Monday, May 17, 2021
After the first foiled plan for Krish’s second vaccination, when his text confirmation didn’t arrive, he was given another time and not at St Thomas but Guys. Off we went. At the vaccination centre inside Guys, they couldn’t find his name, but sent him across to where they were vaccinating.
After a bit of a wait, he was turned away, since they had only Pfizer. They also discovered that his vaccination appointment was at St Thomas after all. In a rare blip, Krish hadn’t thoroughly read the text that arrived over the weekend – in that text St Thomas was named. However, if we went to their second centre – a short walk away, he’d find a tent where they could do the job.
Vaccination Centre 2 was in the quadrangle of Kings College, so we walked over and I wandered around the area while he queued – 13 minute wait, he texted me.
I liked this quiet courtyard. There was one modern building and some older ones, as well as the lovely old part. This is where Keats trained as a surgeon. I’ll confess to not being clear on which building is which around here. It’s the usual old London hospital style – a collection of separate buildings and houses with clinics and classrooms, and cafés and what-have-you. With my crutch, bags and cameras, I don’t have the patience or energy to look at plaques and details – but I will.
Not finding a café, I strolled through the arches leading to the inner courtyard of the oldest building. Very calm in here, but no bench. There was one spot for sitting but someone had already found it. There was a statue of Ludwig Wittgenstein, a seated statue of Keats, an old drinking fountain and a couple of plaques. As far as I can tell, this is the original surgeon’s school. I had the usual sense of the centuries-ago students walking through the corridors and inner hallways, unaware of the changes that were to come for the area. I found a place opposite the seated statue where I could download a soundtrack of ‘John Keats’ speaking about why he abandoned surgery for poetry. I wonder if I can embed it here. I went back to where I could sit among the buildings and trees.
Krish came out with another man and motioned me to stay where I was. When he did come over, he told me he hadn’t had the vaccination, that they had him in the seat, syringe loaded and ready to go, when a helper told the vaccinator to stop – his card read AstraZeneca and the syringe held Pfizer. Ooops. He had almost become a guinea pig for mixed doses.
Back to the main hospital we went, where they said they could try to get permission to give him the AZ dose. While he was doing this, I sat in the lobby, drinking a chai latte – hungry! (We’d planned lunch but it was now getting late.) He came out once to deliver that message, then finally again to say, Let’s go. I didn’t have it. Maybe he could have but he decided that he’d rather just leave and wait for them to sort things out. It had been a long morning.
We went over to Neals Yard Dairy, and then through the weirdly quiet Borough Market, to buy more cheese curds. Then we took the bus to Liverpool Street.
By this point, we had both run out of steam and motivation to do much, so we decided that we would have a look at Eataly before heading home.
I’m never too far from home these days, but a few weeks before, I’d noticed that on the ground floor of Broadgate, a sign – Eataly. I had heard it was coming to London but I hadn’t realised it would be here, in an area not too far from home and where I hang out very often for Spitalfields Market and the Brick Lane areas.
The shop has now opened and is described:
The flavours of Italy spread across 2 floors with 3 restaurants and bars,
6 eateries and over 5,000 Italian products to buy’. 42,000 square feet (plus an outdoor terrace).
And that’s how it is.
I’ve been to four Eataly locations – three in Turin, one in Bologna. The large Torino Lingotto (the very first Eataly) location is a great grocery store with eating counters, somewhere you could visit often in fact and even use as a regular grocery store. The London store isn’t that. It’s a showcase of Italian delicacies, with proper London prices. I’d thought I’d at least come home with a loaf of bread but the £7 price tag didn’t sound worthwhile, not when there are artisan bakeries where I live doing just as well for less money.
I can’t remember everything over the huge area, but I do know that I went in to face a giant dessert counter and leading off this was the much-acclaimed Via Del Dolce (The Sweet Spot) – a sort of Bollywood-looking corridor leading to several takeaway counters – the inevitable pasta, pizza, and wine bar. An escalator takes you up one floor for the butcher, fishmonger, and cheese counters and a mozzarella station. There are freezers and coolers full of high end dairy, salumi, and other fresh foods – meats, cheeses, and fish counters. There’s a vegetable and fruit section that’s a bit of a mess, and there are shelves of sweets, jars and tins in an area that leads to a large wine shop. Up here there’s also a dining area, not yet open while semi-lockdown continues.
I had told myself that I would go there after it opened and that I would ignore the price tags and buy some stuff. In reality, I came home empty-handed. I’ll go back more prepared. Will I buy anything? I really don’t know, but it’s very pretty.
Despite everything, it had been a good day. The train home wasn’t packed and, as we got off, it started to rain and then pour. We got a bit wet between the station and home, but we got there and with all of that behind us.
A post script – that Friday on a routine treatment visit, Krish finally had his vaccination. I wasn’t there. So that’s the two of us fully vaccinated and just waiting for our booster shots (they say by Autumn?) now.
And a post post script. In my memory this all happened on one day. The truth is my photos say otherwise, labelling one the 11th and one the 17th of May. So I will say I’m taking poetic licence and, while I know my emails will say which happened on which day, leaving things just like this!