A London spring

So Country Mouse flew into London a new way, landing in a soft glide along the side of the Thames to London City Airport. Fortunately the plane was small and the pilot knew how to drive in straight lines as well a fly in circles in the sky.

London Transport was on its best behaviour and took me home by bus and by overground in what seemed like less than an hour. I had not realised how big and how dense, low rise greater East London is. That is the joy of bus rides – seeing houses and shops and markets and hundreds of uniformed children. Generation Y (earphones attached to Ipod/phone) has become Generation D with official ID cards hanging round their necks.

Reaching for the sun

London was in brilliant bloom, a joy to the eye but hellish for hay fever sufferers. Our North London garden had repaid the winter love we gave in a magnificent show of blossom and greenery. Like so many inhabitants of Britain the plants are trying to escape to the sun.

My two small efforts at gardening had mixed results. The mint plant has taken well but is obviously short of water. And my salad dandelion – salade verte, pissenlit, endives, noix & lardons – had had too much rain and was too big to eat.

too large to be edible - a survival technique?

However, my guilt feelings for having encouraged the tearing down of the hydrangea that had climbed up from the basement to colonise the roof, were a little assuaged. I save a few sticks that showed little points of green. They seem to have rooted and hopefully will clamber all over – horizontally – the front garden fence.

Only one sad note: one of my favourite local shops has changed hands. But the true, underlying sadness is not the change of personnel but the change of shop layout.

As you come through the shop door, access to the right hand area, where all the newspapers and magazines were displayed, has been blocked off. Customers are steered into the shop and cannot access any goods without being seen by the cashier. Later I noticed other shops had the same layout. Pessimism leads me to presume that there has been an increase in snatch and run theft.

Odd thing: there seems to be a rash of strange, multicoloured hieroglyphs on London pavements. Slightly alarmed as this may indicate digging works with consequent inconvenience for pedestrians. No visible date on any and perhaps change of Mayor will delay works.