Clapton Pond Blog

Scaffolding on parade

I imagine I'm like most people in that I mooch along Lower Clapton Road sometimes noticing the shops but rarely lifting my eyes to the floors above them or seeing them as part of a single parade within a built entity in the form of a large block.

Sleepy fox

This fox was asleep on my kitchen roof at 6:30 this morning when I woke up. I took the photo as it finally stirred at around 3:00 in the afternoon. There's been a reduction in fox activity in my garden (and fox inactivity on my roof) in recent months. Perhaps normal service is being resumed. 

A view from upstairs at Palm 2

This was for Sunday morning breakfast. Looks so strangely serene out there.

An unusual gift from my dry cleaner

It's not every dry cleaner that gives you one of these when you drop in to pick up your wife's posh frocks. "What is it?" asked a Member of Parliament on Twitter (I mean it). Clue: it was edible. 

Clapton's confident foxes

Here are two of the three foxes who consider my kitchen roof part of their territory. The third one had trotted off a minute earlier. They seem to get braver every day

New Year skyline

Here's what this morning looked like. I've seen bluer. 

Boris bike mounts Clapton Pond railings

It was there just after 7:00 this morning as I walked through the gloom towards Palm 2. Boris Johnson has taken pride in very few of his hire bikes being dumped or vandalised. Here was one of the few. Was it left there as an art statement? Should it be dismissed as mere arsing around? Is there a difference? I took this photo on my way back home at around 7:45 (the shopping and coffee are mine). When I went out again just after 9:00 it was gone.

A collision outside Candela

Walking back home from Kings Hall on Tuesday evening with two of my sons I heard from up ahead the terrible crunch of vehicles colliding, then felt that strange sensation of time seeming to stand still while passers by tried to work out what to do. Some walked on, others stood and gawped, waiting for someone else to take responsibility.

A police station story

Lots has happened to the now former police station in Lower Clapton Road since last January when I asked if anybody cared that it might close (they didn't). Firstly, it did close as a result of Boris Johnson's review of the Metropolitan Police Service's considerable property estate. Then it was sold for a hefty £7.6m to the government's Education Funding Agency and allocated to an Islamic free school, the Olive primary based for now in Cazenove Road.

Palm 2 secret thought

Signed by the legend himself.