My Ruined Saturday Mornings!
Since, I moved to Dalston in 2010, my Saturday morning routine has been something like this.
- Take a 30 Bus to St. Mary’s Church.
- Visit the Carluccio’s and have a gluten-free breakfast, like a full English or an eggs benedict.
- Visit Waitrose for half my shopping.
- Visit Marks and Spencer for my gluten-free shopping.
But things have changed.
Egyptian Buses On Route 30
A few weeks ago, new buses started on route 30.
I don’t use them, except as a last resort.
They were built in Egypt. Now, I’ve nothing against Egyptians or their country, but we make very good buses in this country and we should have British buses for British bottoms!
The new company running the route seems to not provide the same frequency anyway, so catching a 30 bus, would often involve a longer wait.
Carluccio’s Has Closed
But the need to take a 30 bus decreased, a few weeks ago, when Carluccio’s in Islington closed.
As there is no other place in Islington to get a quick gluten-free breakfast, that put a big hole in my Saturday mornings. I could go to Bill’s or Cote, but they take a lot longer and are much more expensive.
Waitrose
Waitrose too, are annoying me.
They have redone their self-service tills and they are useless for my way of shopping.
I have a large reusable M & S bag, that folds into my man-bag and although it was fine for their original tills, it’s too big for their new tills.
So to shop in Waitrose, I put the bag in the trolley, load my purchases onto the till without a bag and then after payment move them into my shopping bag. How inefficient is that?
I now limit my purchases at Waitrose by using the much-more customer friendly Sainsburys next door.
Anyway, Sainsburys have a much better gluten-free selection, than the terrible range in Waitrose, where no care is taken to make ranges of foods like sausages and burgers gluten-free.
In fact, I wouldn’t trust Waitrose on their allergen philosophy. The labelling might be correct, but it’s all about how different product types and ranges are handled.
You wouldn’t shop in Waitrose if you were a family with one member who was coeliac or gluten-free!
Marks And Spencer
Marks and Spencer at the Angel carry on as normal, as they have done since my paternal grandmother shopped there ibefore the First World War and, when C and I used to shop there in the 1970s.
But they have competition in that I am ringed by others of their stores in Dalston, Finsbury Pavement, Kings Cross, Liverpool Street and London Bridge.
Yesterday, I ate breakfast in Leon at Kings Cross and then roamed the shops before doing my Saturday shopping in their Finsbury Pavement store. That one is now opening on Saturdays and I can get two buses directly from the store to the zebra crossing by my house.
Conclusion
All of these factors are combining to make me use Islington less.
What the Angel needs is a Leon, so I can have a fast gluten-free breakfast on the go.
One of the great things about breakfast in Leon, is that there is often time and space to layout your tabloid-sized newspaper and eat a leisurely breakfast.
Bad Logic From Marks And Spencer
I am not the largest of individuals being around one metre seventy and sixty-one kilos.
But then many coeliacs are on the smallish side.
So when I saw this small meal which was entiled Beef Chilli & Cheese Filled Jacket Potato, I suspected that it could be gluten-free, as it seems most of Marks and Spencer’s beef chillis are made without gluten.
On turning the packet over, I found my reasoning was correct, as the dreaded g-word was missing.
Next to this baked potato on the shelf, was a Smoked Haddock Mornay Filled Jacket Potato.
Now this is where the logic is bad
- Some of their fish dishes with a Mornay sauce are gluten-free and others are not. This was one of the ones with gluten!
- Surely, if all chillis can be gluten-free, then all fish Mornays should be the same as to gluten.
- Perhaps, all baked potato dishes like this should also be the same as to gluten.
- I also think that with fish, shepherds and cottage pies with a potato topping, whether a pie is gluten-free or not depends on the range.
- And with sausages and burgers, they are all gluten-free.
If you are vegan or need to be dairy-free, I’m certain there are other examples of similar products varying as to acceptability.
How Was The Eating?
Not bad at all! I’ll try another, but I would love to try the smoked haddock variety!
Conclusion
I believe that a regular shopper in a particular supermarket chain, should be able to ascertain, if a product is suitable by just reading the title. They can always check by reading the detailed labelling
Dalston Goes French
I know that De Beauvoir Town, where I live, is next to Dalston’s Kingsland Road, which is the local High Street, but surely for the local Marks and Spencer to sell sandwiches labelled in French is going a bit far.
What would the Rees-Moggies say of this?
The New Wide Pedestrian Entrance To London Bridge Station
These pictures show the entrance to London Bridge station from the bus station.
It will also be the way many people enter the station after walking across London Bridge.
From notices on the walls, it would also appear that there will be a new Marks and Spencer Simply Food.
A Pit Stop At Hampstead Heath Station – 12th May 2018
I went for breakfast to a convenient Le Pain Quotidien near Hampstead Heath station.
In addition to the Heath, the station is within walking distance, to a large number of eateries and shops, including a very large M & S Simply Food.
There is also the Royal Free Hospital.
When I go to Hampstead Heath, I tend to go to Hampstead station in the High Street, then walk down the hill and go home from the London Overground station.
West Hampstead Station – 12th May 2018
West Hampstead station is being rebuilt with a new entrance and a step-free footbridge.
The new station would appear to be able to handle more passengers.
This image on the BPR Architect’s web site, shows how it will look, when it opens.
The new station would appear to be able to handle more passengers.
It’s strikes me, that the design is almost a modern application of the rules, that created London Underground’s distinctive stations of the 1930s.
One of the routes I took to and from Minchenden School, involved two of the Piccadilly Line‘s iconic stations; Oakwood and Southgate. Both were designed by Charles Holden and are Grade II* listed buildings.
Those stations were and still are all about space, brickwork, glass, imaginative use of metal and clean lines, often with integrated retail units.
West Hampstead station appears similar, but the retail is more surrounding, than integrated.
Modern fabrication techniques with metal and plastics, also give the architects and designers more freedom.
I like the pierced steel cladding on the footbridge at West Hampstead station and it is probably a lot more affordable, than all the bronze used in Southgate station.
If my mother, who died a few years ago, came back and arrived at the new West Hampstead station on the London Overground, she’d only confuse it with a London Underground station.
Do I Hoard Too Much Beer?
I have been buying the Marks and Spencer 0.5% Southwold Pale Ale.
With my body, the beer seems to be gluten-free and also the alcohol level is low enough to not affect my INR.
But am I buying to much, as the most I drink in a day is two?
I am only guarding against future shortages!
This behaviour seems to run in the family.
My mother used to tell this tale.
At the start of the Second World War, she asked her Dalstonian mother, if she was prepared for the inevitable rationing.
Her mother replied, that she’s been caught out in the Great War, so this time she’d already got a hundredweight of jam in the cellar and she had another hundredweight of sugar ready to make some more!
I doubt, there was a jam shortage in the Millbank household during the Second World War!
Perhaps, my prudence over beer shortages comes from my Dalstonian grandmother?
I’m Now Following The Queen’s Example
By Legend, the Queen never carries any cash.
I’m now deliberately following a similar policy, but I only use a contactless bank card for most of my daily purchases, like my paper and food.
I’ve even still got a couple of John Lewis vouchers gathering dust in my wallet, as sincve the new M & S Food opened in Dalston, I rarely go need a Waitrose.
One thing I find with M & S Food, is that on a typical purchase the average price is two pounds per item. So to keep under the thirty pound contactless limit, I rarely buy more than fourteen items. These unusually fit easily into usable bag.
Buying my paper in M & S or a station also means I can use contactless for the purchase.
A couple of days ago, I was approached by an aggressive tin rattler for a charity I would never suppose because of some of their practices. So I waved my card and asked. “Do you do conactless?” I got a smiling “Sorry! No!”
I still use cash for three purposes.
- Restaurants with waiter/waitress service, so the tips go to the staff. It also means at busy times, in cafes I use a lot, I always get a table.
- Black cabs, when I occasionally use one.
- Personal services from local tradesmen, where the value is small. Otherwise it’s a bank transfer.
But it’s amazing, how little cash you now need.
Marks And Spencer Returns To Dalston
Marks and Spencer used to have a shop in Dalston, but it is now long gone. In those days before and during the Second World War, the shop would have been close to where my mother worked at Reeves.
Yesterday, I went to the littleWaitrose at Highbury and Islington, only to find it was being rebuilt, so I decided to take the Overground to Dalston Kingsland station and get the tin of cannellini beans, needed from the big Sainsburys opposite.
On turning right out of the station, I saw a new store had been opened under a new residential block.
Imagine my surprise, when I saw it was a new M & S Foothall.
But Marks and Spencer don’t sell cannellini beans, do they? Oh! Yes they do!
- This new stop may only have a short frontage on the street, but it is deep.
- It is much more Kings Road, than Dalston Kingsland High Street.
- The gluten-free section is massive.
- I was even able to get the Southwold 0.5% low-alcohol beer.
These pictures show the store on Dalston Kingsland High Street.
I suspect this store will be a roaraway success.
- It is a high-quality store.
- The world-famous Ridley Road Market is opposite.
- The only major store in the area, is a medium-sized, but rather tired Sainsburys.
- Passengers changing between the two alston stations will have to pass the front door.
- It is up there with new stores I’ve seem in Camden Town, Muswell Hill and West Hampstead.
If Crossrail 2 is built, it will sit right on top of the Dalston mega-station.
Thoughts On Alcoholism
In the last month or so, I’ve done something that I’ve never done before in my life.
I’ve drunk perhaps half a bottle of beer when I’ve got up. Admittedly, I’d left the bottle half finished by my computer.
It was good.
In the 1960s, I could drink a lot of beer. I just seemed to need it.
About that time, I decided I needed to drink large amounts of fluids and swapped to tea and Coke.
My doctor understands my needs for fluids and the practice nurse has the same problem. The nurse puts it down to leaky skin, which he has.
I actually love walking in the rain, so that might help explain it. We all live by the laws of physics.
My father warned me off alcohol in a practical way, by giving me halves of Adnams down at Felixstowe Conservative Club, whilst we played snooker, when I was about fourteen.
My father drank a lot of fluids, but I never saw him drunk and most doctors would say he was a sensible drinker. Like me, he also drank a lot of tea!
He had a reason to control his drinking! His father had died from complications of being an alcoholic at 40, when my father was about twenty.
My grandfather had lived just around the corner from where I live now and my father had once told me, he had drunk large amounts of beer and had moved on to whisky.
Around 1900, there was very little to drink except beer, so did my grandfather’s need for fluids mean that he turned to what was available?
Now I like a good beer and know of its properties to slake a thirst when you’re dry. I’ve worked in foundries in the 1960s and beer was always available.
So is there a type of person, who needs a lot of fluids and if beer is available they turn to it. In some cases does this lead to alcoholism.
As to myself, I must have gluten-free beer and because I’m on Warfarin, I must keep my alcohol consumption down.
So I now drink a gluten-free beer, that is just 0.25 of a unit and tastes like real beer from Marks and Spencer.
But then it is real beer, as it is brewed in Southwold by Adnams.
My life has come full circle.
The Anonymous Widower 