It’s not that I haven’t been anywhere or done anything, but I’ve been lazy about putting it all together.
We planned a two-night trip to Norwich, somewhere I’ve wanted to go for some time. I didn’t know much about it and tried to research a bit before I went, but these days I’m just as happy to be away as to actually go out and discover new things. In fact, I didn’t spend that much time just relaxing but walked every day until I couldn’t manage another step.
The journey there was uneventful. We got the train to Stratford and from there another train all the way to Norwich, about an hour forty minutes for the longer ride. Luckily, the train was fairly empty and fast.
Norwich station was quite old fashioned and small. I was happy that we came straight in without any stairs to climb before we could leave. My friend, Julie met us there and we started our walk to have lunch together.
Norwich looked small-townish, but there were some interesting old stone and brick structures. I was itching to take photos already. However, we headed for a restaurant. The food wasn’t good and I think I made the best choices of the three of us – just some squid, and a papaya salad.
The Old Post Office – I was surprised to see three Nathan Bowen art pieces, and others throughout the city
From there we walked to where we were staying on St Faith’s Lane. It wasn’t far from the station – a small curved back street with a view to the cathedral. We were staying in a studio apartment which I’d found online. I forgot to take photos but it was decent – we had a full kitchen along one side, an armchair, a bed, a little table with two chairs, and a bathroom with a big walk in shower. It would do nicely for our two half and one full days.
We rested for a while and decided that we’d like to have fish and chips that night. One place, Grosvenor Fish and Chips in The Lanes area came highly recommended so we decided to head to The Lanes, which we could see the beginning of from where we had eaten. It seemed that if we plunged into the first sight of it and followed through, it shouldn’t be hard to find Grosvenor.
Walking through the back streets from St Faiths Lane. The cathedral is to our right. The houses here were very old and probably FlemishNorwich has some pink buses
This building was such a surprise. We were walking down The Lanes and it loomed ahead of us, reminding me so much of walking in Italy where huge churches dominate small squares
The Lanes are some winding, narrow laneways, often hilly and mostly cobbled. It’s a mix of tacky and interesting, the medieval and the modernised. The entire city is littered with churches and blue and other historic plaques, too many to read. And finally we found the Grosvenor.
I loved the fact that we not only found it in the maze of lanes but it was on a street called Pottergate, which I decided to call Harry Potter Gate. Its name comes of course from being where the pottery industry once flourished. I’ve now read that there are many haunted spots in Norwich, but I hadn’t taken the time to learn about the many ghosts the city has.
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.
Walking through the new London Bridge Station. We didn’t have time to pause to take photographs but I must do that some time soon
While I was waiting, I looked at the photos along the corridor, which Krish said was the London Bridge Museum. One shows an eye operation in 1900. and another Evelina Children’s Hospital 1895. The original Evelina Hospital for Sick Children opened in 1869 on Southwark Bridge Road, London. Funded by Austrian Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, it was built in memory of his wife, Evelina. Evelina had died three years earlier along with their son who was premature. It is now administratively a part of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.Waiting at Vaccination Centre 1 Guys Hospital
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.
Queuing at Vaccination Centre 2
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.
Not a very inspiring view inside the lobby where I waited in Guys Hospital
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. Continue reading “Foiled plans for a vaccination”
In Turin I had a recurring theme of foiled plans. In my last blog I talked about another foiled plan. In the history of foiled plans (mine at least) today was the mother of foiled plans – see the title.
There was perhaps a precursor in the morning. After sewing up my very first no-mistakes postman’s glove, I realised I’d left no hole for the thumb. At first I dug down into my thread kit for a seam ripper, confident I could take out the stiches and sew things up properly. Wrong. I’d used the same wool to sew it up, and I’d used a nice tight stitch so it wouldn’t unravel. Try as I might, it was impossible to see where the stitches were among the knitted seams. Rather than keep trying, I stopped, left it as is, and knew I had to knit a third glove to replace it. Gloom, but it’s only a glove, right?
As the morning went on and Krish talked about his plans to get to Guys for his psoriasis treatment, I let him know that I thought I’d come too unless I’d slow him down too much. He seemed really pleased and said we’d leave earlier and take the bus. I got ready.
The real Chapter of Accidents begins.
Paragraph 1 – when checking for the next bus, my app let me know that ‘There are no buses expected in the next thirty minutes.’ Right. It’s OK really, we’d just walk to the bus we’d need to change to. As we went to the landing to get outdoor shoes and clothes, the app cheerfully told me the bus that wasn’t expected was now due. Too late.
Paragraph 2 – As we crossed the intersection for the closest bus, ours – the 254 – drove up and left before we could reach it. We dug our heels in and waited. Bus after bus came, but not the 254. Krish said that it might be tight once we reached our second bus. I told him, when we get there, you rush ahead, don’t wait for me. I’ll let you know when I arrive at London Bridge. And we waited some more. Time was ticking.
Paragraph 3 – After a little bit of waffling, we decided that Krish should go get the train and leave me at the bus stop. I’d never be able to keep up with him. It was my decision to either return home or continue with my plan. I decided to continue after hearing from Krish he was on the train. My bus came. There was a terrible traffic jam and we moved slowly down to our destination, my next bus (this would be a two-bus journey) when the driver announced a destination change. We would be stopping in Whitechapel. Not so bad, I thought, but we didn’t stop in Whitechapel. We stopped before that at a stop that would bring my bus count to three. And I waited there again.
Paragraph 4 – Now there were no buses coming, not for a while. People were fidgeting. At least I had my bus pass and the extra buses wouldn’t cost me anything, but it was getting later. The 106 arrived and I jumped on, as quickly as a person with a crutch can jump on. It would take me to a stop by London Hospital and from there I could walk around to the main road for another bus to take me to my last bus. Easy, you say? So did I. On the main road I was met with a Bus Stop Closed notice. I looked for a temporary stop but there was none. Already hurting, I walked determinedly for another several minutes, past Ambala and on to the next bus stop. The journey that had just taken me close to ninety minutes usually takes about twenty minutes .
A ‘fun’ sight as I waited for my second busThe 106 stops at the London Hospital main entrance
The rest was easy. The bus stopped at the exact place to pick up my final bus. The reward for my pain and waiting came as we passed the Tower of London and across the Thames on Tower Bridge with the sight of City Hall and the Shard cheering me on.
The bus dropped me in a perfect location for my first plan of looking at how the George Inn was doing now it had some outdoor boozing. Encumbered by my backpack, my mask, my glasses, my crutch, the photos would be unlikely to do it justice but I’d made it.
The George Inn is the only surviving galleried London coaching inn. So there’s a long balcony along the stretch of the low building of connected bars. It was originally called George and the Dragon and was rebuilt in 1677 after a serious fire in 1676 that destroyed most of medieval Southwark. Its also featured in Dickens Little Dorrit and Our Mutual Friend. Dickens himself visited the site when it was a coffee house.
Different views from inside the George Inn Yard
Walking along Borough High Street, I felt a little dismayed at how shabby and broken down things were. This is a wonderful area and I’m not sure if some of the construction will be to spruce things up a bit. I do hope so. Across Southwark Road at Brindisa, an expensive tapas bar, people didn’t seem to mind that they were eating their £4 tomato bread and £17 lamb chops under the scaffolding and construction dust.
Enjoying their £4 Brindisa tomato bread under the construction scaffold
I really like Park Street. It runs alongside the south end of Borough Market. I stopped liking the market when the crowds got too heavy, but on Park Street there was the colourful Market Porter pub, the great Monmouth Coffee Company, and Konditor cake shop. Then off of Park Street is Stoney Street and the wonderful Borough Market branch of Neal’s Yard Dairy.
There were outdoor Europe-style (tented) patios bustling with people in all the eating places. Monmouth Coffee Company, where there are normally long queues of people and packed tables was deserted. I knew they didn’t serve decaffeinated coffee but I also found out that they don’t serve anything but coffee so that was out. Sadly, too, Konditor had closed its doors, with a very sad note in the window.
Poor Konditur. They now have only two branchesOn Park Street looking over to Stoney StreetEuropean style dining on Park StreetNot the dining experience I really want – Park StreetLooking west along Park Street – the road ahead leads to the Golden Hind, the Clink, The Globe and the Tate Modern
On Stoney Street, I stopped at Neal’s Yard. Only half of the store is open now, and a Wait Here notice greeted me. A man was buying a lot of cheese, but I knew I had only my very squashable backpack so, when it was my turn, I chose carefully: a small pack of cheese curds – I’ll try my hard at some poutine! – a small clotted cream to make some scones and fruit, and a jar of rather lovely looking marinated (with garlic and thyme) soft raw cheese.
Maybe my chapter was getting brighter.
The empty shelves in the larger part of Neal’s Yard Dairy
I was quite shocked to see the market very quiet. I’ve become very used to it being so crowded and noisy that I’ve avoided it more and more. It was quite empty, other than a ‘hot food’ area that I kept away from. It was very odd to see it this way, although the big plus was that I could take photos with few obstacles. I looked at the fruits and vegetables, the cheeses, sausages, breads, and herbs, and the alcohol kiosks, the giant pan of paella cooking, the fish stands…it’s like a different market, but some things are still familiar.
All I bought was some ‘milk bread’ – I can’t carry a bag anymore because of my crutch. My backpack was full.
Paragraph 5 – I feel so encumbered by everything I have to remember and carry around when I go out – first the Pandemic and then the Knee Contingency. Since I can’t carry my credit cards in my little bag, so they go with my travel card into a pocket in my backpack. However, after so many changes of buses and dealing with increasing pain from the chopping, changing, and extra walking on my journey, I’d become frustrated and put the travel pass in my pocket. Except now it wasn’t there.
I had a flash of hope, that I’d tucked it away after I’d arrived by bus, but every place I looked at while juggling my crutch and mask and phone and camera and the food I’d just purchased was pass-less. It was gone. I walked around, hoping to see it laying somewhere. I went into Neal’s Yard Dairy asking if they had it – no. I decided to do one last walk into the market and on the ground I saw the little granola bar that had been in my pocket with the pass. It struck me someone had left the bar and pocketed the pass. Done!
Time to head to the hospital to find a toilet and meet Krish. My knee hurt quite a lot so I rested outside a rather magnificent building. I wrestled with my phone to take a photo or two but gave up and limped over to Guys.
Funny doughnut names on Borough High Street. I was tempted by the Bruno MarsJohn Keats – educational! He was apprenticed to a surgeon in 1811. He broke off the apprenticeship in 1814 and went to London, where he worked as a dresser, or junior house surgeon, at Guy’s and St. Thomas’ hospitals. His literary interests had crystallized by this time, and after 1817 he devoted himself entirely to poetry. He died at 25 – what a life! And I didn’t know about Henry Stephens who was an English doctor, surgeon, chemist, writer, poet, inventor and entrepreneur. At medical school in London he was a friend of, and shared rooms with, poet John Keats, later wrote treatises on hernia and cholera, and conducted experiments to improve writing fluids and wood stains. (Long caption!)
I sat in the Bermondsey Wing café drinking a hot chocolate and feeling a little sorry for myself. I tried to order a new pass online, but the payment option wouldn’t work so I’ll call that a half paragraph in my Chapter.
Paragraph 6 – This would be five paragraphs if I were to tell you everything, but you may be getting tired and I know I am. We grabbed the 343 to head to Whitechapel where Krish would buy some food and I would wait until we could both get the 254 home. Foiled again. Part way along the route, the bus stopped – ‘trouble at Aldgate’ – and we had to walk to the next bus, more walking on my knee (I should give my knee a name, it figures so large in stories these days). A second bus, the 205, over to where Krish would get out and I would wait. When Krish came back with his bags of food our 254 had dropped from 8 minutes to being 28 minutes away. We jumped on the next bus that would take us to the road for the fourth bus heading home…and sailed past where we needed to be, and more walking on my unnamed knee. The fourth bus was annoyingly the 254, having definitely not taken 28 minutes. It crept along – it was rush hour. And the very last leg saw me taking a fifth bus to our door with Krish going ahead on the bus we had been on – he’s more able to walk. I’d paid two fares, since one trip fare is for a maximum of an hour.
So, if you’ve not been adding up, that’s a total of nine buses – close to triple the time it usually takes for the round trip – and a lost travel pass costing me £12. Krish has decided that from now on, he’s going to the hospital alone. Who can blame him? And the anonymous knee feels guiltily pleased.
Every year I go for a check up at the Sleep Clinic at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in East Central London. This year my annual check up was by phone but, on that call, they told me that they wanted me to come in and have a face-to-face appointment with a therapist to get a new machine and mask. In fact, I was welcome to send a representative but that would mean not choosing a mask myself. I decided to go in person.
I have to say that I was a little nervous about going – it was the farthest I’d travelled in months, and it was to a hospital. However, I thought I could make the best of it by taking photographs in the area. My wish list was Smithfield Market, which is under development for the Museum of London, the hospital itself, and a quick visit to Three Uncles Cantonese barbecue take out, on my way to the train. Krish thought he might come and wanted to see Charterhouse Square. I wasn’t sure he’d be coming until I was almost ready to leave on Thursday late morning. Yes, he was!
From Home to Barts, four miles away
There are several ways to reach Barts, which is what most people call St Bartholomew’s Hospital, but we opted to take the bus which usually goes all the way to the door or to Barbican tube station, which is at the east end of the large area that Barts and Smithfield covers. Our bus was going only as far as St Pauls so Barbican it was.
It would be tough to find another area of London with more and varied important history. Another bout of research reveals so many dates and occasions, my head swims, but I tried really hard to stick to my route and focus! To be honest, all the buildings, plaques, and monuments were going to be more than enough to keep the anxiety at a reasonable level.
A rough guess at my exploration routeApproaching the Angel Area before turning down towards Goswell Road, which leads into The City. So far, so quietLeaving Angel, with the Barbican estate loomingCrescent House on Goswell Road, my photo bleached by sunlight. It’s my landmark to start getting off the busSome of the towers of The Barbican estate
Two estates are dominant at Barbican – Barbican estate itself and the 1950s Golden Lane Estate. Golden Lane Estate comes first. (This from my brother: ‘The first building to be completed was Bowater House, off Fann Street, named for a Lord Mayor of London whose descendants we are related to.’) The most obvious building on the estate is Crescent House, which has a Tudor look so is very distinctive. The estate was built to house those who were bombed out during WWII. Crescent House was the last to be built. By then the huge Barbican scheme was already underway.
The Barbican estate deserves a blog of its own but I have no idea when that day will come. It’s a very complex site over a very large area. Barbican covers the area that was once the main Roman Fort of London (120 AD) – barbican , from Barbecana, which means a fortified outpost or gateway. It has 2,000 flats, maisonettes, and houses on what was a bombsite after WWII. While Golden Lane estate is a City-owned council estate, Barbican is an upmarket development, designed and built for affluent City professionals and their families, charging market value rents.
‘City Jam’ (Eley Kishimoto 2018) pedestrian cossing by the Barbican, part of the Culture Mile ‘Colourful Crossings’ art project
If you go to Barbican estate, you’d be impressed at its size (15ha) and variety of use. It contains the Barbican Centre (an arts, drama and business venue), the Barbican public library, the City of London School for Girls, the Museum of London, and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. There are gardens, cafes, even arenas in there. What you’d also notice is the walkways, called ‘highwalks’ one to three stories above ground level. This separates the estate from the car parks and roads below. You can get lost walking about the highwalks – very entertaining. I wasn’t even going to try going in – it demands a lot of time!
Leaving the Barbican towers behind, cross the road and you’ll find Long Lane, which leads into the medieval area of Bartholomews. I love wandering around here, although today not everything is open. I could take a hundred photos here but today it’s just a handful.
Founders Hall, built in 1985 in the traditional style. The original (1531) was destroyed in The Great Fire. This building is the fifth Founders Hall. Founders? An early medieval guild formed to promote the interests of its members and to ensure high standards of quality and workmanship in articles of bronze and brass
The Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great, a medieval church founded in 112341-42 Cloth Fair, Barbican. Built between 1597 and 1614, its the only house in the City of London to have survived the ‘Great Fire’ of 1666. This makes it the oldest habitable home in the city. I admit to cheating on this – I didn’t photograph it! How I missed doing so, I have no idea
Rising Sun pub, its alley leading to a view of Smithfield Market
Every now and again I take a walk down Hackney Road. It was on my list of places to revisit and Krish suggested adding in Columbia Road on a non-market day. Add to that my increasing ‘need’ for Vietnamese food and we had a deal.
Home at the top and the areas I visited at the bottom of the mapMy route along Hackney Road and Columbia Road. It was slightly twistier than this but it’s close enough. It felt like a long way
The days are shorter and the temperature is staying in the 17 to 20C range. It suits me well. Any warmer than 23 and I’m not so happy being out for long walking. There’s an added layer to being out these days. The kids have gone back to school. In the mornings and around 3:30, the buses and roads get much busier. I’ve read that they are suggesting as many students as possible ride bikes or walk to school and stay off public transport. While this must be happening, it’s also true that car traffic has increased. There must be a lot of parents driving students to school and, at peak times, there’s a lot of stop and go traffic outside the window.
At any rate, added to the ‘Covid caveats’ of avoid the post office on a Friday and Monday, stay away from the supermarket on the weekend, don’t walk on the Narrow Way unless you have no choice, I’m adding don’t travel on the buses till after 10am or between 3:15 to 4pm.
Look how many buses on Dalston Lane by The Pembury! This is almost as bad as it usually gets on Oxford Street. They increased the number of buses for the returning students
We missed most of the buses but then one showed up and we got in as far as Cambridge Heath Station. That’s where Hackney Road begins. Hackney Road is thought to follow a prehistoric route and into the 1700s was farmland with very few homes. During the 19th century this changed dramatically, as commercialisation became more the norm, and it took on a very urban look.
Before we set out we explored Clare Street, which runs along the Cambridge Heath railway arches. We had a little chat with some guys in the motorcycle shop. They reported business was quiet.
Top of Hackney RoadMotorcycle shop under the arches at Clare Street
There’s always a lot of art on Clare Street but I don’t think there’s been anything new since I was last there
We took a little walk back towards Hackney Road again passing new and old buildings and some which seemed a mix.
This building looked like they’d built modern stories on top of the original houseThe old-new building turned out to be the ex Duke of Cambridge. Krish pointed out that was at Cambridge Heath and that was how it was named
The last time we went down Hackney Road, we hadn’t enjoyed it as much as usual so this time we wandered slightly off the road and looked at what was around the corners. There were some cool discoveries along the way.
This has been a hotel for a while and now it’s a Mama Shelter. This chain calls itself an urban refuge – lively, unique and quirky There are hotels in 12 cities and 7 countriesColourful houses on Pritchard’s Road, and the east end hold-out, Billy’s CafeOld council flats on Coate Street. The balconies seemed randomLovely old Charrington’s Pub on Coate Street. Around here there would have been pubs on almost every corner
We also came across two very interesting buildings as we turned back to Hackney Road. On the corner with Garnet Street is the former Adelphi Chapel School date “1853, enlarged 1868”. This was a missionary school with 30 pupils built as a day and Sunday school, but also used as a chapel. And then we saw a baby blue building and couldn’t decide if it was cool or just ugly. It turned out to be a significant building. Built for £300,000 in 2002, FAT’s Blue House is a live-work house with an over-emphasised street-facing façade. The practice considers it to be one of the most important houses of the 21st century, or so the FAT website says.
Adelphi Chapel School buildingFAT Blue House
The plan to divert occasionally was working out really well, but we were back on the main road and headed towards Columbia Road. At Goldsmith’s Row, there are two more treasures. First the old Queen Elizabeth Children’s Hospital. Also known as the North-Eastern Hospital for Sick Children, it was founded in 1867 and admitted 10,000 patients each year. For years we would walk past this then-derelict building. It was large and sombre. Then one day we noticed it was going to be developed into new flats. I seem to remember feeling a bit crestfallen that the blackened historical building would be gone. It’s not so bad, though.
It’s called Mettle & Poise, and was a sell-out success, with every new home sold off plan two years before the completion of the redevelopment in 2017.
On the other side from the old hospital (now M&P) is the lovely wooded Hackney City Farm. It was established in 1984 as a community and educational resource and to give borough residents, particularly young people, experience of animals. There’s a farmyard, area for grazing, garden and a tree nursery with butterfly house. The farm is home to a range of animals, including poultry, sheep, rabbits, bees, pigs and a donkey. Hackney City Farm also runs workshops and sells honey and free range eggs, among other things. A city oasis.
Hackney City Farm. The animal yards are closed for now but the cafe and shop are open for business
As you can probably tell, this is another area of Hackney (bordering on Tower Hamlets) that was overwhelming to read about. I’ve done my best!
There was one more stop for us before we found Columbia Road – the Phlegm mural on the Portuguese Love Affair cafe.
The Phlegm wall art in Ion Square on the Portuguese Love Affair Cafe building
From there we walked to where we were staying on St Faith’s Lane. It wasn’t far from the station – a small curved back street with a view to the cathedral. We were staying in a studio apartment which I’d found online. I forgot to take photos but it was decent – we had a full kitchen along one side, an armchair, a bed, a little table with two chairs, and a bathroom with a big walk in shower. It would do nicely for our two half and one full days.
