Friday

Friday to Borough Market, where I bought some raspberries for Heather, a BM tea Towel for myself and a Melton Mowbray Pork Pie from the kindly Mrs King. Home by bus to the Bank then Number 25 to Ilford. Great fun if you are a people and place watcher as I think I have become in my old age!

Redbridge roundabout where the M11 meets the A12 - shot on Tuesday last as the snow disappeared. The second photograph is the Picture of the Week in the ILFORD RECORDER today 8th March. Well done Transport for London for planting the bulbs over the years and for replenishing the stock and planting new trees. 

Bulbs are starting to bloom in the churchyard

After the snow encased the bulbs as they pushed bravely through the grass in St. Peter's Churchyard Aldborough Hatch, the show is beginning - with some 6,000 spring bulbs planted over the past three autumns. I would guess that withn a week or so they will all be out!

I have Ciri!

My friends will recall that I had a problem earlier this week when I found myself trapped in my shower. I have now discovered that I have a foolproof method of contacting a member of my family should this - or anything similar - happen again - provided I have my mobile near at hand and switched on. I tried it last evening. I took the mobile into the bathroom, placed it on a shelf and entered the shower cubicle. Once inside I called: "Hey Ciri, Call Heather Barrow" and Ciri did just that! I then tried Graham and it worked for him too - although he was in Dorset and driving one of the boys to indoor cricket so would not have been of much help, although I guess he could call the fire brigade.

And to who do I owe the help to find that I have Ciri on my mobile? Why Heather and Marlon, who helped me last evening by driving Socks and me to see the Vet Lady. Socks does not like the cat basket and hates the car drive - so they came to give me support in catching him and putting him in the basket - and comforting him in the car. He seems to like the Vet Lady and does just as he is told - he even explored her room whilst she loaded up the syringe. Socks is suffering from fur loss - but is recovering after this second Vet visit.

So now I have Ciri as well as Alexa. What more could I ask?

I will take my mobile into the shower from now onwards!

I would guess that there are very few folk who take their mobile phone with them when they take a shower - but I will be doing so from now onwards! Not into the shower cabinet completely, of course, for that would be stupid - getting the mobile soaked in water would be asking for trouble. Instead I will leave the mobile outside the cubicle, but tied to a length of string so that should I need to make a call, all I would have to do is pull on the string and the mobile would come roaring into the cubicle. I could then sit on the seat - for I have a seat, in case you are wondering - and make a call.

Why, I hear you ask, is this necessary? Well, last evening I decided to take a shower. On entering the cubicle I slid the door to close it when it jammed shut! Looking up, I noticed that one of the two top rollers had broken - with half still in place and the other half on the floor outside.

I tried to open the door by sliding it - but it would not budge. It was at that moment when realised that I could be stuck in the shower all night as I live alone - just with Socks, who was having a good sleep after his supper and could not care less about me. No-one would know - until Heather made her usual telephone call on her way to work just after 7am in the morning.

I kept calm - honest! Taking careful stock of the situation, I realised there was no way I could climb over the top of the shower cubicle. So I decided to attempt to ease the door back to open. At first it would not move, so I tried to lift the door by sliding my hands in at the sides - and that worked! Taking my time and not panicking, I pushed and pulled the door to give me a gap of about six inches or so through which I could squeeze. Being slim off stature pays.

I rang Tom the Plumber today. He happened to be working nearby and was here within five minutes of my call. Expecting that he might have to order the rollers, Tom said he would contact me when their arrived - but he was back within the hour with two sets - and as I write he is fitting them now. What would I do without Tom and his son Ian? They have saved me a number of times this winter - from an airlock, a cold water tank that needed some work in the loft, from a near frozen boiler outlet. Phew!

The Beast from there East brought winds direct from Russia -  minus four with the wind chill taking it to minus nine. As the result, I have not been out to take photographs for some days - but now on 3rd March here are some shots in the garden.

A great day in London

Last November I suggested to Paul that we should book something for mid-February, when the dark days of winter are starting to make us wonder if we will ever see the sunshine again. Paul agreed. So I booked a matinee for Thursday 15th February at the St. Martin's Theatre to see Agatha Christie's 'The Mousetrap'. This thriller has been running since 1952. I saw it in the 1950s and Paul had seen it before. But we had both forgotten the ending who dunnit! That is until the interval when Paul wrote the name of the murder inside his programme - and he was right (and that was no surprise for the lad has a photographic memory, such that if you give him a month of the year in the late 1970s he will be able to tell you the second colour used in SCOUTING Magazine of which he was assistant editor at the time to my editor).

I arrived at the new Tottenham Court Road Station which TfL have done up somewhat. There in the foyer - near the swiss escalator onto the street - is a piano with the invitation to anyone passing by to play. The chap in my photograph was brilliant - with fingers that dashed all over the place playing sparkling tunes. He stood up to give way to a young man, but before the latter could be seated a girl of about eight sat on the seat and started to play with one finger. The pianist then sat down with her and they played together. It was just magic in the Underground. I am told - by Paul, who knows these things - that other pianos are installed in various stations in London.

A short walk down Charing Cross Road - and a peep onto Foyles, but I have a house full of books so I was not tempted - and I arrived at the St Martin's at the same time as Paul. The play started out at the Ambassador's next door before moving to the St Martin's. The cast changes every year - which is just as well for the originals would be somewhat older by now. OI had expected the theatre to be filled with oldies - but it was half term so there were lots of families which was good.

From there we partook of a Starbucks Coffee and then journeyed to Fleet Street for dinner at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. Paul had promised me dinner there for it has great literary associations - Charles Dickens, G K Chesterton and the like dined there. Dating from the 16th Century, it was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666 and rebuilt a year later. I had steak and kidney pie - what else! We both had a G & T - hence the photograph is a bit shaky. That's two G & Ts in as many months. I may become an alcoholic.

We had a couple of taxis as it was far too cold to stand about for buses and I wanted to make it a day we would enjoy without getting ill into the bargain. London at night from the warmth of a London cab is something to be savoured and enjoyed. The driver of my Ilford Radio Cars mini-cab from Ilford Station to my home had not seen me for sometime and when I told him where I had been, he asked me if I should be out at eight at night - alone on Ilford Hill. When I told him I am 85 next month, he just sighed!