I don’t want to change the world, I’m not looking for a new England

Friday night, after my course, which has reverted to people having a chat, rather than trying to learn anything, I attempted to get a bus up Holloway Road so as to avoid the bone-biting wind* and the Australians/students on the street celebrating their faux-Irish roots by wearing annoying Guinness hats** and screeching, but lo, there was none so I marched up the A1 in an ever-increasing temper to get to Nambucca and the return to North London of How Does it Feel indie discothèque. I know the Buffalo Bar has no beer, rubbish toilets, cramped dancefloor and you’re not allowed to stand on the stairs, but I have a soft spot for it in my cardiovascular system and Nambucca is just a bit too brightly-lit and un-atmospheric for me to dig it that much. Still, it’s nice to hear the Orchids in a confined space.

*I think that we have somehow slipped into Narnia (without the public school brats and the allegorical lion (I think I would have been with Edmund and the witch – hot chocolate and Turkish Delight wins every time over everlasting life)) and from now on it will always be winter. Always winter and never spring.

** David ordered a (fortunately non-green) Guinness which arrived with a shamrock drawn into the foam - he immediately changed it to a St George cross

We leave about half-twelve for we have to get up to catch the train to St Albans catch the train to St Albans with Dave#1, Jo, Heike and Janna, except Jo, Heike and Janna miss the train so we meet them at the Waffle House which is a café attached to a watermill museum, but most people seem to be here for maple syrup ‘n’ batter, rather than pre-industrial revolution engineering. 

 

We walk through 9 miles of flat-ish English green and brown countryside, passing woods full of snowdrops, some lambs, a C16^th ruin and at one point, brilliant sunshine, spring-ish in its intentions. The meteorologist-magicians who control the weather must have taken a small amount of pity on us. We walk back to the city through the park and end up at Ye Olde Fighting Cocks which claims to be the oldest pub in Britain but I think somewhere got in before that. Leave that for the nicer Goat pub where we eat food and play a general knowledge board game based on trivia about Britain. Heike seems to know the most, despite not being from this sceptic isle.

 

 

I don’t want to change the world, I’m not looking for a new England

Friday night, after my course, which has reverted to people having a chat, rather than trying to learn anything, I attempted to get a bus up Holloway Road so as to avoid the bone-biting wind* and the Australians/students on the street celebrating their faux-Irish roots by wearing annoying Guinness hats** and screeching, but lo, there was none so I marched up the A1 in an ever-increasing temper to get to Nambucca and the return to North London of How Does it Feel indie discothèque. I know the Buffalo Bar has no beer, rubbish toilets, cramped dancefloor and you’re not allowed to stand on the stairs, but I have a soft spot for it in my cardiovascular system and Nambucca is just a bit too brightly-lit and un-atmospheric for me to dig it that much. Still, it’s nice to hear the Orchids in a confined space.

*I think that we have somehow slipped into Narnia (without the public school brats and the allegorical lion (I think I would have been with Edmund and the witch – hot chocolate and Turkish Delight wins every time over everlasting life)) and from now on it will always be winter. Always winter and never spring.

** David ordered a (fortunately non-green) Guinness which arrived with a shamrock drawn into the foam - he immediately changed it to a St George cross

We leave about half-twelve for we have to get up to catch the train to St Albans catch the train to St Albans with Dave#1, Jo, Heike and Janna, except Jo, Heike and Janna miss the train so we meet them at the Waffle House which is a café attached to a watermill museum, but most people seem to be here for maple syrup ‘n’ batter, rather than pre-industrial revolution engineering. 

 

We walk through 9 miles of flat-ish English green and brown countryside, passing woods full of snowdrops, some lambs, a C16^th ruin and at one point, brilliant sunshine, spring-ish in its intentions. The meteorologist-magicians who control the weather must have taken a small amount of pity on us. We walk back to the city through the park and end up at Ye Olde Fighting Cocks which claims to be the oldest pub in Britain but I think somewhere got in before that. Leave that for the nicer Goat pub where we eat food and play a general knowledge board game based on trivia about Britain. Heike seems to know the most, despite not being from this sceptic isle.

 

 

Equinoxotic

Isn’t the world strange and wonderful? Friday night cursing of winter-never-ending turns into sunny Sunday planting of radishes, corn-flowers and tomatoes (next week: courgettes, lupins, and chick-peas), coat-less for the first time, noting that the spinach and marigolds and cauliflowers from last year are still growing, slowly.

That boundless optimism that only comes with light coupled with warmth, the feeling that nothing can ever be bad again, that from Tuesday until September, all is bright bliss and incipient heat. The natural equality of day and night far more important than the man-made British Summertime of next weekend.

Equinoxotic

Isn’t the world strange and wonderful? Friday night cursing of winter-never-ending turns into sunny Sunday planting of radishes, corn-flowers and tomatoes (next week: courgettes, lupins, and chick-peas), coat-less for the first time, noting that the spinach and marigolds and cauliflowers from last year are still growing, slowly.

That boundless optimism that only comes with light coupled with warmth, the feeling that nothing can ever be bad again, that from Tuesday until September, all is bright bliss and incipient heat. The natural equality of day and night far more important than the man-made British Summertime of next weekend.