It's a B********l D*y i* t*e N******u****d
~Or~ A short walk through Dartmouth Park to get some bread
My friend Ben asked to see some photos of our immediate neighbourhood since we’ve moved. And as it was a lovely day, here are some highlights of a walk I took to get some bread for a supper that consisted of roasted mushrooms with goat cheese and cress on toast.
This is Grove Terrace and it’s just across the road from our churchy house.
The whole block is Grade II listed, meaning that it’s of some particular historical interest. We don’t know what that historical interest is, but it survived The Blitz, because the Nazis decided not to bomb North London all that badly. The famous landscape architect Geoffrey Jellicoe lived in one of the houses and the people who live there now have done a bang up job keeping up the gardening.
This is the grassy knoll that takes up the space between the quiet little road in front of Grove Terrace and Highgate Road.
It’s perfect for picnics.
At the end of the road and just before entering The Heath is The Bull & Last pub and inn. It’s literally five minutes from our house and if you ever come to visit us, you’d do worse than to stay above a pub where we saw two Pythons* enjoying a pint.
This is Le Sainte-Union Catholic school. It is a French-speaking all-girls school for most ages, I should think. We have a surprising French population in this area. Every Friday, the French diaspora goes for a run in the Heath with their kids and they all chitter away in their Gallic tongues that I’m usually too tired to even attempt to understand what they’re saying, even though I’ve been through all of Call My Agent now.
This school made it into the national papers because 17 girls had to go to the hospital because they suddenly “felt unwell” after consuming sweets. Some people say “unwell;” others say “high as Mary Poppins.” Tomayto, tomahto.
It’s just up the way from…
This is Swain’s Lane. It’s gotten fancy and unfortunately, I didn’t get a great shot here, but the sun was behind me and glared on the phone screen.
Roni’s is a bagel shop. You have no idea how excited we were to have them open up here. As soon as they opened up, we went for breakfast. Hannah went in to order.
“Hi welcome to Roni’s, can I help you?”
“Hi, yes, could I have two everything bagels, toasted, with cream cheese, for takeaway, please?”
The kid behind the counter just blinked at her.
“Um, what?”
Hannah gave him a sideways glance and realized she didn’t see any baskets of bagels. “Um…Do you…do you do bagels here?”
“Yeah.” the kid pointed at a plastic bag with half a dozen bagels in it. “I can give you a smoked salmon bagel if you want.” He pointed to the refrigerator in front of Hannah, where pre-made bagel sandwiches loafed.
Most of you can picture Hannah’s face at this revelation, so I won’t describe it. She walked out, told me about this and we agreed right then and there that we would never go to Roni’s. What kind of bagel shop doesn’t do a toasted everything with cream cheese?
A bullshit one, that’s what kind.
That’s the inside of one of the Gail’s bakeries. We have two within walking distance of our flat. They do a pretty decent job and everything is organic. We have a French bakery that we’ll be frequenting more often because they make the best baguette you can get outside of Paris, and Hannah usually has a sourdough on hand, but Gail’s will do in a pinch.
These are just some of the really nice houses in our neighbourhood. At least one famous person lives in one of those and we don’t know which house it is. Probably more, honestly. Lots of actors live over here.
Turning left…
This is York Rise. It’s a lovely little residential street that happens to be over The Fleet one of the famous London subterranean rivers. It flows from its source at the Ponds in the Heath, over to this spot and straight ahead on its way to Blackfriars and the Thames about six miles hence.
Here’s a couple off-shoot streets along York Rise that are nice to look at:
These are two of the three super fancy streets in our neighbourhood. The third is Boscastle and that has two houses with creepy carousel horses sitting in the windows and I’m not doing that to you.
But the houses are lovely to do a bit of Housepeeping.
Follow the Fleet just a little farther and you’ll come to our favourite local, The Dartmouth Arms. Just next door to it, with the pink at the front is Truffles Delicatessen. Great Italian imports: cheeses, cured meats, wines, pastas, etc. It’s run by this jocular fellow named Lee who is happy to give a recipe for tomato sauce or tell you why provolone is a terrible cheese choice and you’ll never find it in his shop, no sir (also, he’s wrong, it’s the best cheese for a meatball sub, thankyewverymuch).
Across the street and not seen here is Monsoon Indian Cuisine, an excellent curry place with the hottest curry ever and I really want to get it again, though, medically, I can’t say that’s a great idea.
Around the corner from the pub is our local chippy. As we understand it, it’s run by a very nice Brazilian family and they make an excellent fish and chips.
The rest of the way home is just a nice walk through a friendly neighbourhood with friendly people.
And that’s Dartmouth Park. Let me know if there’s anywhere else here you want me to document with pictures, since you can’t and won’t be able to visit any time soon.
Thanks, Bojo.
*Sir Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam. We sat outside at a table just on the other side of the window from them. Michael Palin lives somewhere in our neighbourhood.