Things can seem dire at times. Lockdown was eased up. Twice. Yet infections are rising. I get confused, decide they do what they want and it’s probably all arbitrary, but there’s nothing to do but follow my instincts and hope for the best. My instincts tell me to stay close to or at home whenever possible. No reason to do otherwise most of the time really. A few times, though, I have ventured out. Last week I even went outside of Hackney for the first time.
There doesn’t seem a lot to say either, since days blur into each other in terms of what I do and manage to achieve. However, I’m still taking photos and these remind me that life isn’t just one big Same Old Same Old after all. So let’s see where the photos take us.
This rare Victorian post (pillar) box is one of two in Stoke Newington. Stoke Newington is home to two rare hexagonal “Penfold” pillar boxes, which are Grade II listed. They are named after its designer John Wornham Penfold, and installed between 1866 and 1878. We found it on a longer walk than I’d planned back in the last days of June. While my legs weren’t happy, it was lovely to see some things I may have seen before but forgotten about.
I liked the lettering on this house near the pillar box. I need someone to translate it for me, though.I spotted some capers in this little shop and cafe. I also saw some great looking bread so I queued and got both.I’ve meant to look into this, but the truth is that I have nowhere to plant the seeds. I love wildflowers and the idea of bees and beehives and honey, despite my fear of being stungI’m always attracted to shops that do things like this. I think I’d like to this eclectic, this quirky, this surprisingButterfield Green, small and hidden away in the back streets of Stoke NewingtonI like these houses on Church Walk, the pedestrian way with no homes opposite. It makes it feel like a secretWe found allotments behind an iron barred fence. I’ve always wanted one but doubt I could manage it any more. I’d go for a rooftop terrace with some lovely planters full of herbs, some vegetables, and flowers. Happy!Choudhury is apparently a prolific Thai restaurateur and chef. I have yet to find out who Paulo Remedios isThere are never any words for stories like this. Tragic pandemic loss of life and a beloved old cobbler shop at Newington GreenThe Newington Green cobbler shop where Kamil Ahmet and his son, Ahmet Kamil, worked. They were both victims of Covid-19. The cobblers is in the oldest surviving terraced houses in London. Built in 1658, they are at 52-55 Newington Green
This is a mostly pictorial view of today’s Hackney. Things look a little different and everyone seems mostly fine with it. Adjusting to the ‘new normal’ is going well, or so we hope.
Reminders at the parkJust remember to pee before you get hereExtra reminders at ground levelIf you’re Haredi, this may make it clearer
Signs of hope are always niceAnd those of encouragement
So ‘everyone’ is in the same boat. It would be interesting to find out more about what people are doing differently than I am and learn from it. I’ve read some great Tweets, Instagram posts, articles, stories, and blogs but I’d like to look behind the public face and see the private realities.
I’m apparently ‘vulnerable’ due to age so I have stayed indoors since the afternoon of March 15th.
But my day is getting up, taking the pills that stop my stomach from quaking, standard two cups of tea and the usual breakfast, do some online work or don’t, exercise my knees, a short meditation, one or two hours of cleaning or tidying, prepare a simple meal, watch some TV or streaming, email or chat with friends near and far.
On my list – not yet written on the board propped by the lamp – brush up my French, improve my Italian, start a new doll that symbolises my dreams, attack my worrying backpile of taxes, clear out my clothing drawers, actually read the books I haven’t opened enough, start collecting important things so people (and I) can more easily find them – let me get back to you when I wrap my brain around getting that board written on. This seems a pathetic list, looking at it now. Where’s my great novel? Where’s the bodybuilding, the study of something amazing, the saving of humanity from my upstairs flat? Sigh.
Tell me the ideas will come.
But truth number one – I actually have enough to do. See above.
Truth number two – I don’t care all that much about my hair. I am a curly girl. My hair and how it curls (or doesn’t) consumes a lot of my time. Well, maybe not that much, but more than it does yours…I think. Sitting here, though, in my living room, not even on camera for any reason, I’m paying it no mind. It’s pinned up on my head out of my way, ignored, not for anyone’s eyes. And who cares what I wear? Not me…yet. There are more important things to do with my time.
Once a day for 15-20 minutes I sit outside getting some ‘fresh’ air. Note my coordinated outfit.
I live with someone who has OCD – well, it’s OCPD but that’s another story. Germ-phobia is something I also battle. Not everything bothers me and I wouldn’t say that I worry too much but definitely more than some. I don’t have OCD but I do wash my hands quite often and am grossed out by things like ‘double-dipping,’ picking up food that’s dropped on the table (let alone the floor), people using their own forks or spoons to dip into a serving dish, humans cleaning up after their pets – inside or outside…
It goes further with Krish, who won’t suffer shoes in the house or even stored in a room other than a hallway, changes completely out of outdoor clothes when arriving home, and washes everything that arrives from the shop before storing it away, even when it isn’t food. I could go on…
However, the threat of novel coronavirus has revved things up a notch or five. I’ve always been amused at the things Krish calls ‘disgusting,’ since I now am feeling quite the same way.
With the usual sensationalist and alarmist media verve hard to dodge, I’ve considered this – what if (terrible words!) I’m sitting comfortably today, amused at the hysteria and scaremongering, and next week I’m witnessing the zombie apocalyse. In fact, had I been keeping closer written track of things daily, I’d say this isn’t so very far-fetched. Each day I wake up to new situations, hearing increasingly difficult stats and facts, needing to face my personal decisions, just in case. As a somewhat recovered agoraphobic, those italicised words are ones that I’ve spent a lot of time eliminating from my thoughts but now they are creeping back in…necessarily?
Esmeralda lives in Bologna. She’s sent me videos of empty streets, the usual rush hour with hardly any people and no more than a few cars. Italy is in lock-down and there’s nothing anyone can do except wait it out and hope. We’ve talked about it and she feels that Italy has over-reacted. The more I read, the more I think it was the right reaction but maybe not enacted quickly enough.
I follow a Turin blogger, Sonia, who has been posting photos. Last night she posted a good story on how things have progressed. You can see this here . I messaged her to tell her how informative her story was and she asked how I was. I told her about London and how I felt and she let me know she had had to post her story very late that night since she didn’t want her children to hear what she had to say.
In London, things are going on as normal. We haven’t had it as bad as Italy. There aren’t as many cases here. I doubt that will last very long. This is a densely populated city with millions travelling around, crowded together, and these Londoners love to gather in packed pubs as often as they can. Handwashing has become an art, hand sanitiser essential and I’m looking sideways at everyone who sneezes or coughs on the bus.
Last week I went out and was a bit worried about all the bus travel. I sweetened the deal by visiting a new restaurant for lunch. I went to Three Uncles, which serves Cantonese barbecue. It’s been ages since I’ve eaten like that. I chose the noodles with wonton and char siu pork and enjoyed it. I was wondering if the place might be quiet, based on the Sinophobia I’ve been hearing about but trade was brisk.
More rain as I walk along the narrow street to Three UnclesFound it!Inside Three Uncles – it got busierMy lunch! Char siu pork and wonton lo mein
On the way home, I started noticing that no one was coughing…anywhere. I put this down to people staying home if they were unwell, or perhaps being afraid to cough for fear or reprisal.
This hasn’t lasted long, though. I’ve been in the bus with people with awful coughs, rarely covering their mouths and touching everything in sight. On the weekend I went to Tesco. The toilet paper was completely gone from the shelves, there were a few paper towels left, and just a few, more expensive, soaps – liquid and otherwise. Hand sanitisers are nowhere to be seen. Almost every person in the queue had a shopping cart filled to the brim and I waited almost half an hour to pay for my small basket of things. Panic buying had set in.
Toilet paper goneAll but the most expensive hand soaps disappearing quicklyGrab those antibacterial wipes while you can
At the bus stop, a small boy was playing around the seats and eagerly sucking his thumb, a man in the bus was rubbing his eyes vigorously. I clutched my bag close to me and tried not to look.
Krish and I went out. A woman who looked visibly ill, coughed long loose coughs, in the seat across from us, her nose was red and she looked anxious. I tried not to worry too much. Unless we don’t go out at all, there’s no way to avoid all of this.
Yesterday I went to a class on fermentation. I considered not going but thought I was being silly so off I went. My germ phobia had to be put in the back seat or I couldn’t face it. I went back to the Dusty Knuckle Bakery school classroom and this time there were nine of us. I was at a table with three men and everything was shared. We chopped together, threw our vegetables into a communal basin, used our bare hands to chop and to mix.
Arriving at the fermentation class
Apart from an initial mandatory twenty-second hand washing, things got pretty loose. I had decided not to use my phone to take any photos, despite wanting to. The guy next to me took his out frequently. Each time he did so, I cringed. When people came back from being outside the room, only I and another woman washed our hands again. And the guy next to me was the one who wanted to mix the basin of cabbage for sauerkraut with his hands. I tried again to look away.
Later, though, when we were all encouraged to taste the kimchi before it was jarred, his habit of taking a piece and licking his fingers before digging in again broke the dam. I started to feel threatened and upset. When he left the table I begged the other two men to continue with the mixing and not to let him put his hands back in. They smiled at me indulgently. I tried not to panic.
Funny that I remember more of this stuff than what we did and learned. However, I do know that fermentation is what happens when you pack fruit or vegetables, salt, and other ingredients together and allow the main ingredients to be broken down naturally. We made three ferments: A red and white cabbage sauerkraut with caraway, a spicy kimchi, and a beet and carrot dill pickle. My hands were stained with red cabbage and beets – lurid.
I was freaked out but the men were drinking beer – four or five each that night – and not caring much about anything. How do they do that?
We sat and ate together. For the second time I put up with the dreaded puy lentil soup except this time I asked to serve myself and took only a little. There was one big loaf of sour dough bread to go with it and we got to taste some of the ferments the teacher, Adam, had on hand. There was one that had a blue film on top and a truly nasty smell. Adam showed it to us so we knew how funky a ferment could get and yet still be safe. I was the only person who didn’t want to taste it after he scraped away the mould. So unlike me to not be adventurous with food but my phobias were settling in!
We packed a large jar of each mixture to bring home. They weighed a ton! More coughing and spluttering around me on the bus but I made it home and put my jars down.
My finished jars
Today, one of them had overflowed despite being tightly closed so tonight I loosened the lids to let some gas out and tightened them up again. We had to clean the table the jar had originally been on and put the three jars into a plastic bowl under the sink so there wouldn’t be any more messy accidents.
Tonight the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic. It’s hard to think of much else. My germ phobia has come to the fore. Not happy about that. I’m reluctant to go out but sure I will. Chances are things will become easier, that we’ll get on top of this and beat it, until the next time.
We decided to go to Hackney Wick to see how things were progressing there. Hackney Wick is an artist’s community, with an overground station, near the Olympic Park at Stratford. It’s always been a mass of old buildings, factories, industrial parks, and warehouses and over time the artists and visitors have littered every wall, every door with art.
At one time, the art was glorious. Those days seem to be gone. A new entrance to the overground station has changed the orientation of the area and it confuses me. In the process of the change – where homes and factories have been torn down, the art has been sacrificed. As well, the old station entrance, which was always a bit of a dump, hasn’t been torn down yet. The day we arrived, we saw that several of the new buildings had been completed, the fancy office buildings, the luxury flats with names that were supposed to recall the area’s heritage – The Bagel Factory, Stonemasons Yard, Ceramic Works – they’re highly priced in this obviously deprived area. I wondered how many would just be owned rather than lived in. It made me that familiar mixture of curious, excited and sad to think about it and we cut our walk short since Krish was now motivated by the nearby Well Street Fish and Chips.
A rather ghostly and scribble-littered Hackney Wick – The new, the old, and the very quietA car crash in Hackney Wick near the estate. I didn’t photograph the onlookers. Notice more construction
A visit to the little Tesco and another to Lidl, then on to Vietnamese Supermarket.
We’d passed Lennox House on Cresset Road, approaching Well Street. The architectural notes read ‘These flats were built in 1936-7 to the designs of J E M MacGregor for Bethnal Green and East London Housing Association. There are 35 flats. The three bedroom flats were on the first floor, one bedroom flats on the top floor and two bedroom flats on the other levels. The original idea was that the central portion of the building beneath the stepped flats should be used as a covered market. The income from this would be used to subsidise the rents of the flats above. However, during the building period, land in the area was designated for residential use only. The Housing Association was also committed to providing a garden for each flat (apart from those on the ground floor).’ We noticed local brewery barrels on the main floor – did they brew in here, or just store the barrels? I think just store.
Lennox House, by Well Street, is a fantastic buildingThese balconies seem well-suited to creating the towering gardens we saw in Turin and MilanThe original plaqueBarrels from the 40ft brewery- a Dalston success storyAt the bottom of Cresset Road, Well Street is under construction – how long till this gentrifies completely?
And then, on the bus home, I discovered I didn’t have my bus pass. I looked through my entire bag and checked all my pockets. It was gone. The pass office told me that it would cost £12 to replace it but that my renewal was due to be sent out. I decided to wait and pay full price until it arrived.
I was going alone to see A Passage to India at the Tower Theatre that night so I left early and visited Lidl and the Vietnamese supermarket first – no pass had been found. I phoned the Tesco and the fish and chip shop – no pass. I was scuttled.
The play was very good. I’d seen the Masterpiece Theatre series years ago. My memory of it was nothing like the play I saw. I enjoyed the fact actual Indian actors were playing those roles. I felt that British imperialism was probably fairly represented too. The xenophobia, the bigotry, the superior attitude, the refusal to accept something different by considering it unclean, barbaric. un-Christian so heathen…and the fear. Each side underestimated the other really. And at the end the anger was real.
