Bilborough to Highfields Park: An urban walk of wonders

This post is coming in two parts: first a FitBit walk map from Susan's gizmo, then over 50 photographs of the walk all taken last Wednesday (21 March 2018). Their ordinariness for the most part hides what I find remarkable. A section of the walk (from Glaisdale Drive to Harrison Plantation) I have never done before, despite having it in my head to do so for the past ten years. I will explain later when I add captions to the photographs. If you are local look and see what you recognise.

This is the actual walk we did. We covered just over 4 miles in 108 minutes, excluding a 60 minute lunch-break at the Wollaton Hall Stables café. Susan isn't sure what the 26' 45" means, so I'm ignoring it. At the end we spent another 45 minutes in the Djanolgy Art Gallery Café.  My map shows a walking route which can include walking around all the ponds along the route (five of them). We chose to bypass them. 

My map has yet to have photograph locations,  landmarks and bus travel info added. I hope to complete by Easter Saturday.

  

Bus Box Mk.2 contains chocolate

My brother's birthday today. This time last year I knew nothing of him. He came to me via Susan and his grand-daughter when she posted a link identifying me and her as second cousins. This led her to believe that her grand-father and me might be half-brothers, sharing the same father. The result of a DNA test in June came back a month later and confirmed that we did indeed have the same father. At 73 this was quite something for me to discover. My half-brother was 82, so for him it was even more remarkable, learning something so late in life.

The plan had been to spend his birthday together with our wives, both Susans, but life got in the way, so we sent him some sugar reduced chocolate in a box I made just for him. I designed it to take 6 x 150g bars.

Two boxes. The one at the back sits over the one at the front.

I created the box last Wednesday, tweaked it on Thursday and on Friday morning Simon at Pixel & Graphics on Chilwell Road printed off 2 x A3 size copies for me, which I took home, cut out and put in the post on Friday afternoon. I had no second chance and only spotted a spelling mistake this morning!

My parcel was delivered the next day and opened today.

The new look bus box will become a trolleybus before long and acquire a sloping front and become two usable boxes in one. A self-taught craft. Who would have thought I would be doing this at my age!

A Beeston biscuit secret shared and other foodie treats

My shopping habits are just that — very predictable.
Most of the shops I regularly use can be found in what I call my very own 'Beeston Quarter':

The map shows the small shops, not the chains, that I use with a couple of exceptions insomuch as Birds and Wilkco's have local roots of sorts. What prompted this map is this little shop:

It stands on Wollaton Road where the pavement is at its narrowest. To view the shop's whole frontage you need to stand on the other side of Wollaton Road. I took this pic from the pavement outside the shop. What makes it special is the fact that it sells Trebor Very Strong Spearmint Mints and, and sugar-free biscuits (the two ands is deliberate) at prices which demonstrate why no supermarket chain or their companions deserves any loyalty from shoppers. News & Essentials on Wollaton Road sells sugar free digestives, chocolate wafers, chocolate chip cookies for c.£1 a packet. 

In the next week or so they hope to add sugar-free chocolate to the range they sell. News & Essentials sell other biscuits as well, all at below supermarket prices as far as I can see. They deserve to succeed — hence this commercial by me! The service is friendly and a great example of why I try to use local independent shops as and when I can.

Out of this World at the junction of Cross and Villa streets is Beeston's only organic food shop insomuch as that is all it sells, be it fruit, vegetables, breakfast cereals, cakes, flours, nuts, tinned foodstuffs, cosmetics, you name it. I buy things like nuts, honey, shampoo, body wash etc most weeks. If I had the money I would buy more there but there are areas where it is competitive with the supermarkets and there are offers all the time, so it's worth looking once a week at least.

Hallam's the fishmonger and greengrocer. Well, what can one say? Good quality at reasonable prices, certainly better than any of the supermarkets. I visit several times a week.

One of my better photographs which includes the top pic of the salmon's head and, most notably, its eye. The fish counter is a always a work of art, a sight to behold. This week dogfish, one of my favourites, along with cod's hard roe. I bought them both!

Birds make the best pork pies. I like the small 'cocktail' pies, all of 68p best. Three small bites and its gone, but every one close to divine. Their custard tarts are good too and Susan loves their cream buns, which I always think of as Devon Splits. Their boiled ham is like no other cooked meat and we both like tongue, and Birds is usually my first port of call for this homemade sandwich or roll treat.

Rosie Lea's Tearoom is a place we do not visit often enough, but when we fancy a bacon roll this is where we go. I usually have the version which includes an egg and, of course, brown sauce. The pot of tea for two is generous and of your choosing. We usually have Earl Grey. Hidden away it may be, but well worth searching out. I would describe it as Beeston's most unlikely location for a café.

Next time I will take a pic. I've just realised that I've been too busy enjoying a Rosie Lea's bacon and egg cob to take a pic. I can feel a visit coming on. I might see you there. They do good poached eggs too!

The Country Market in Wollaton Road Methodist Church every Friday morning (7.30–11.30am) is worth getting up for and when I don't have time to make a cake and I have visitors coming, there is no better place to go. Supermarket cake is always overly sweet, so I never buy it. The worst shopping smell I know is the nauseous smell of the open cookie counters in shopping malls. The Country Market is a whole different experience. There is a small café open at the same time. For the perfect treat it is even better then Birds.

In The Square there is a regular 'Monday Market' of sorts selling food and other items too. Craft fairs as well. It's really a case of turn up and see, especially on Saturdays. I have bought a couple of hats and the occasional bunch of ripe bananas.

I could go on, but the whole point of this post is to encourage you to explore; to create your map of the Beeston town centre you like even if it never leaves your head except when having chance conversations.

Beeston Town Centre is so accessible on foot,  by public transport and car parking is cheap, that is should be a Mecca for shoppers wanting to escape Nottingham City Centre and enjoy somewhere more intimate. The High Road has such potential that you wonder Broxtowe Borough Council fails to use its imagination? The truth is it is a victim of traps it makes for itself!

Everyday mass produced objects of pleasure

An email recently exchanged with a friend set me thinking about simple everyday mass produced things which give me pleasure; which I look at at least once a day and enjoy for what they are and wonder why they've disappear from shops when they could go on forever. I show them in no particular order.

For my birthday a few years ago our friends Rosie and Paul who live in Stoke-on-Trent took me and Susan to the Middleport Pottery when it was  run-down and neglected, just hanging on by the skin of its teeth with the help of funding from The Prince of Wales Trust (I'm pleased to say it's now thriving again). I took a fancy to the bowl and decided to buy four. Rosie added the saucers, then bought me the lot as a birthday present for all of £5! We use them every day, they are a pleasure to hold and handle, and great portion control!

This portable reading lamp cost £16 a few years ago. It is elegant and gives off three levels of light from rows of small LED light. During the recent power cut it was bright enough to light our kitchen. Its clean lines make it an object of pleasure just sitting on a bookcase.

Two IKEA items. The plastic garden chair was one of six I bought in 1996 for a new office I was opening for the housing charity I worked for after 11 years working from home. It is one of the most comfortable chairs I have ever sat in and cost £9. When I retired in 2006, they had long been written off the books but still graced the charity's office in Old Basford. When asked what I would like as a retirement present, I chose two of these chairs from the office. IKEA stopped selling them years ago. I can't understand why. The cushion covers will be a different design when they need replacing, but the material is hardwearing and still looking good after 22 years!

The round glass table is an IKEA take-off of a classic design which they no longer sell.

Finally a plastic Cyclax container which contains the home-made shaving balm Susan makes for me. Our local pharmacy in Lenton was selling off end-of-line Cyclax hand and face moisturisers for 50p a pot all of 15 years ago and we bought loads of the lavender lotions. I just love the tactility of this plastic container, how it sits in my hand, the roundness of its lid and the base; no awkward corners, easy to clean. Again, another so so simple pleasing design which has disappeared.

I'm sure that I'm not alone in the enjoyment I get from everyday mass-produced things. Good design matters and something we should all be able to enjoy without having it pointed out to us.

A postscript (6 March 2018).

How could I forget my Lamy fountain pen? This posh version cost all of £19 and was bought for me by Susan to replace the Lamy pen I lost/left somewhere a couple of years ago. She said it being lurid green aluminium should make it harder for me to lose and, so far, she has been proved right (the lost Lamy pen made of clear plastic turned up a few weeks later). The answer to my question appears in the photograph. The pen is an extension of me and, as I say in the last pen written sentence, there can be no better tribute than that!