Just three of us enjoyed a Star Café breakfast on Sunday – Sherry had a meeting of one of the Buddhist groups that she is involved with. Since the plan for the day included a pie and mash we ate relatively frugally at the cafe as we planned the route to the main venue of the day, the Columbia Road flower market. The walk to the market from the nearest station, at the junction of City Road and Old Street, in the East End to the market was somewhat austere, along rather grubby main roads, which Steven advised us was the “silicon Valley” of London, the area where many start-up technology companies are based. At the other end of the historical scale, I pointed out that “City Road”, where our walk started, was clearly the City Road of Pop Goes The Weasel – “Up and down the City Road, in and out of the Eagle” etc. Surprisingly neither Steven nor Chantal seemed aware of the rhyme, and the subject was dropped.
We knew that we were approaching Columbia Road when we met several people coming towards us carrying plants and flowers. The market stalls line either side of a narrow road, and was very busy in the cold winter sunshine, and we had to squeeze through the crowds to see the stall and enjoys the buskers, making photography a bit of a challenge.
It was a nice atmosphere, and Chantal made her contribution, buying two large houseplants one for Sherry and one for herself, carefully manoeuvring them through the crowds.
We found a convenient pub to settle in for a break while perusing our smart phones to find the location of the promised pie and mash shop. The “Local App” synchronised itself with the Satnav App, and provided directions before it delivered the bad news. Closed on Sundays. Steven optimistically pointed out that there is a pie and mash shop in the Angel, on our route back to the flat, which was convenient since by now we were clock watching, with the train journey home in mind. We checked out the details – once again the shop was closed on Sundays. And here is me thinking that London is a 24/7 city. Steven had only partially met the challenge, having located plenty of excellent local beer,and I am now convinced that the “traditional pie and mash shop” is a local urban myth, propagated for the tourists, but which doesn’t actually exist.
Having had a minimalistic Star Café breakfast, we needed to eat, and since the pub where we had settled offered a limited and expensive menu, we headed for Angel anyway and found O’Neills, an Irish theme chain pub where the local Brew, London Pride, was off, leaving me with Cornish Doombar – a multicultural experience of sorts I suppose.
We caught the bus back to Steven and Sherry’s flat using our Oyster cards as we had done on all Underground trips. Public Transport may not be particularly cheap in London, but in general I am quite impressed by Transport for London – on the whole it just seems to work, and seemed quite safe even late at night. On our return journey from The Albert Hall on the previous evening we got on an Underground carriage with two young men who had clearly been drinking for a few hours, and were continuing to do so from bottles of vodka and coke cunningly disguised in soft drinks bottles as simply Coca Cola. Unfortunately, since they had chosen bottles labelled “lemonade” and “mineral water” respectively, both of which are clear drinks, the disguise was not very effective. Both were charming, giving their seats up, and chatting quite amiably to Chantal and Steven. Both were at University in Sheffield, and both were spending a year working with the Metropolitan Police. And both were just starting their evening as we were finishing ours, aiming to get to a night club before 11.00pm to avoid an entrance fee.
Back at Stevens flat on the Sunday afternoon we just had time to pack, grab a coffee, and, in Chantal’s case, download a couple of films onto a memory stick, before we said our farewells and caught Underground to back to Euston Station, after a really nice weekend.
Technically we live in Oaktree House, but sadly the tree had to go.
We now have a thriving Oakstump at the front of the house.
