On Friday I got up to discover a trail of blood leading from the road, along the pavement, into next door’s drive, up their car, out again and off down a side alley.
It looks like an animal hit by a car, and then limping off… I couldn’t find any sign of it though. I hope it’s OK, but somehow I doubt it. Perhaps it was a fox, but I feel quite paternal about our neighbourhood foxes since a litter was born last year at the bottom of our garden, and lived for a while in the wood-pile behind the greenhouse.
Here’s a picture I took when they were a few days old and not scared to come up and be stroked by us.
I hope it wasn’t one of our foxes.
Houses back on
Lisa went down to Worthing on Friday to look at some houses. Her quest for another property is back on. This time it’s a 2 bedroom house near the hospital in Worthing… a rental for nurses.
I followed her down in the evening and she scheduled us both to take a look at her shortlist on Saturday. We met a lovely 96 year old lady who’s house we’re now putting an offer in on. As soon as she saw George, she leapt over the stairlift her (now retired) son had quite unnecessarily provided her with, ran up the stairs and got a cuddly toy for George to take home!
The house itself will need complete redecoration (she’s been living there for 65 years), but it’ll be a sweet little house when it’s finished.
This is despite the fact that up at the end of the road, the telltale signs of gang warfare were evedent. A pair of trainers tied together had been looped over the telephone wire.
This, I’m reliably informed, is a signifier of a gangland border.
Spiders
It’s one of the mysteries of evolution that wherever there’s an ecological niche, a creature will appear to fill it. A modern example appears to be a species of spider which has evolved solely to live in the wingmirrors of estate cars.
These arachnids make a great living catching the flies that are flung into their webs on fast moving roads and are so successful that they have infested every estate car I’ve ever seen…
Anyway….
On Saturday afternoon, we got back and went out to Lunch in Blackheath with Jane and Dan, Gareth and some of Jane’s friends – we tried for Jane’s sake not to talk too much “baby” with her friends who brought their almost identical aged child along (their’s had a lot more hair than George!).
Vegetarian roasts
On Sunday, we did a lot of booking of things we’ve been meaning to sort out for ages. We’re going for a couple of weekends away, we’ve booked our holiday, we’re going to a couple of shows…. We’ve now got things going on for most of the rest of the year!
Having George we’re finding you just have to block out some time and book there and then whatever you want to do because the chances of getting organised if you don’t are pretty low.
Afterwards, we treated ourselves to Sunday Lunch at the East Dulwich Tavern – which usually serves great food.
This time, however, I went for the vegetarian Sunday roast – What I got was what I’d have expected about 15 years ago in a country pub: a Sunday roast with the meat taken out! In other words, just a plate of potatoes and parsnips.
The waiting staff were nice about it, but really, that’s not on these days. It lets you know that the chef really isn’t interested in what he’s cooking.
The veggie items on a menu should be another option which will appeal as much to meat eaters as to vegetarians. Not an alternative to “Propper food”. You wouldn’t get away with serving asparagus in saffron butter with grated truffles as the veggie option and for the meat option, an upturned can of spam, would you?
Get your act together EDT, Lordship Lane has moved on!
Actors
Sam turned up in time for pudding and promised to cheer me up with oysters from the little oyster bar in the new market opposite the pub, but unfortunately, the guy who runs it turns out to be an actor and he’s got a touring job, so no oysters (typical East Dulwich – more actors per square meter than Hollywood).
It turns out, our next door neighbour (not the one in Gavin and Stacy, her husband) is now one of the main characters in Holby Blue! Last week he came home in his new car – a Porsche no less (his other car is an electric 2 seater so he’s doing his environmental bit as well!). he says he’s like a kid with a new toy.
Anyway, this whole Dulwich actory thing is not new. It all kicked off by James Allen, a contemporary of Shakespere – who lived here and started the local school up in Dulwich Village.
This Sunday we want to an open Gardens day in some of the big houses on one of the roads named after James Allen. They variously had swimming pools, bronze horses, shoals of goldfish and bizarre rare plants. Dulwich Village is not like East Dulwich. It’s a bit posh.
Never mind.
George’s first day at nursery
It’s george’s first day at nursery today. Lisa took him over there for an hour and sat with him. He seemed to settle in fine, but tomorrow I’ve got to take him back and this time leave him for a couple of hours. I think this process of slowly leaving children for longer and longer is more for the parent’s benefit than the kids. George will be fine without us for a day. He’s the world’s most smily child in any situation, and we’ve made sure we leave him with other people fairly regularly, so I’m not afraid of leaving him.
George is very outgoing and will chat to anyone. He seems unperturbed by the fact that we all expect him to learn our language but nobody’s making the slightest effort to learn his.
He probably just thinks we’re typical English people.
It looks like an animal hit by a car, and then limping off… I couldn’t find any sign of it though. I hope it’s OK, but somehow I doubt it. Perhaps it was a fox, but I feel quite paternal about our neighbourhood foxes since a litter was born last year at the bottom of our garden, and lived for a while in the wood-pile behind the greenhouse.
Here’s a picture I took when they were a few days old and not scared to come up and be stroked by us.
I hope it wasn’t one of our foxes.
Houses back on
Lisa went down to Worthing on Friday to look at some houses. Her quest for another property is back on. This time it’s a 2 bedroom house near the hospital in Worthing… a rental for nurses.
I followed her down in the evening and she scheduled us both to take a look at her shortlist on Saturday. We met a lovely 96 year old lady who’s house we’re now putting an offer in on. As soon as she saw George, she leapt over the stairlift her (now retired) son had quite unnecessarily provided her with, ran up the stairs and got a cuddly toy for George to take home!
The house itself will need complete redecoration (she’s been living there for 65 years), but it’ll be a sweet little house when it’s finished.
This is despite the fact that up at the end of the road, the telltale signs of gang warfare were evedent. A pair of trainers tied together had been looped over the telephone wire.
This, I’m reliably informed, is a signifier of a gangland border.
Spiders
It’s one of the mysteries of evolution that wherever there’s an ecological niche, a creature will appear to fill it. A modern example appears to be a species of spider which has evolved solely to live in the wingmirrors of estate cars.
These arachnids make a great living catching the flies that are flung into their webs on fast moving roads and are so successful that they have infested every estate car I’ve ever seen…
Anyway….
On Saturday afternoon, we got back and went out to Lunch in Blackheath with Jane and Dan, Gareth and some of Jane’s friends – we tried for Jane’s sake not to talk too much “baby” with her friends who brought their almost identical aged child along (their’s had a lot more hair than George!).
Vegetarian roasts
On Sunday, we did a lot of booking of things we’ve been meaning to sort out for ages. We’re going for a couple of weekends away, we’ve booked our holiday, we’re going to a couple of shows…. We’ve now got things going on for most of the rest of the year!
Having George we’re finding you just have to block out some time and book there and then whatever you want to do because the chances of getting organised if you don’t are pretty low.
Afterwards, we treated ourselves to Sunday Lunch at the East Dulwich Tavern – which usually serves great food.
This time, however, I went for the vegetarian Sunday roast – What I got was what I’d have expected about 15 years ago in a country pub: a Sunday roast with the meat taken out! In other words, just a plate of potatoes and parsnips.
The waiting staff were nice about it, but really, that’s not on these days. It lets you know that the chef really isn’t interested in what he’s cooking.
The veggie items on a menu should be another option which will appeal as much to meat eaters as to vegetarians. Not an alternative to “Propper food”. You wouldn’t get away with serving asparagus in saffron butter with grated truffles as the veggie option and for the meat option, an upturned can of spam, would you?
Get your act together EDT, Lordship Lane has moved on!
Actors
Sam turned up in time for pudding and promised to cheer me up with oysters from the little oyster bar in the new market opposite the pub, but unfortunately, the guy who runs it turns out to be an actor and he’s got a touring job, so no oysters (typical East Dulwich – more actors per square meter than Hollywood).
It turns out, our next door neighbour (not the one in Gavin and Stacy, her husband) is now one of the main characters in Holby Blue! Last week he came home in his new car – a Porsche no less (his other car is an electric 2 seater so he’s doing his environmental bit as well!). he says he’s like a kid with a new toy.
Anyway, this whole Dulwich actory thing is not new. It all kicked off by James Allen, a contemporary of Shakespere – who lived here and started the local school up in Dulwich Village.
This Sunday we want to an open Gardens day in some of the big houses on one of the roads named after James Allen. They variously had swimming pools, bronze horses, shoals of goldfish and bizarre rare plants. Dulwich Village is not like East Dulwich. It’s a bit posh.
Never mind.
George’s first day at nursery
It’s george’s first day at nursery today. Lisa took him over there for an hour and sat with him. He seemed to settle in fine, but tomorrow I’ve got to take him back and this time leave him for a couple of hours. I think this process of slowly leaving children for longer and longer is more for the parent’s benefit than the kids. George will be fine without us for a day. He’s the world’s most smily child in any situation, and we’ve made sure we leave him with other people fairly regularly, so I’m not afraid of leaving him.
George is very outgoing and will chat to anyone. He seems unperturbed by the fact that we all expect him to learn our language but nobody’s making the slightest effort to learn his.
He probably just thinks we’re typical English people.
2 comments:
We have had wingmirror spiders in our car for years, I leave them well alone now. They may be the only things keeping it on the road....
Ickenham and Ruislip have also had the gang "trainers over the telephone wire" in recent months but all have now been taken down. The gangs were there before, mind you, they just had a better use for their footwear then. Like actually wearing them, presumably.
I don't know whether you use old trainers or new trainers for the wire thing...
probably best to use somebody elses.
it's how they get them up there that puzzles me.
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