, and everything about the play – from the script to the set to the performances – was superb.
Finally, last night I caught up once again with my school friend Harriet. That’s my primary school friend, to be exact, and since leaving primary school we’ve probably only met up every 5-7 years or so (the answers will be in this blog’s archives). But somehow we always seem to pick up where we left off, even though she’s now an actual doctor and not just a 10 year-old planning to become one.
I wouldn’t say that the last few weeks have been quiet exactly, but we have settled into more of a routine, finally getting some proper decorations up in the flat (I think this is outing #5 for my venerable Underground to Anywhere poster, which has made it across the Atlantic and back with me) and enjoying a few weekends in a row without any major travel. Naturally we’ve used this time to plan future travel, because otherwise there would be nothing to blog about later.
We have had several welcome guests (and two unwelcome ones), starting with Katie (in the welcome category) who came with Tash and Cormac to inspect our flat and local pub before staying overnight for an intensive Saturday of Grand Austria Hotel. Also still in the welcome category is Villy, who popped in on one of her head-spinning globetrotting tours to sample the delights of Herne Hill Market and Brockwell Park. My favourite moment was in the walled garden when she exclaimed, in a real burst of national pride, that Bulgaria was the world’s biggest exporter of rose oil. So now you know too.
Rounding out the welcome category are Sophie and Irfan, who stopped by for tea after we all had dinner together at the Mercato Metropolitano food court. (If you haven’t been just because it’s south of the river, you should go! Although it was worrying to hear from Irfan that after 5 years of living nearby his North London identity has totally slipped away.) It’s been two years since I last saw Sophie and god knows how long since I last saw Irfan, but it was reassuring just how quickly we slipped back into our old uni patterns of bullying Sophie for not knowing enough about the Tube. Even after I marched us around in circles in the rain looking for the wrong bus stop.
The two unwelcome visitors? A pair of mice, which clearly approve of our decorating because they suddenly saw fit to explore the living room. We may have gone a tad over the top in response, culminating this afternoon in a protracted stakeout, a large saucepan and some extraordinary rendition to a neighbouring road. Don’t worry, we’ve got this, and you should still feel free to visit us.
In the last couple of weeks I’ve also had lovely catch-up drinks with Peter Mandler, a work-organised steak night in which I didn’t eat any steak, ‘lunch’ (i.e. the feeding of the five thousand) at Carolyn’s with Aussie cousins Deb & Rob as well as Cindy and little Isaac, amongst others, and a long night out with Clark where I grilled him about Brexit as if he had been summoned to a select committee. (Sorry, Clark! Just catching up!) After a two-month break – for which you can blame railway engineering works – Randi and I also completed our fifth section of the London Loop walks. That name is slightly misleading for a route which stuck mostly in Essex, but I’ll forgive it because it yielded our first (delicious) blackberries of the whole endeavour.
It’s the first day of Boris Johnson’s premiership and all I can bring myself to feel is sleepy. I don’t think it’s his fault, for once, but it’s hot and I’ve done quite a lot of social running around recently. (Only once until after 2am on a school night, when the lights came up in the bar and I realised it was probably time to go home, although I hope Amanda is reading this and taking note that I didn’t roll in until 3 for once.) Although I will note, for all of the gruesome cabinet decisions which Boris has already made, I am choosing to find a moment of serenity in the fact that Chris Grayling is no longer running the trains.
Anyway, last week was Katie’s birthday and we celebrated on the night itself with an Asian fusion sharing feast in West Hampstead:
Katie’s semi-surprise birthday present from me was already in the diary for Sunday, but first Randi and I went up to Chelmsford on Friday night to hang out with our favourite Chelmsfordians Abbi, Paul and Jack. Jack very generously lent us his room so that we could stay overnight after devouring Paul’s veggie Balti pie with our initials on top (“it’s a curry AND a pie!”) and playing quick-fire games like Mind the Gap (I was good at this one) and Selfish.
It’s funny that after all of these years of knowing each other Abbi and I both ended up working in product, but now that we’re (almost!) living in the same city again it feels insanely good to be able to sit back with a glass of wine and have conversations about shared work experiences. Just making the different strands of my life feel a little less separate, I guess.
We rolled back into town on Saturday in time for the Lambeth Country Show. It’s no Minnesota State Fair, but it is a pretty impressive two-day festival within Brockwell Park with multiple stages, plentiful food and some pun-tastic vegetable sculptures like Marie Anncourgette, Kaleing Eve and a very impressive and timely Apollo 11 enabling one giant leek for mankind. It was definitely enough that I’m going to get excited next year to see what new vegetable creations are in store.
And then on Sunday, Team Adipose (of valiant past attempts at glory) set out for Oxford for the only birthday present which made sense: the Doctor Who-themed ‘Worlds Collide’ escape room! As escape room designs go this was probably middle of the pack. There were some nice touches, including some Cyberman parts which made me instinctively jumpy when handling, but overall it was not as immersively Doctor Who as it could have been. But what made it really exciting was that – with about a minute and a half remaining on the clock – our team finally solved all of the puzzles and notched up an escape room victory! We were therefore able to enjoy a hearty pub lunch and wander around the city as tourists for a couple of hours on a high of achievement rather than under a cloud of failure. Go team!
Finally, to round off another busy post, mum treated Randi, Katie and I to the musical Blues in the Night at the Tricycle last night, starring – among others – Grace O’Brien from Doctor Who and Duke from The Story of Tracy Beaker. It wasn’t, strictly speaking, ‘immersive’ theatre but to me it seemed like it was halfway there, with a very lightly-plotted story taking a backseat to just invoking and sustaining the atmosphere of a smoky New Orleans blues club and hotel. (Don’t worry, the scene-setting was successful enough that I did move on from Grace and Duke after a while.) The musical performances were incredible, supported by an amazing band, and Randi and I were both humming tunes to ourselves as we made our way back once more to our little Tulse Hill hideaway via the magical shortcut of a Thameslink train.
Jeff DuBowe on Haarlem globetrotters: “One of our favorite spots. Super walking city. I think we were the ones who told your In-Laws about it…” Oct 14, 15:15
