Shopping – Page 3 – slightly weird

28th December 2020

Sneaking out of the house – Christmas Lights 2020

Sunday, 27 December, 2020

Well, here it is, almost the end of the most unusual year ever – the same year I’d anticipated back in January, thinking that 2020 must be perfect after all (a reference to vision).

We are now in our third lockdown and this is the most serious, serious enough that they created a whole new label for it – Tier 4. This means ‘you must stay home’ but it seems like quite a few aren’t listening. This is no big surprise.

Last weekend I did a lovely virtual Christmas lights tour with Look up London and really enjoyed it. I did this tour because I thought I wouldn’t be able to do one in person. However, yesterday it was a dry day and I had the idea that maybe with lockdown in place and no Boxing Day sales, just maybe I might go down and see some lights for myself. So off we went.

The bus wasn’t busy and we felt pretty safe. It was the first time I’d been into the west end since last year at Somerset House. Along the way, I was trying to remember the way – what were we going to pass by and see on what would a year ago have been a familiar journey. What follows is a great many photos, I think, with some narrative.

There were very few on the bus, with the traffic lights lending a Christmassy feeling

There was a very light rain so things were shiny and sparkly and, with not much traffic, and not many stops requested, we sped to Tottenham Court Road in a little over 20 minutes.

James Smith & Sons umbrella shop marks the approach to Oxford Street

My plan was to get off near Fortnum and Mason, back over to Piccadilly Circus, up Regent Street and into Soho, Chinatown and home again. It’s much less than I’d really like to do but it’s important to allow for the journey home and not need a rest or the toilet.

To get to Fortnum and Mason, you have to go through Piccadilly Circus, and Piccadilly Circus is just about the busiest intersection in London – that and Oxford Circus. It was less quiet and busy than usual, but still bustling compared to elsewhere. They’ve put in extra walking space and there are more bicycles than I usually see but just as many buses in the same London-narrow space.

Fortnum and Mason is a very posh place. It’s been here since 1707, and it stands for luxury. Hugh Mason ran a small store and met an entrepreneur called William Fortnum, whose family were high class builders reinvigorating Mayfair in the wake of the Great Fire. The partnership evolved. When I can get inside again, I’ll say more. For now, I’ll just say that it’s Christmas eye candy.

This extraordinary year F&M are featuring windows from their 313 years . And most splendidly, the front of their store has become a giant advent calendar. I find the whole thing magical.

Piccadilly Street itself has the same angels that it’s had each time I’ve visited. They’re looking over a grand street in an afluent, fashionable area called Mayfair that takes its name from the May fair held in Shepherd’s Market in the area (a fantasticvstreet for another day). Here are fashionable arcades and fancy boutiques and also the Royal Academy founded in 1768 by a group of 40 artists and architects who became the first Royal Academicians. I love its gates (now closed) and courtyard.

Behind Fortnum and Mason is Jermyn Street. This area dates from 1661 and often looks the part. Sir Isaac Newton, William Pitt, Sir Walter Scott, William Gladstone; and W. M. Thackeray have all lived here. The shops along here are exclusive – mostly it was quiet, even quieter than lockdown Piccadilly today.

At the entrance to Piccadilly Arcade is this statue of Beau Brummell, an iconic figure in Regency England and for many years the arbiter of men’s fashion. I asked Krish to pose the same way behind him

This video shows the Piccadilly Arcade entrance from Jermyn Street. Very elegant.

A touch of Europe – Corner window, Piccadilly Arcade

Shoe lasts — An impressive display of shoe lasts at Joseph Heane’s show store on Jermyn Street

Continue reading “Sneaking out of the house – Christmas Lights 2020”

20th September 2020

Canary Wharf – our Toronto fix

Saturday, 5th September, 2020

In ‘normal’ times every now and again we would go to Canary Wharf to get our Toronto fix. It has that Toronto look and no wonder. Its earliest buildings were built by the Canadian company Olympia & York. There are even street names and apartment and shopping complex with Canadian influences. Everything is very modern and there’s even an underground shopping concourse. But we haven’t been for a very long time.

We had an idea that the weekends would be very quiet in the area and we’d be able to walk around and look at the river. And so we jumped on the 277 bus that takes us from Hackney Town Hall all the way to Canary Wharf DLR station.

Victoria Park Village from the bus. A more detailed look is on my Must Walk list

On the way, we pass through Victoria Park Village, Victoria Park itself, and Mile End. Victoria Park was my closest childhood park. I loved the playground there and also the pond. My grandfather would take me fishing at that pond. We’d buy maggots and mealworms in a little shop along the Roman Road and off we’d go. On the way down to the docks (where Canary Wharf is built) we pass by my old childhood home of (the now demolished) Lessada Street, just off Roman Road, and then down under the railway bridge where where the First Flying Bomb fell on London on 13 June 1944. It’s also where I saw a strange and scary site when I was about three years old.

I was walking with my dad – I loved those walks – and saw a fire under the bridge. There was a man and a motorcycle lying there in the hollow and they were alight. I asked my dad about it and he told me it was a guy (for Guy Fawkes Day) and hurried me on. When I was 14, I told my mum what I remembered and that I was sure it was a motorcycle fatality. She looked a little white and then confirmed it. She told me that my dad had hoped I would forget and never to tell me. He had been very shaken. She then asked me never to tell him that I knew. I kept my promise.

I didn’t take photos after Victoria Park. Photos from the bus are never very satisfying but it does mean there’s a gap.

Further down the road, we ride along Burdett Road. Here I have memories of visiting my great aunts – my mum’s mum’s sisters – in their tall, grand houses, or so they seemed in those days. And I remember the little Jewish grocer where they had barrels of olives, herring, pickled cucumbers – with a name something like Vlit Vlosh…who knows. And on down to Poplar, past the canal, and you see the river bank.

Except today there were dozens of people. At our stop, we noticed the same. Lots of people. We’d be wrong in our guess that it would be dead down there. They obviously all had the same idea that we had, to be somewhere ‘quiet.’ Oh well, nothing to do but carry on and see whatever we could.

The main financial district of London is in The City, the original square mile. Canary Wharf is the secondary business district. It’s on the Isle of Dogs and is named after one of the quays of this dockland area, No. 32 berth, where fruit was unloaded from the Canary Islands. And that’s why it’s called the Isle of Dogs. The Canary islands gets its name from the large dogs found there by the Spanish (Canarias from Canine). Canary Wharf is just one piece of the Docklands area and it has many tall buildings, including what was once the tallest (now third tallest) in the UK, One Canada Square, with its iconic pointed roof. Docklands was once just that, a large area of docks on the River Thames. As a child, I learned it was an area that was to be avoided, and also the place where the majority of bombs were aimed during the second world war. East India Docks, West India Docks – dangerous and dirty or not, it all sounded very exotic to me.

These once dangerous, dirty docks are now sparkling and modern roads, full of gleaming office towers and quayside cocktail bars. For years it was like a secret part of London known only to bankers and the like, but based on the number of people we saw here, I’d say the secret is out.

And sometimes you get reminders you are on the Thames

Wandering around the Canary Wharf jungle!

Amidst the towers, an oasis of green

Crossing the river here we found a little food truck area — Crossing the South Dock bridge here we found a little food truck area

From over here, we could see the O2 building — From over here, we could see the O2 Arena

In the underground concourse on our way to Waitrose. Doesn’t it look like Toronto?

The floors are filled with tiles showing the history of the area

We’d outstayed our two window for getting home again, so home we came. Meanwhile, I found a good interactive map of the Canary Wharf area at https://canarywharfmap.com/ if you’d like to have an overview.

1st September 20201st September 2020

A walk to Ridley Road Market

Friday, 28 August, 2020

On a day when I thought staying home and resting might be a good idea I instead found myself saying yes to going up to ‘the big Sainsburys’ in Dalston. It was an excuse to take a couple of photos for my aunt of a converted synagogue nearby and also keep my promise to myself to take some photos in Ridley Road Market.

First off, the synagogue. It’s hidden behind Montague Road. Montague Road Beth Hamedrash began 1902 and closed between 1980 and 1985. I’ve often thought about living in that top floor with the patio balcony.

There are many repurposed and demolished synagogues around. It amazes me how many there must have been at one point. My research tells me that around 1880 there were about 5,000 Jews in Hackney and Dalston. The richer Jews tended to move further north to Stamford Hill, Highbury, and Stoke Newington. By the end of the early 1900s there was a large population of the ‘better class of Jewish working man.’ The Jews of Whitechapel chose Dalston or Canonbury as their ‘first steps upwards.’ In the early 1950s Hackney was assumed to have the densest Jewish population in the country, and the two estates on Amhurst Road alone contained 1,500 to 2,000 working-class Jews, while half of the boys at Hackney Downs school were Jewish. Many of these families prospered and moved along and less than a third of the school’s boys were Jewish by 1972, replaced by newer Afro-Caribbean immigrants. My closest synagogue is about a kilometre away today. The Montague Road Beth Hamedrash would have been a two-minute walk, with others to choose from not much further.

Little house between two larger — I always think about how I could live in one of these little houses built between two larger ones

Straight up to St Mark’s Rise and turn left and the bottom of Ridley Road market is straight ahead. I wasn’t keen to go into, with all the restrictions. There are barriers on either side too and that’s a bit daunting, since I often want to leave to get out to the shops along the road. Instead I walked along the west side of the market, taking in the sights of the mostly Afro-Caribbean storefronts.

The shops are mostly just shallow sheds along the road, each with its chaotic assortment of goods. There’s fish, meat, fabrics, vegetables and fruit, and household goods.

I’m not the first to say that there’s not enough Ridley Road history. Geographically, it links Dalston Lane to Kingsland Road but there’s really nothing much said about the street until the mid 1800s. The main street of Dalston, Kingsland Road, was completely commercial by 1849, properties being sold off by the Tyssen family, and the tram arriving in 1872. In 1930 The Kingsland Road market was in Ridley Road, and was among the best known in London. Other records show that the market existed since the 1880s. This period features in most of the then-modern Hackney, with so many houses that I’ve photographed having this decade engraved on the facade. Ridley Road at the end of the 1880s had about 20 stalls and has played an important part in Hackney’s history. Before the pandemic is had over 150 stalls. Once a Jewish market, it is now mainly Afro-Caribbean and Turkish.

Restricted entrance to the stalls area of Ridley Road Market. Normally, stalls would come right down the end down either side of the road

The fabric store at the bottom of the market has seen better days. I’ve shopped in there, hoping the mountain of fabrics wouldn’t engulf me

Stalls are spaced apart and there are fewer than there once were

Obligatory burger and hot dog stand. On the whole they are very poor quality

Near the top of Ridley Road, with Kingsland High Street and the new buildings ahead

New normal spacing means the stalls are sparse

The top of the market — I reached the top of the market and stallholders were starting to leave

It’s hard to show the atmosphere of Ridley Road so I took a couple of videos to try to show it. This is pandemic time so it doesn’t bustle as it used to.

I’ll confess to not liking to shop on Ridley Road, and I’ll often avoid walking along it. While it’s interesting, it crosses the line of interesting into too scruffy. That’s saying a lot coming from me. I don’t see the sense of pride I think there should be there. The shops stay the same, often look dirty, are usually quite smelly…have I sold you yet? However, there’s a lot of colour and vibrancy once you get past the assault on your senses. And you’ll find the odd favourite stall – the egg stall, and the one where we buy herbs aren’t there right now but we went regularly.

With so many newcomers in the area demanding more modern, luxurious surroundings, and with the increase in new building, Ridley Road is threatened. New residents aren’t shopping here, the poorer shoppers are being squeezed out of the area by rising prices, and the stallholders are having trouble meeting the rents and rates along with the decrease in traffic. The pandemic has has meant fewer stalls, so restricted foot traffic and revenue. While I am not a big Ridley Road fan, I’d be sad to see it totally cleaned up and overhauled, if not razed. No matter what, Ridley Road has served this community very well for almost a century and a half and I don’t know what Dalston would be without it.

8th January 20208th January 2020

A new decade – what’s in store?

Tuesday, 7 January, 2020

It feels very strange to type 2020. I hadn’t thought of that before. Am I supposed to make resolutions for the whole decade? I really should. So far my only resolution for the year is to eat at one restaurant on my list every week. In fact, that wouldn’t take too many weeks so definitely doable.

I’d like to be less lazy, waste less time, do more – more of all sorts of things. So far so bad, though. There’s still time, right? Ten years less seven days, anyway.

On the third, I had tickets to go see a children’s version of The Nutcracker at Sadler’s Wells’ Lillian Baylis theatre. I love these shorter version of classic ballets. They’re perfect for my short attention span. First I took the bus to Islington Green at Angel to have a bit of lunch.

I went to Kanada-Ya and had an OK tonkotsu ramen

After lunch I walked along Camden Passage before getting my next bus

Japanese tea room - and the air smelled amazing from the Penhaligon shop — Japanese tea room – and the air smelled amazing from the Penhaligon shop

It's a short bus ride from Angel to Sadler's Wells — It’s a short bus ride from Angel to Sadler’s Wells

Juliet was going to bring her grandson but there was a last minute switch and instead we were taking her granddaughter, Dessi. Dessi was very excited and told me that she’d seen the ballet before, the CBeebies version. With Juliet on the aisle seat, me in the next, and Dessi closest to the centre, we sat and waited.

Even the short ballet version felt long at times. Dessi kept me entertained. After only a couple of minutes she announced I want to be a ballerina just like they are. I thought how lovely it was to be so inspired. When one of the dancers appeared onstage, she announced loudly – the lone voice above the iconic music – It’s the Sugar Plum Fairy, and after a few rapt minutes I love the Sugar Plum Fairy. She then loudly whispered to us, When I go back to your house, grandma, I’m going to dance all the way there. There were six ballerinas sharing roles on stage. Four were slender, two were sturdy. I noticed, just like last year, how lightly they landed with each leap and step. At the end of the show, all children are invited to come down to the stage to take photos with the dancers.

Dessi and I raced down to get there, only to find out that we had come down the wrong way. Up we went again and all the way to the back of the queue.

Anticipation - Dessi told me she wanted to dance on the stage — Anticipation while we waited – Dessi told me she wanted to dance on the stage

Everybody was moving slowly, parents were hogging the spotlight for their children – none of this surprising – and then suddenly with only half the children having moved down to the stage, we seemed to moving extra quickly.

Dessi had told me that she wanted to dance with them on stage so when she stood there, I reminded her and she held her arms above her head, all the dancers following her lead.

Finally, it was Dessi's turn — Finally, it was Dessi’s turn – I was too blind to notice the green light on her face

I reminded Dessi to pose and the dancers all copied her

Dessi glanced around to see that they were all posing with her

Continue reading “A new decade – what’s in store?”

30th May 201930th May 2019

Toronto shopping when you’re a foodie

Thursday, 30 May, 2019

I make no secret of the fact that Toronto disappoints me in many food (when it comes to shopping) arenas. There are lots of reasons for this, and the price point is probably the least of these….maybe. But we can talk about prices – sure we can! They’ve skyrocketed.

I do expect, after being away for a while, to find prices higher. However, this time the trajectory has alarmed me. I’d say that most things are about 50% higher than I found them in 2016. So the pork tenderloin i bought for $3.75 in Chinatown this week cost me about $2.25 when last I was here. Of course, this price is pretty fantastic, no doubt of that. However, to find lettuces at $2.99, cauliflower at $6.99, asparagus at $4, bread at $4-5, chips at $4 a pack – these things do alarm me.

However, I do have to eat so here’s a bit of a pictorial essay of my shopping experiences so far. There’s enough time to document more!

Closed up Chinatown — These shops at the North West corner of Spadina and Dundas are slated to go. No idea how long they have sat there but it looks really scruffy and neglected so far. New condos on their way?

Quiet day at the Chinatown supermarket — Abnormally quiet day outside the supermarket in Chinatown. Rain keeps the crowds away and there’s been a lot of it.

Inside the Chinatown supermarket. I got a pork loin, some hot sauce, and some frozen shrimp and pork dumplings for dim sum. Oh, and these tomatoes (next photo)

Tomatoes in Chinatown — I don’t like buying the much-picked-over things in Chinatown but there were freshly placed, reasonably priced, and actually looked good. Tasted OK too!

I’m not fond of the readymade food in Toronto on the whole but there are certain things I can’t get elsewhere or they are ethnic foods that Toronto somehow does so very well.

I’ve missed this sort of readymade food – a variety of Portuguese snacks in Little Portugal – takes me back to Lisbon

Continue reading “Toronto shopping when you’re a foodie”