I should be shocked at how early the shops get their Christmas decorations up, but they are so pretty that I secretly love them.
Tuesday, 1 November 2011
Friday, 28 October 2011
View from the past
Wow!! Comparing Norwood in 1864 http://london1864.com/stanford71.htm with Norwood today (look it up in the satellite version of Google maps)
It's fascinating how the road and railways are the same, but there are fields instead of houses. St Luke's church, Norwood Cemetery, the Tulse Hill Hotel were there in 1864. And All Saints church on Rosendale Road isn't there because it began ten years later. The little pond up in the top left corner is fascinating because I bike past there now and it definitely isn't there. I think there's a road there instead. And how much more effort it was to create an accurate map in those days!
It's fascinating how the road and railways are the same, but there are fields instead of houses. St Luke's church, Norwood Cemetery, the Tulse Hill Hotel were there in 1864. And All Saints church on Rosendale Road isn't there because it began ten years later. The little pond up in the top left corner is fascinating because I bike past there now and it definitely isn't there. I think there's a road there instead. And how much more effort it was to create an accurate map in those days!
Sunday, 13 March 2011
The unexpected
I've mentioned before that the thing I love most about biking is the unexpected human contact (by this I don't mean that I knock pedestrians down). I was stuck in a traffic jam one morning on my way to work when I suddenly heard a voice in my ear
"Oh hello" said the voice
I nearly jumped and turned (the last I remembered, there had been a van there between me and the kerb). There were two (middle-aged) men in the van grinning at me, expecting to have startled me. So I grinned back and said 'Hiya!' and said that the coffee they were drinking (Gregg's) looked good and then had to pedal off because the traffic had started moving again. But it was just a random fun hello in a busy morning.
"Oh hello" said the voice
I nearly jumped and turned (the last I remembered, there had been a van there between me and the kerb). There were two (middle-aged) men in the van grinning at me, expecting to have startled me. So I grinned back and said 'Hiya!' and said that the coffee they were drinking (Gregg's) looked good and then had to pedal off because the traffic had started moving again. But it was just a random fun hello in a busy morning.
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
The frozen biker
There are good and bad things about biking, which is how I mostly get about nowadays. I love the freedom of it. I hate being stuck behind a gas-belching bus. I love going down hill. I hate struggling up hill. I love the way it's so easy to strike up conversation with a bike (sorry, with people when I have my bike).
In this country, especially, the thing that influences a ride the most is the weather. I don't mind the cold, since I get warm very fast when I'm biking. I do mind the rain though, because the rain here is cold! I came out of a meeting in Waterloo today to bike to the Strand and then to New Cross. As soon as I had unlocked the bike and started off, there was a hail storm. It then poured all the way from Covent Garden to New Cross (about 6 miles) and it was freezing. I was a cold drowned rat at the end of that one. And yet, there were good bits to it too. Like the parking attendant who grinned at me at a traffic light, looked up at the sky and said "It's not nice, is it?" Or the solidarity you can feel from other cyclists who are as wet (and presumably as miserable) as you.
So I love it, in spite of everything
In this country, especially, the thing that influences a ride the most is the weather. I don't mind the cold, since I get warm very fast when I'm biking. I do mind the rain though, because the rain here is cold! I came out of a meeting in Waterloo today to bike to the Strand and then to New Cross. As soon as I had unlocked the bike and started off, there was a hail storm. It then poured all the way from Covent Garden to New Cross (about 6 miles) and it was freezing. I was a cold drowned rat at the end of that one. And yet, there were good bits to it too. Like the parking attendant who grinned at me at a traffic light, looked up at the sky and said "It's not nice, is it?" Or the solidarity you can feel from other cyclists who are as wet (and presumably as miserable) as you.
So I love it, in spite of everything
Monday, 6 September 2010
Things I never thought I'd do (contd.)
For anybody who was worried...there were two men lifting the organ - I just helped. And the vicars were in frames (you know how churches have pictures of all the old vicars framed...). St James is moving out of the building temporarily so that it can be rebuilt. So all the stuff needed to be moved out. And since we're a small church, everything had to be done ourselves. And that included carrying organs and vicars :D
A stroll through China town
We were in town on Wednesday to get a job done and we decided to head to China Town to buy pork buns. China Town is absolutely gorgeous. All the shops, the arches, a little pagoda where old men play board games and, of course, the food. We first tried the pork buns at one guy's stall and then decided we simply had to go around the corner to the other stall and try the buns there so we could compare :P The buns were yummy!! We sat on the steps near the place where the old guys were playing their game to eat the buns. I cannot believe I didn't know about them earlier, coz I can see Pithu being very happy with pork buns :) We then spent the rest of the evening wandering in and out of the Chinese supermarkets finding random things to exclaim at - Chocopie (Kutty would have been thrilled), wife biscuits :D Healthy Boy chilli sauce (we'd been looking for it) and live crabs. All in all, a very fun and random evening.
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