Weekend Post: Hornsey Town Hall & Regent’s Park (again)
There’s so much to do work-wise before I leave for Thailand that I’m afraid I rather abdicated this weekend, eschewing festive parties and the suchlike in favour of family, friends and dogs. On Saturday I extracted my sister, after quite some effort, from her flat to drive up to Crouch End for the North London Vintage Fair.
The appeal was two-fold: it was being held in Hornsey Town Hall, now empty and used, in the main, for shooting TV dramas like The Hour. It was Britain’s first Modernist building and the gorgeous curvilinear interiors are mostly still intact, so I didn’t want to miss an opportunity to check it out.
We had also learnt that there was a lady with a stall who custom-makes Dachshund sweaters. (She has a Facebook page: www.facebook.com/BettyKnits). We were successful on both counts: Letty is to have a new knit for the winter, and we got to see the beautiful atrium, with its curved walls, and etched glass panel doors. Tara and her number one son joined us, and a lovely time was had by all.
I’m afraid I slept for the rest of the afternoon, tucked up with Lettice, and then worked all Saturday night. Sunday saw Rach drive over for our now customary brunch at lovely dog-friendly Market on Parkway in Camden, before we headed out for a two hour tramp around the circumference of Regent’s Park.
Each time we go out, we explore a different section, and this time we walked past the boating ponds, and checked out all the birdlife. Mainly Canada geese, seagulls, coots, and lots of herons.
We spent most of the walk talking over our plans for Thailand. We have the first six nights, flights, transfers etc all booked now, but are still in two minds about where to spend NYE, and which island to hunker down on for the rest of the trip.
We spent the next hour going through my case of summer clothes, trying to decide what to pack, as well as pulling out all my travel tech – speakers, chargers, adapters, AirPort and the rest, and checking that my Scrabble and backgammon sets were all complete. Three weeks suddenly feels like it really is a long time to be away.
Someone was quite exhausted by their walk.
