A North London Line Panorama
The North London Line from Caledonian Road and Barnsbury to Camden Road is one of those journeys that every visitor to London should go on!
You travel across the city behind King’s Cross and St. Pancras stations, seeing all the new development for the High Speed Line to France and the buildings behind the station.
This video was taken on the trip I took yesterday.
For the best views sit on the south side of the train.
The North London Line is one of London’s hidden treasures, in that it links Stratford and the Olympic Park to Camden with its Market and on to Hampstead Heath, Kew Gardens and Richmond by the River Thames. The best place to start an adventure is from Highbury & Islington station which is also on the Victoria Line.
And to think the line was nearly closed in the 1960s Now that it has been upgraded with new trains, it is a real asset to London.
South From Tottenham Hale and Over the River Lee
Ever since I moved to West Suffolk and have been travelling to London, I’ve been fascinated by the view as the train goes over the marshes south of Tottenham Hale and over the River Lee, before disappearing amongst the houses, buildings and factories of East London.
So yesterday, I took a video from the train.
It looks a good place for a walk and there seem’s to be a propwe pub by the water. But how do you get there?
Living Alone
This is not a moan, but today, I’m having supper from the freezer, as the fridge is getting empty. The reason is that the weather is so awful, that I really didn’t want to go into the shops today. I will have to tomorrow, as I’ll be out of bread and milk by lunchtime. As it happens, I won’t be here then, as I’m going to London, unless the weather is really bad again, in which case I’ll go to Cambridge and then take the train from there to the football.
It will be so much better in London, as I can walk to a couple of decent pubs and if it was raining, I can even take a bus somewhere warm and nice. Not that my kitchen isn’t warm and nice. It’s just that it’s lonely and I have to do the cooking.
But that is not really cooking tonight, as I’m just putting a Waitrose Indian meal in the oven.
How to be Safe from Falling Concrete Mixers
After vreading this story, you obviously need to be in a train!
It’s not really too practical a solution as you don’t often have a train handy, when you see a concrete mixer falling out of the sky!
Luckily no-one was seriously hurt!
What Would Sir John Have Thought?
This sign was outside the pub named after Sir John Betjeman in St. Pancras Station.
The Last Pub Before Paris
I don’t even know whether Sir John liked a drink or not!
The New Kings Cross Station Takes Shape
Before catching the train back to Suffolk from King’s Cross, this afternoon, I walked between the station and St. Pancras and took this photo of the new station.
King's Cross Takes Shape
Hopefully, it’ll be ready in time for the Olympics. At least though, they’ve filled in the hole left by the Nazis in the Second World War.
The Knife and Shepherdess Walk Police Station
When we lived in the Barbican, C used to help look after a house for female ex-prisoners in Hackney. I can’t remember what exactly happened, but I think I went over to the house one day and removed a rather large knife from one of the residents, who did have a reputation for violence.
Today, I was reminded of this story, when I took a 394 from the Geffrye Museum to the Angel at Islington and it passed up Shepherdess Walk.
The reason was that we were uncertain about what to do with the knife, so in the end I took it round to Shepherdess Walk Police Station and dumped it on the counter. The sergeant was uncertain what to do with it and asked me to take it away. However, when I told him where I’d got it from, he agreed to do something with it.
What he did I do not know, but I did know that there was no trouble at the house C ran!
I wonder what would happen today, if you walked into a police station and dumped a large knife on the counter!
Geffrye Museum
Today I paid a visit to the Geffrye Museum, which is just a short walk from Hoxton Station on the East London Line.
It is a charming museum, which has a succession of interiors of tytpical English houses over the last few centuries.
The museum is well worth a visit.
Peak Restrictions in Children’s Holidays
This half-term it would appear that the restrictions on rerurning on busy trains out of London have been removed. I suppose it’s not a bad idea to make up for the lost revenue because lots of people won’t be commuting.
There were quite a few kids on the trains today, so if it gets them into the habit of travelling by train, it is probably not a bad thing!
Reasons To Be Hopeful
This was the headline across the front page of The Times today. They gave it three sub-titles :-
- Growth surprises City
- Advertising soars
- Strongest ewbound since the War
They also talked about how a new shopping centre at One New Change in the City of London, nicknamed the Stealth Bomber is virtually fully let to retailers.
Let’s hope that this is not a false dawn! But visiting Cambridge as I do regularly, I have a feeling that it is not!
The Anonymous Widower 