David has found his way into the blog

An occasional Diary from an interested observer on the sidelines

I am in awe of London's public transport---I have taken to simply
setting out some mornings, walking 100 yards to Lordship Lane, or 1km to the High Street buses and Wood Green tube and going exploring.
For £3 I can buy an all-day pass and go anywhere in London's vast
area by red bus. Or for another £2.20 I can make it an all day ticket
on bus and tube. You see more by bus: the tube has an element of
mystery---you look at the the station name, Caledonian Road, say, but
you have no idea where it is or who is there 150 feet above you, but from the
top of a 91 bus you learn a lot, and see a lot of good pubs where you
can leap off, race in for a half pint of Fuller's London Pride, and
emerge to catch the next bus which will appear every 4-6 minutes on
busy routes or at worst every 15 minutes.
Next, to The Bloomsbury for a Bloomsbury Platter (bread cheese
olives radishes salami) and a half of Spitfire, or Old Speckled Hen or
Marston's Premium for 80p or £1. The Wetherspoon Free Houses chain is
having a Real Ale Festival from October 31, at £1.59 for a pint of any
of 50 "guest ales", real ales brought in from all round the country.
The Routemasters (RMs), red, half-cab, rear platform, crew-of-two
double deckers, are still running on three routes-the 38 from Victoria Station near Buck House to Clapton Pond a seedy, inner east suburb next to the marshland of Hackney and Stratford (where the 2012 Olympics site will be built). Time to buy up property in Hackney? And the 13 from Aldwych near BBC House and the Strand, North West to Swiss Cottage and Golders Green (quite salubrious). And 159 from Marble Arch (very grand) south across Westminster Bridge to Brixton (very rough) and Streatham Station, past The Oval Kennington. All the routes by accident or design, pass through Piccadilly Circus, so they are on full show to tourists, despite the sadly run-down condition of these amazing buses. (Their private operators are not going to spend heaps on a bus which will leave service within a year or so). There is huge community outcry (on the TV the other night) at their removal so there may be a reprieve in the form of one or two routes, aimed at tourists. I'll keep you
posted.
Enfield Lock sounded romantic-- I imagined a tree-lined canal, the tow path, and most critically, a pub, the Jolly Boatman perhaps. The 121 bus goes up Wood Green High Street, and its destination is Enfield Lock. As we moved north, virtually following above ground along the line of our tube, to Oakwood and Southgate, and then east to Enfield Chase through fields and rolling hills, past The Jolly Farmers on the right. But Enfield itself was bad----railways motorways huge Tescos and being mid-term there were hordes of bored school kids in packs moving around the
shops, piling on and off the bus.
Enfield Lock is at the end of Ordnance Road, a hint that there might
have been a munitions dump there. Or more likely, as it slowly dawned
on me, it was the home of the Lee Enfield .303 rifle: (the River Lee, or Lea
is why the lock is there). So the place was probably where millions of
Lee Enfields were manufactured to equip the British army and the
ANZACs in WWI. Now the whole area , an island in the swamps of the
river, is a gigantic low rise council housing estate devoid of soul, and trees, and pubs, but no doubt better than what the munitions men left behind.
So, back to Enfield Chase and The Jolly Farmers for lunch. I ordered a half of McMullens Bitter and the barmaid, quite cheerfully, said "flounce"---I am fairly good with languages and accents, and I knew from her earlier utterances she was London, east End. I was struck dumb by 'flounce', then had to ask "what did you say?". If you say 'ennyfing eowlse' very quickly, Eastender style, it sounds like flounce, instead of 'anything else'. So I ordered chilli beans (beef was off) and fresh bread, and a half of Banks's bitter---a guest ale bought in on tap for a short time only which the young rather we-behind-the -ears barman said was 'quite good' even though he's not a bitter drinker'. that should have been a warning--it wasn't much different to a lager and not nearly bitter enough for the new me. I'm getting spoiled rotten with the unimaginable number of real cask ales available here. the country divides on this issue; there are the lager men on Stella, Skol, Fosters, 1664, Carling, and the ale (bitter) drinkers who have far more choice depending on the area where the pub is located. I haven't come all this way to waste my money on Fosters.
Our local tube, the Piccadilly Line is briliant. A train every five mins from Wood Green (near us) or Turnpike Lane (near Tom and Emma) and you are in central London in 30 mins. This line is underground all told for nearly an hour, from Bounds Green in the north to west of Hammersmith en route to Heathrow, and its just mindboggling at a big station like Kings cross/St Pancras where 5 lines intersect, all on different levels and you change trains by diving up and down steps and escalators. I do wonder sometimes how the drivers don't have trouble with vitamin D deficiency: not enough sunlight.

Cheers Pennie & David

Email:- penniedavid@gmail.com
Blog:- http://penniedavid.blogspot.com/

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