Deptford pool - latest news

From Lewisham Council's website, posted on 11 Dec: (apologies for any grammatical errors, they are not mine!)

"The works for the new pool remains on target in terms of practical completion. A defects period will then remain in force until 1.8.08 after which Parkwood Leisure will then take over and commission the facility with a view to opening the site for public use on or about 30th August 2008.

The contract build costs remain on budget. The build programme requires the facility to be closed twice. The first was to accommodate reorganisation of the foyer and took place from 1st to 26th April with as little inconvenience to the public as possible, and the second will take place from 3rd May to 20th August 2008, and this will be to join the new pool with the existing building. The opportunity will also be taken to carry out refurbishment works in the existing pool hall.

The creation of new offices and workspace within the library were completed on 4th July 2007. Works to form a mezzanine deck were found to be more intensive than originally envisaged, but in the main, the works did not cause any major problems to the continued day to day operation of the library or the services it offered.

Overall, the construction works have progressed significantly towards a watertight building, with the roof and internal blockwork walls and glazing to the Giffin Street façade now complete."

One thing I am concerned about is the planned opening hours. Currently the pool does not open until 8am for its 'early bird' swim. (These birds will never catch the worm if they stay in bed that late!). This combined with the fact that it's primarily aimed at kids (very warm water, funny shape pool) means I'm rarely seen in there.

Since I'm usually on a train heading for Waterloo East at 8am, I am keen to see the new pool operating more appropriate hours to offer access for early swimmers. I have to cycle to the Arches leisure centre in Greenwich to get a swim in the morning, and I know at least one other early morning swimmer who passes Wavelengths on her way to the Arches every morning in her car.

I have asked the council's leisure dept what opening hours are planned, but all they could tell me was that it had not yet been decided, and there would be consultation carried out before the pool is ready to open. So far no sign of any consultation either on the council's website or at the pool, and I'm finding it difficult to get any more response from the leisure department.

Please please please, if you are listening, make the morning hours more sensible! If you are serious about improving swimming provision in the borough (I'm trying to pretend that the Ladywell fiasco was an isolated case) then take the simple step of giving us the chance of an early morning dip!

Greenwich peninsula

Sunday was a great chance to take the bike and scoot around the peninsula for the first time in ages. Great to find that some of the path that's been closed for ages is back open again, but disappointing to find other parts that have been open now closed.

It was sunny but bitterly cold, so nice and quiet especially on the stretch from the peninsula down to the Thames Barrier. I tried to remember what it was like here before all the redevelopment and found that some of these memories are fading well into the past.

Wished I had the time, daylight and flask of coffee that would enable me to extend my ride as far as Erith or beyond.

But the winter solstice is only days away, and after that, onwards to summer!!!

Sunday afternoon blues

Sundays are very quiet for our car park patrollers. These guys are usually driving round the estate clamping unsuspecting parking violators and then charging them an arm and a leg to have the clamp removed. But we often see them parked up on Sunday afternoons in their vans, having a bit of a chat. Sometimes for several hours! I'm not sure if their extended breaks are costing 'the ratepayer' anything, perhaps the company's income comes from the fines?

Anyhow, it was rather wet last Sunday and this sight did make me chuckle a bit. I think it looks rather sweet....

Frosty morning in Twinkle Park

Safety in numbers

I braved the driving rain on Friday night to meet up with a group of random strangers in a pub near Catford. Well actually they weren't really random since they all had Lewisham roots of some sort or another, and some of them weren't even strangers! As for the pub near Catford, the Jolly Farmers, it turned out to be a gem! Fabulous real ale on offer, the guest beers being served straight fromthe barrels that were installed behind the bar. Sadly I was driving (courtesy of the appalling weather) so wasn't able to indulge as much as I would have liked, but did enjoy a pint of St Austell brewery's Proper Job.

Anyway, it was good to finally meet up with some of those folks whose blogs I've been reading for years, and to find out about blogs I've never heard of before! It was an impressive turnout:

old 'friends' were:
Andrew Brown
Kate
Max
Inspector Sands
and Robert

New finds were:
Andrew Milton
Paul
Clare
Wulf
Katy
and David

I'll admit it was much more fun than an evening with random strangers in a pub in Catford could have been; already looking forward to the next one!

God watches over Deptford

This morning I noticed a hand-written sign on one of the second-hand stalls on Deptford market:

"We do not give discount on this stall by order of God".

You can't really argue with that.

Clean up the Creek!

Volunteers are being invited to help with a Christmas clean-up of Deptford Creek, this Sunday 2nd December from 1pm to 4pm. There will be mince pies and mulled wine on offer when you've washed the mud off your waders, as well as the satisfying glow of having done something worthwhile!

I'm gutted I'm going to miss it as I'll be away on Sunday, but recommend it to anyone who's got a few hours to spare. The staff at the Creekside Centre will supply you with waders and presumably some gloves too, and you can spend a happy couple of hours larking about in the mud. Seriously, it's really interesting to see Deptford from a different viewpoint, and it's also fascinating to learn more about this tidal creek. It really is much more than just a muddy drain.

While you're down Creekside, it's also Cockpit Arts' christmas open studios weekend. There will be plenty of top quality presents on offer, so it's a great place to look for inspiration. Friday, Saturday and Sunday - see the website for info.

Bill's pies

If you like meat pies, you can't go far wrong with Bill's pies from Wellbeloved Butchers at the bottom of Tanner's Hill. When The Geezer and I first started looking for a new home in Deptford, I remember one of the local estate agents raving about these legendary pies as a good reason for taking a place on Tanner's Hill.When we eventually moved in, it took us a while to get round to trying them since we ended up right down the other end of the high street.

Wellbeloved's is the best butcher in Deptford by far. Rather than heaps of chicken portions advertised at ten for a fiver, or whatever, Bill serves good quality meat at realistic prices. And he has pies. Great ones. Chicken & mushroom, chicken & ham, lamb & vegetables, steak & kidney, steak & mushroom... and if you go in at the right time, they are still warm from being freshly baked. Sometimes it can be difficult to resist eating them right away, even when you've just had a full English!

The pastry is flakey and crisp, the fillings are chunks of tender meat rather than minced, indistiguishable muck, and at £1.50 each they make a great Saturday night dinner with minimal outlay, either in time or money!

There is nearly always a queue at Bill's (painfully so on Christmas Eve, as we discovered last year!) and for all the right reasons. The service is helpful and friendly without being obsequious, he has the best black pudding I've found so far in London, and his hygiene is second to none. Order fresh and cooked meat, and you'll see him meticulously washing his hands between handling both, something I can't say I've noticed elsewhere.

Excuse me, all this talk of food is making me peckish....

Eastern Promises

Greenwich locations are often used in feature films - the classic structures of the Old Naval College (now Greenwich University) make it ideal for costume dramas, and Greenwich Park has been used in various films, classic and contemporary.
But if you get chance to see David Cronenberg's new film Eastern Promises, watch out for the appearance of a shadowy Deptford location - not once, but twice in the film! The alleyway leading to the river on Watergate Street is apparently a very good place for getting rid of unwanted bodies. According to one of the film's shadier characters, "the current keeps the bodies under the surface until it gets around the corner"... cut to low tide scene next to Thames Barrier.

(A short disclaimer - this film is not for the squeamish! There's a reason why it is rated 18, and that reason becomes clear from very early in the film. However the scene with the naked, tattooed Russian fighting for his life in a Turkish Bath is well worth hanging around for...!)

Housewives Cash & Carry

This has to be one of my favourite shops in Deptford High Street. Annoying, amusing, frustrating and delightful all at once, its whole is so much more than the sum of its parts.

For a start, it has one of the most uninspiring shopfronts, offering no clue as to the delights that lie beyond. The view in through the huge glass frontage is mostly obscured by mountainous sacks of rice that are stacked up inside in great gravity-defying towers. Quite aside from its vaguely humorous name, part of its charm is the enigma of how to actually get inside. The shop front quite naturally has two doors; an entrance and an exit. More often than not, the entrance door is locked and all movement in and out of the shop has to be accomplished via the exit door, which opens straight into the back of the checkouts and is not best designed for such a use. Occasionally the management subtly signals the fact that the entrance door is locked by placing a trolley across it, but this seems to be only when they are feeling generous. Usually the only way you can discover whether it is open or not is by trying to get in.

But what about the most important aspect - the stock? Housewives' main stock is dry groceries although it does have a small fridge area at the back that occasionally has great yoghurt. But its great strength is the range and price of spices, beans and grains that are the staples in Asian, African and West Indian cooking. My particular favourites are the thai fragrant rice (one of about 30 different types of rice available in many different sized bags), the cheap and plentiful spices (even the best stocked Sainsbury's or Tesco's cannot compare in range or price) and the fact that whatever obscure type of bean or split pea your recipe demands, they will stock it! Want cashew or pistachio nuts without having to take out a mortgage? Housewives is the place!

Not all is cheap and cheerful - the shelves hide quite a few unexpected lines such as Dorset Cereals, organic olive oil, and herb and fruit teas. They have a good range of flours and baking ingredients, as well as standard tinned, dried and bottled groceries of all persuasions.

One of the things I like the most about Housewives - and also find the most frustrating! - is the fact that they don't really have standard lines. Apart from Asian staples, you can't always rely on them having the same thing on the shelves two weeks running - it's as if they go down the wholesalers and buy whatever takes their fancy. This is as charming as it is annoying - you might be irritated cos you're relying on them for your bread flour, but at the same time you're delighted by the discovery that have organic coffee on sale. And just because a supermarket stocks a certain line doesn't mean it always has it on the shelves.

The odd flash of eccentricity can be good for a giggle. Where else will you find tins of black pudding on the shelves beside tins of rice pudding! The mind boggles at what poor, unsuspecting customers think, the week they decide to try the black version of that lovely rice pudding they've been enjoying up to now...

Which leads me on to customer service. Or should I say 'customer service'! For this is not a strong point of our dear local grocery provider. Rather than investing in a proper security camera system, they like to position members of staff at the end of the aisles to stare at you while you shop. And I mean stare. These are not the same as store detectives. They do not pretend to be customers, drifting aimlessly round the shop with a basket while subtly keeping an eye on you as you browse the shelves. No, these are undisguised and slightly hostile individuals whose sole purpose is to make you feel like a career shoplifter. You may never before have entertained any notion of committing a criminal offence, but after a few minutes in Housewives, you're itching to stuff a bag of pasta up your jumper just to see what will happen! After shopping here for a couple of years, I've got used to this system and don't really notice it any more, but on the first visit it's almost comical to see how they blatantly move from the end of one aisle to the next in total synchronicity with the hapless shopper. It's actually quite an amusing game to act the indecisive browser, can't make up your mind what aisle you want to be on? Keeps them on their toes and stops them getting bored!

The checkout staff are almost as lacking in customer skills, although over the last few months I have noticed a slight thaw in the usual surliness. They've obviously now got used to me as a regular visitor, the one who brings her own bags and delights in trying to break the ice. I've even received a few returned smiles on recent visits. I have to add that there has been no direct rudeness, it's just a lack of the how-are-you-have-a-nice-day kind of thing you get in the supermarket. Which is not always welcome, especially if one is not-very-well-having-a-shit-day-not-that-you-care-thanks.

So why do I shop there? It's grubby, unpredictable, unreliable and has surly staff. I am now asking myself this very question. But somehow this place has a certain mysterious allure, and one thing for sure is that no two visits are the same.