New neighbourhood – new beginning

Saturday, 10 June, 2023

I have a feeling all the time like I’m forgetting to do something. This is what comes of having little to no routine.

Packing up to leave Parkdale was a big job. We’ve accumulated stuff, way too much in my opinion. I wanted so much to just leave it there, but of course it had to come. We did manage, however, to sell our coffee table. It might have been handy in the new place but it was also large and just one more heavy thing to move. As it was, it took three days, three trips to get everything over here. Maybe it could have been done in less but the truth is we didn’t have enough packing bags or boxes so each time things arrived here everything was emptied out and the bags and boxes went back for repacking.

Our biggest fear was to transport any bugs with us. We bought a large heating box and everything we owned that could go, went into that box to make sure we were OK. It took up a lot of floor space but it just had to be done.

Moving confusion as usual with the dreaded box taking up a lot of living room floor
Top left yellow circle is us, Robin to the right, pink

When the owner met us and showed us upstairs I was surprised by how nice and large it was. The photos didn’t show it well, and mine haven’t improved on them much. As Krish put it many times afterwards, this is a very grown up space. Adults live here. There’s a large open plan living room with a big kitchen space and a huge centre island for food preparation and the stove. There are two bedrooms, one we are using to store our things. And there are cupboards. Everywhere. Every room has a ton of storage space. In the living area, the cupboard space holds a microwave, laundry area with washer and dryer, a cleaning supply area, and a pantry – all floor to ceiling. I’ve never seen so much storage space and I’m enjoying that.

The living room – never looks as spacious in a photo. Here we’ve already started to make ourselves at home (euphimism)
The kitchen with its massive island
The massive kitchen island overlooking the living room

We are above a restaurant called Actinolite – it’s open four days a week for dinner and it’s all chef’s choice tasting plates. The people who own this aoartment own the restaurant too and they lived here before they bought a house in this neighbourhood, better suited to their two young sons. Downstairs beside the restaurant patio is a herb garden where we can help ourselves. The biggest crop is lovage and we’ve had quite a bit of it.

Walking towards Actinolite, the space on the right hand corner
Outside the restaurant side entrance, some sour dough loaves cooling

Before we moved here, I was a bit worried about how I’d handle being in this neighbourhood. There are four supermarkets but all are a good walk and none are handy by bus either. When we first arrived, though, I discovered that there is a small collection of shops five minutes away to the west – no fresh food really but two bakeries, one restaurant, and a pharmacy.

A strip of new townhouses on our way along Hallam to the little shops. It’s very residential here over by the school

Sometimes quiet but also with some busier times – weekends – Dovercourt and Hallam is nice to walk over to. The Portuguese bakery, Progress, is our regular spot, while across the road trendier Santana has the best pasteis de nata we’ve had in Toronto

In a garage area behind Dovercourt, someone is a collector

The streets can be very pretty. It continues to surprise me that many of the houses are the same vintage as Hackney houses, yet look so very different. If I walk east there’s a coffee shop quite nearby. Amazingly, I haven’t checked it out yet but really should.  If we walk 15 to 20 minutes we are at the Meghan and Harry love nest, as I call it. I keep meaning to do that trek but who knows if it will happen. After a few months of quite a nice reprieve from knee pain, it is back. Not as bad as before, but enough to slow me down and cry out for more frequent stops on streets that have nowhere to rest.

The prize winner house on Shaw Street (one small street west). A true Greek paradise. There’s a story here

Continue reading “New neighbourhood – new beginning”

Parkdale Living

Friday, 7 April, 2023

I didn’t have much recent experience of Parkdale when I first came here to the flat we sublet from someone who planned a winter getaway from Toronto. There’s a reason for that. Parkdale has always been a west end neighbourhood with a bad reputation – drugs and prostitution, that’s what I heard. I’d passed through it on my way to the Polish neighbourhood of Roncesvalles. sure.

Green marks Robin's place and the pink is Parkdale
Green marks Robin’s place and the pink is Parkdale
Parkdale neighbourhood

A very long time ago I even lived here – on a street called Spencer perhaps in 1967. I wasn’t there for long and my memory is vague, but in those days the bad reputation wasn’t there, it was just a family-oriented and easy for single living, an almost suburban area on the edge of Toronto . I llived for a while with a group of guys from Salford (Manchester) – they had a band. One was a boyfriend of a friend of mine, Angie – her parents owned a nudist colony near Hamilton, but that’s another story. That one was very handsome, out of my league I thought. Then there was another – and how shameful that I don’t remember the names of either one – Geoff, Ray? I lived in this apartment with ‘the other one,’ there was no love but it was convenient and friendly… It was here I met my first serious boyfriend, Jimmy, a young genius musician – at a party and again that’s another story. My biggest memory of those days is that I was carefree, it was a rock n roll sort of life but more everyday, and that was a store on the corner where I could call and order groceries and they’d show up at my door. Maybe it was just a few months but I was cocooned from the reality of the neighbourhood, it was just a place to stay.

This is Jameson Avenue – a street with apartment buildings on both sides. Each one is different. Krish read that it’s the most multicultural area in the world. Could be, I suppose

Fast forward many years, and Robin and I once bid for an apartment a street or two away from where I am now – Dunn Avenue. It was the ground floor of one of the very large Parkdale houses and there was a patio off of one of the bedrooms. I thought I had that apartment in the bag after I found out that the owner was a cyclist and talked with him about my cyclist ex husband. Then I was stunned to not be offered it. Not long afterwards, my mother died and the shock of it, the reality of what life stretched ahead of me and my need to go for what I needed and wanted in my life, meant that I left Toronto and headed for London. Crazy days.

The desk I thought I would use but haven’t. I’m too used to the coffee table 
Winter view from the balcony
Where we are

So here I was and still am in Parkdale, not far from these two places, and in the first several days neither one of us was happy with it. ‘Don’t walk alone here,’ Krish asked. ‘Always take a cab home if it’s dark, no matter how early.’ He was referring to the many people who prowled and lounged on the streets, homeless, sometimes drunk or high. I reminded Krish of our early days in Hackney when it was derelict and neglected, and tried to make light of it. Then we grew to liked it. Like many such neighbourhoods, Parkdale had its share of community and pride. The shop owners were friendly, the mix was eclectic, people spoke to each other here and there.

We found restaurants, shops, the library, the community centre. I explored the streets as much as the winter weather allowed. In one shop, Soepa, I met Jenna and her family – husband Karma who was a chef, and little daughter Suki. She may have singlehandedly won me over, immediately knowing my name and remembering everything I asked her about, ‘That parsley you asked about? I’ve got some in now.’ Suffering a little from the price of food, we went and still go every week to get a box of food – they’re given out without question from the community centre on a street corner on the main street – keeping what we know we needed and giving away what we didn’t. It all helped us feel more welcome.

Soepa from outside
Soepa inside

Food-centred as always, we found two Indian shops, Soepa of course (it’s a specialty food store), a restaurant called Mezz which is a bar with a daily changing menu, a Filipino takeaway,  a hole in the wall shop where they make fresh samosa chaat, a Tibetan restaurant called Himalayan Kitchen that makes a great lassi… this area is called Little Tibet, one of the largest Tibetan diaspora outside of India and Nepal/ There are so many Tibetan cafes and shops – Tibetan, Nepalese, Indian.  i already knew about the Skyline diner where I’d eaten with my friend, Leslie and who served the breakfast Krish would get sometimes – steak and eggs – I’d get a small Greek salad and a few pieces of the steak, enough.

Bells at one of the Buddhist temples in large houses on the side streets. This one is very close to me
Queen’s Supermarket – an Indian variety store with some interesting groceries. On this day they had green mangoes on the stalk
Mandala Corner is just off Queen Street and sells a small selection of Indian shelf goods, as well as snacks
Samosa Chaat from Mandala Corner

Tibet restaurants and cafes everywhere. Momo heaven for some
Mezz
Bag of food from the community

Something else about Parkdale – the homes. There are streets of large houses, with so many different architectural styles it’s bewildering. The roofs are my favourite, but also the balconies and verandahs  The ice and snow has kept me from wandering or lingering too long, but now our days here are getting shorter but warmer I really do have to take the time to do that. There’s a lot of history here.

Parkdale was founded as an independent settlement in the 1850s, became a village in 1879 and ten years later amalgamated with Toronto. It was originally an upper-income suburb and that’s why there are so many grand houses. Maybe of these have interesting histories. With any luck, in the warmer weather approaching now, I can look more closely at some of them. It seems that the building of the Queen Elizabeth Way (highway) in 1955 changed the neighbourhood. It became denser, apartments sprang up, immigrants and lower-income people moved in. In the 1970s it was an area where inpatients from the psychiatric hospital to the east were released to be integrated into the general population again. That’s in part how it gained its reputation as a neighbourhood with poverty, crime, drugs, homelessness, and large numbers of people living with mental illness. It’s commendable that a caring community has sprung up to help Parkdale’s very mixed population. There are definitely characters on the streets, you get used to seeing them, but I also know that they are clothed and fed well if they know where to go.

One of many of the large houses in the neighbourhood
There’s a penchant for these conical shapes on top of small buttress-type additions, with some being what the internet tells me are Frustums (flat sided cones). This is one of my favourites
An example of a grand house with many verandah styles

We are also close to the lake. The train tracks and highways (two of them) stand in our way but there are pedestrian bridges that go across. While I’m not really a lake person here, I do have a thing for the water (looking at rather than being in it) and so we have gone down there to take photos. On the day we went it was snowy and icy so I chose the route with the least slip and fall possibilities. There’s another bridge at the bottom of my street but the parkette area is much bigger so I avoided it. The bridge further west was my choice. On the way I was struck with the curve of the bay and the number of transport routes stretching below me, the suburbs looming across the sweep of the lake, not so far away. The bridge was a long pedestrian one and covered in graffiti. Once across there was a parkette and a rugged wooden fence bordering the road. Then walking back the view of central Toronto seemed stunning with the setting sun at my back.





There may be some more talk about Parkdale but for now that’s it. We’ve had hard times here – the bugs, the space we’re in and how little of it we were actually given, the way the building smells of (many) dogs, the noise from neighbours – crashing about, heavy feet, loud arguments that worried me, the way I hear the wind howling when I open the window at night, the cost of laundry…we hope these things are temporary, especially the bugs (how we fear taking them with us). These things apart, we will miss it here.

Spring is finally coming

We’ve been here since early January and so I’ve taken a lot of photos. I can’t choose to feature all of them, but I’ll try to be guided by what’s written here and more may crop up if I’m inspired.

I’ve been reading a blog for some years written by an American woman who goes to Venice every year for a month or two at a time. She’s also called Jan, and writes every day while she’s away – six or seven paragraphs with five or six photos. I enjoy seeing how she spends her days. She’s very different than I am, filling her days with museums and art galleries, usually eating one meal out and one meal in (I found her on one of my foodie sites, The Hungry Onion, after all). Should I do this? Would it work better? Jan’s Continue reading “Parkdale Living”

Revisits – where do I go?

Monday, 7 February, 2022

I must confess to wanting to see somewhere different. Lately, I’ve been returning to old haunts, though. I have many trips in mind, but the pandemic hasn’t let go of us. I’m not sure where it will land us, but for now I’m just not keen to go too far. I have a birthday coming up in just a month and, while Krish talks about travelling a few hours to get a perfect Chinese meal, my sights are set closer to home. There must be something wrong with me! Or maybe not.

Before the pandemic we would go away at least a few times. That year, 2019, it was trips to see my aunts in Southend, an overnight to Leicester, six weeks in Toronto, a few days each in Glasgow and in Pembrokeshire. There may have been others. There must have been. Now Krish talks about revisiting Porto, Budapest, Torino, perhaps a new place – Istanbul,  Valencia, Copenhagen… we’ve bounced the idea of Warsaw, of Marrakesh, Sicily… With the pandemic on our minds, we thought about the UK and there are still places that are on my list but untried – Nottingham, Colchester, Norwich..

Both aunts have died now. It takes me a while to let that sink in. I dreaded those journeys each time and always knew they would inevitably end. Now they have. Our Two Together rail discount card lies idle. At least it really helped with our couple of trips to Southend earlier, and to Sheffield and Leicester. When the weather turns warmer, there will hopefully be more.

And close to home we’ve stayed for the most part. Krish’s hospital visits meant I could explore alone or with him in areas that I didn’t know very well. Now he’s not going very often so revisits to closer familiar places are the ticket They’re an opportunity to find something different and have one of those why-did-I-never-notice-that-before moments. Somehow there’s always at least one. It surprises every time.

It worries me, when I consider returning to Toronto, that I can’t have nearly as many of those moments in a city built on a grid system and where there’s a certain uniformity of architecture. My friend, Esmeralda, once described it (after returning from her travels) as homogenous.  I’d definitely have to adapt and be more willing to walk further and dig deeper.

So here’s a look at the familiar places I’ve visited in the last couple of weeks.

I took Krish to see Wood Street. It’s only a few stops away so an easy journey. I wanted to check out the Mexican Homies on Donkeys so we headed over to the Wood Street Market that had been closed when I was last there, before Christmas. The market is an indoor arcade filled with jumbled little kiosks and rooms. A notice at the entrance told us that this used to be The Crown Cinema, from 1912 to 1956 and is now a haven for antique and record collectors. I took photos of some of the colourful little shops inside.










The visit to Homies on Donkeys was to taste a taco or two and buy a bag of corn tortillas – so hard to find in London. I decided that I would taste the tacos first before investing in a bag of 40 tortillas. The choices weren’t ones I’d have ordinarily bought but I chose a milder chicken and a spicier pork one. Both tasted strongly of chipotle, and the extra guacamole I ordered was runny like a salad dressing. Not a bad taco but not a great one. I left without buying the tortillas.




Down the street we came across two Palestinian places. Only later did I think that maybe I could have taken some falafels home. We kept walking – I’d seen a sign that the William Morris House was close by so we aimed to walk there. It just wasn’t clear where or how far it was so we turned on our heels back to the station instead.






We had a run into Whitechapel. Krish wanted lentils, I wanted dumplings, and it was time for more samosas. I’d seen an ad for dumplings – three bags for 9.99 – at a store in Whitechapel that looked like it was new. As soon as we reached our stop, Krish decided he could do without the lentils – cross that off the list, then. Instead we went looking for the dumpling place. It’s called Tian Tian Market and it’s in the new complex near Aldgate East Station, where Guan (the supper club guy) lives. That store was so tidy! And spacious.

Whitechapel has a curious mix of architecture. Sometimes it’s very modern, sometimes it’s very old. Sometimes it’s a jumble of styles that make no sense.





It would be interesting to be able to see into the future and know what the area will look like, perhaps in fifty years from now. I have no doubt some of the old will remain, but I really think it will be unrecognisable. Continue reading “Revisits – where do I go?”

Off to the seaside – Southend

Wednesday and Thursday, 16 and 17 June, 2021

This is the saga of going to Southend for our first overnight visit since September 2019. When I started writing it out, I thought it would be a short one. I was wrong.

I suppose we all romanticise about how a holiday will be. This one had a pretty rocky start – let the fortune telling begin.

We hadn’t seen my aunt, who will be 94 this summer, since late 2019. We both knew that, once we were vaccinated and things weren’t so weird, it would be our first visit anywhere. Krish suggested that we spend overnight in a hotel and see her for a short time on both days. We were a bit back and forth, to make sure everything fit – we were going for two days, we were going for one day, he wasn’t going at all, he might come for a bit – and then there we were, on our way.

But first there was a railcard glitch. Railcards are a great thing. There are various kinds, but each will give you 30% off train travel. Ours was a Two Together card – as long as we travelled together we got the discount. I let this one lapse over the pandemic, so I couldn’t simply renew it and reuse the old photos. Many snaps later against a pale background and I created my digital card with our photos. I needed to get an app for my phone and then I could open it if I were asked. Only the app wouldn’t download. I tried many times over the next few hours. Krish tried it too and had no luck with his phone. The morning we were to travel, I tried again and gave up after a couple of hours. With any luck, no one would ask for our card.

Krish left for his appointment at Guys and half an hour later I left to wait for him at Liverpool Street Station.

A busier Liverpool Street Station these days
Liverpool Street Station is busier these days. I sat near platform 12
Liverpool Street Station roof
I love the roof at Liverpool Street Station

Then another setback. Krish’s appointments have been brief and he’d booked earlier than usual so that we could get away around 11am. It was unlikely we could get the 11:06 train but the 11:33 seemed promising. At 10:57 he texted  ‘very busy here today, the wait is at least an hour.’ I let my aunt know that not only would we be late but that we might not be able to get the fish and chips she always asked for. They close from 2-4:30pm. Nothing to do but relax in the station with a drink.

And I tried the app again. It downloaded quickly the first time. So much for my internet provider at home. Time to switch!

Then at 11:18 another text ‘finished, just getting dressed’. we’d missed the 11:33 so took the 11:54. It was the hottest day of the year, at  30C but the train was a new, air conditioned one. We sat in first class, no one bothered us.

Hackney Gelato
On his way to meet me, Krish ran into some sample people – there was iced coffee or gelato. This is what he chose, being a chocoholic. We shared it on the train – Hackney Gelato, of course. In this heat it turned liquid after a while
Southend Victoria Station
Arriving at Southend Victoria Station. Wearing the mask the whole time wasn’t so bad. I switched to a lighter, disposable one
While Krish went for fish and chips, I walked on to my aunt’s. She lives on the top floor of a house. I think she owns the whole house, but I’m not quite sure. The bottom is rented out.  This area is quite suburban and doesn’t feel like it’s only one mile from the shore.
It’s hard to see my aunt look smaller and thinner. It makes me realise that, although these journeys are hard, there won’t be many more of them, if at all. We spent the afternoon eating our fish and chips, sitting while she watched tennis at Queens, and chatting about times gone by. It felt like only yesterday that we’d done this before, and at the same time a very long time ago. The plan was to come back for a brief visit the next day, so off we went to our hotel saying we could play it by ear and call her in the morning to see what she wanted to do  
At the bus stop where my aunt lives
At the bus stop where my aunt lives. This is a new build. We’ve seen it being built over the years. Even this old suburban area is changing
On my aunt's street
On my aunt’s street. It’s a pretty day
Aunt Ruth's house
The two-tone house is our destination
Haddock
We always order the same thing – two pieces of haddock, a large chips. It’s the nicest we’ve had anywhere and the pieces of fish are really large.

We took two buses to the hotel. the second one had a really grumpy driver who just grunted when I asked if he were headed the right way. We seemed to be going far out of our way but I got off when my bus app prompted me and there it was, right besides us, the Premier Inn.

I’d wanted to stay somewhere fancier really, but this was cheap and basic for one night. I took no photos of the room. Once in, it was nap time.

View from the landing
We were in a hotel right on the Eastern Esplanade. This was the view from the landing near the lift.
From the hotel room
And this was the gorgeous view from our room
Premier Inn, Eastern Esplanade
Premier Inn, Eastern Esplanade, built in the old gasworks

We woke up around 8pm and started the process of finding some dinner. Definitely not burgers, maybe a milkshake, though. The hot day had turned a bit cooler, but a walk might be nice, to see what we could see.

One interesting sight when leaving the hotel were two big concrete blocks. We looked closer. They had been put here in 1940 during World War II.

The War Office had seen how flat the Southend foreshore was, the gentle slope to the beach leading up to a sloping seawall and then on to the footpath and onto the road, many roads coming off leading to the heart of Southend would have offered any invading force an easy way to encroach deep in land, setting up a beach head for further landing.

Southend is very flat and during war times the slope that the beach makes would have made it easy for invading forces to creep up on the town. To help prevent this happening, the War Office built 1,804 concrete anti-tank blocks long the entire length of the seafront on the edge of the esplanade. They strung barbed wire between them. This must have been an incredible sight. The beach itself was lined with scaffolding intertwined with more barbed wire.

When the war was over, the structures were removed, and the blocks were destroyed leaving only two, opposite the gas works, now the Premier Inn. However, on 31st January 1953 there was a huge storm, bringing large quantities of water from the Atlantic and the North Sea southwards. To make things worse, the storm was reaching its peak just as high tide was due. The storm surged 5.6 meters above normal sea levels. There was flooding at the Kursaal, Gasworks, Esplanades and roads along the seafront.It was worse nearby and 59 people were killed at Canvey. After this disaster, a raised seawall was built. We were walking beside it.

Stone blocks on the Eastern Esplanade
“On the threat of invasion by the German Forces in 1940, 1804 of these concrete blocks were constructed on this sea front as part of the coastal defences.”

The walk beside the sea wall started out quietly. Southend is one of those seaside towns that must once have been genteel. I imagine ladies in long skirts and hats strolling by the beach with their parasols. I imagine that more than I imagine rowdy kids, red-faced dads with their trousers rolled up and handkerchiefs knotted on their heads, exactly like the naughty postcards that were around when I was younger. Today I’d describe Southend as a tacky seaside resort. It has a dark yellow sand, and when the tide is out, it seems like it goes out for miles. Britain’s beaches can be like that. I have very fond  memories of such beaches, waiting till dark and going out with our buckets and spades and digging for cockles, which made a lovely late dinner. There were people out there now, digging. There are arcades, ice cream shops, kiosks selling burgers, hot dogs, chips, candy floss in little plastic buckets, big round lollipops in lurid colours, sets of buckets and spades, cheap sunglasses, plastic fishing nets…but i didn’t see any sticks of rock.

I love being by the sea. As afraid as I am of water, I feel alive near bodies of water. Is it the London in me? I’m not sure. My father loved to swim, although rarely did as he grew older. I never learned how, much to dad’s exasperation and disappointment. My grandfather was a dedicated fisherman, and I often went with him on his fishing days, stopping to buy mealworms from the tackle shop – I remember they were packed in screw top tins and I’d peer at them crawling around together. And now I love the smell of the ocean. I could wake up to it every day and never tire of it, I think. When I said so, Krish surprised me by saying how much he hated it. Wow.

Southend has the longest pleasure pier in the world at 1.33 miles. You can walk along it, or you can take a little train the whole way. I haven’t done this for a very long time and I wasn’t doing to this time either. It will cost you £5.60 to take the train, £2 to walk! The link above will tell you more than you need to know – the fishing, the crazy golf, the fairground rides, the museum… and it will show you the photos that are more pristine than my own.

We’d taken a path beyond the road, closer to the beach. As we walked, it got louder and more crowded. There were loads of kids, small and larger crowds. The Essex accents filled the air loudly, the swearing, the arguing, the slightly drunken chats. We left the path and went back to the  main street.

The Thames Estuary waters
Over the raised sea wall, the tide was going out. You can see the dark yellow sand, the almost-muddy shell-strewn shelf, and the pier stretching out in the middle of the photo
Walking along the street, Eastern Esplanade
The view as we walked west along the Eastern Esplanade
Across one of the carparks, we could see a large gathering
Across one of the carparks, we could see a large gathering. We stayed well clear.

None of the diners or kiosks had anything we wanted. There was plenty of fish and chips, of course – the mainstay of any British seaside town. We settled on a takeout from a Chinese restaurant not too far from the hotel. It had a large dining room and smaller section for takeout. The food was terrible but not too terrible – the usual soupy mess that passes for good Chinese food here in the UK. We ate most of it and got ready for bed.

Terrible Chinese food
This passes for Chinese food everywhere in the UK, but it was edible and filled our empty bellies

The forecast had promised a hot day for Wednesday and thunderstorms all day Thursday. The rain fell overnight and we slept through the storm. When we woke, the sky was leaden and the tide was in.    

The short version of trying to have breakfast in a seaside hotel during a pandemic follows. At 9am we went down for breakfast. bit of a story before anyone spoke to us, but they told us we couldn’t come in because we didn’t have a booking. I knew that most restaurants now need a booking to keep numbers down, but the room was very quiet and no one had told us about booking when we’d checked in. I somehow thought that being a hotel guest would make things different. I was wrong. We booked for 10am and went back to our room.

At 10 we went back down. we got seated in a dark place behind a column. we ordered some food. ‘all you can eat’ but we started slowly, not knowing what it would be like. We had some pancakes. Krish had a (small) sausage and one poached egg and some toast. I ordered one sausage, black pudding and a grilled tomato. We both ordered tea. When they brought the tea Krish asked for more tea. Once they delivered it, we didn’t see them again. There was a loud episode where a man let the wait staff know he’d been sitting with no service for some time. Then a man and his daughter showed up and were turned away. They told him he had no booking and breakfast ended at 10:30. Krish decided he wanted more food – we really hadn’t had much at this point. but no one showed up and  we’d been asked to remain at our table. Eventually someone walked by and Krish told them he wanted to order. They told him breakfast was finished. I paid the bill while a disgruntled Krish stood by, promising to let them know what he thought of their ‘all you can eat’ breakfast. I’d say I ate enough, but I agree that it wasn’t very much for my money and shouldn’t be called ‘unlimited.’

The mostly empty dining room
The mostly empty dining room
As advertised
As advertised – Unlimited. Krish wants to complain
My breakfast
My breakfast – slice of toast, a small sausage, a slice of black pudding, and half a grilled tomato
Hard to resist a pancake
Two pancakes with some fruit and Nutella. Small and not so fluffy but who can resist?
There was an hour till check out and, while waiting, my aunt called to say that she felt very rude but could we not come back today? I’ll confess to feeling a little annoyed and sad, but I’d been prepared for this. It was dark and raining now, not the best day for wandering around, so should we just head home? We decided we would walk slowly back to the station and leave, seeing what we could along the way.
We checked out and walked in the spitting rain all along the esplanade, past loads of sleazy diners, takeaway kiosks, amusement arcades and rides towards the elevator that took us up to the town level. Krish remarked that Southend was interesting in all its ugliness. He’s right and I think there’s more to explore here, as long as you have a clue what you’re looking out. Many of the buildings dated from the early 1800s, some the 1700s.

One interesting building is the Kursaal.  (The link is worth reading.) It was built in 1901 and was the world’s first purpose-built amusement park. The iconic building was on acres of land, used as gardens and fairgrounds. Inside there was a  ballroom, a circus, an arcade, and dining room. In more recent years, there was a casino and a bowling alley. Like many such buildings, it’s had a turbulent history and is the victim of disuse and extortionate rents. Its future is shaky.

Kursaal
The Kursaal, opened in 1901 as the world’s first purpose-built amusement park attracting both locals and tourists. No one knows its future.

Along the way to town there are lots of colourful seaside attractions.













Fish and chips fish and chips fish and...
Fish and chips fish and chips fish and…more chippies than pubs

And before we left Southend, I had to walk along the beach and gather some seashells. It was quiet, it was very cool and a bit rainy, and the wooden piers and jetties are in bad shape, but they’re all part of the seaside experience here.




Southend beach is down what must have once been a cliff. There are stairs to climb to get down there. At the pier, there is an area with an elevator that takes you to up the town level.

From the elevator platform to the water
From the elevator platform, across the fairground to the pier
From the elevator platform towards the town centre
From the elevator platform towards the town centre
The Royal Hotel, built in 1791
The Royal Hotel, a listed property was  built in 1791 as a former haunt of Royalty and Aristocracy. It’s been restored and modernised and now has a ground floor cocktail bar and lounge, and a Ballroom on the first floor. I’d love to have afternoon tea here




We walked along the pedestrian high street towards the train station. Some other time I will take photos of all of the crazy buildings but today was not that day. In better weather we would have also  done something else – we still want to go to Old Leigh for example. We’d planned to after seeing her Aunt Ruth that day, but not with our suitcase and in the rain.

It was an uneventful journey home. We arrived around 3pm and spent a nap-filled afternoon, having some soup for dinner.

Not the romantic interlude I’d hoped for but it’s done. And the thing is, will we ever go again? Aunt Ruth looks like she’s fading. Krish’s surgery is in July – will we ever hear when – and it’s an expensive journey for a short visit. No bargain fares can be had, even with our discount. It remains to be seen, but Krish swears that the next trip we take will be a nicer hotel and perhaps we’ll make it so.

Afghan Dresses and Graffiti at Brick Lane

Weds, 2 June, 2021

I really am getting out more. I’m more relaxed about how much my knee hurts while I’m out there and how much it will hurt later! That doesn’t mean I’m actually relaxed, but compared to a month ago, yes. As well, the rain and very dreary weather has pretty much eased up. We even have a sort of intermittent heatwave (which is actually a paradox). Standard moan – yeah, the flipping mask, the crutch, the bag or two, the camera, the phone, the juggling of the whole damned thing makes walking a challenge, and taking photos even more so. I take my photos in a hurry, I see things I just know stopping for to do my juggling act won’t cut it…I think to myself, if only I could just take these photos with my eyes, with my voice…and, you know what, there probably is an easier way and perhaps I need to explore that – or at least figure out why my Huawei phone doesn’t allow me to voice-activate with ‘Smile’ or ‘Cheese’ like my LG phone did. And that’s that! Krish bought me a Gimble, look it up. I know there are great opportunities with it, but I fret about how to use it and how to hold it and how to carry it around. Hmm.

I’d love to get out of my comfort zone a bit with these journeys, see somewhere or something new. At the same time, this is what I can manage, so accept the same old territory. I really do see new things, or old things with new eyes. It helps. For now, at least, I’m treading the same ground.

Anyway, I finally saw the Afghan dresses – fewer of them were displayed than I expected, but I saw them last Wednesday on the hottest day of 2021, at 27C. I went with my friend, Christine.

Bakers sculpture at 12 Widegate Street
Above Honest Burgers at 12 – 13 Widegate Street, there are four glazed sculpted panels showing the various stages of baking bread – installed in 1926. They mark the location of the Nordheim Model Bakery, which rustled up beigels and other Jewish delights for those who lived in the surrounding alleyways and beyond
Kings Stores
Kings Stores pub, 14 Widegate Street, is named because it was the site of a huge munitions store under Henry VIII. In this area is Artillery Street and Passage, as well as Gun Street

Inside Townhouse at last, we asked to see the dresses and went through to the small gallery building at the back – it’s the size of a small living room. The exhibition was smaller than expected, but the dresses were lovely. You can read what inspired the exhibit and the dresses’ owner here. I enjoyed seeing the ideas the dresses’ creators had. The mirrors, embroidery, extra braiding and stitching. I mentioned to Chris, it reminded me of the shirts I’d made Jimmy (my first real boyfriend) when I had no idea how to make clothes, but pieced them together in shapes, creating curves with my stitches and not my scissors. You could buy these pieces. They ranged around £250-350.

Townhouse interior
Townhouse is a lovely store with antiques and crafts, Fournier Street



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