London park cafes

Bus garage nearly gone

2011-12-16T00:58:00.000-08:00

Don't think there's any structure left beneath the scaffolding, bye bye bus garage...

Nearly all gone

2011-12-09T06:24:00.000-08:00

I might even miss the hideous old monstrosity....now it's nearly gone.

View from the back garden

2011-12-02T06:59:00.000-08:00

This is the view from my back graden at the moment. Thank you Tescos. I suppose it will all be worth it when we have a lovely new swimming pool, posh Ice Rink and modern sports facilities. At the moment the house shakes all day and everyone within a mile radius is woken by diggers and wrecking sounds.

Digging day at the Streatham Common Community Garden

2011-11-13T10:08:00.000-08:00

Beachy Head

2011-11-12T12:32:00.000-08:00

I loved that flight of stairs in the forest near Seven Sisters, I didn't want to leave it....

I heard the man in the paraglider talking on a mobile phone while he swooped over head, he said to the other person 'I'm at Beachy Head', he didnt mention he was actually flying over Beachy Head, then he waved at us and said hello. Maybe he rescues the jumpers, like an angel? It did feel like the end of the world, so misty and isolated. Down in the lighthouse another man was left behind while his collegues sped off in an orange speed-boat, can't make up my mind whether that was good or bad, you could certainly catch up with a lot of light houskeeping if you were left there over the winter.

Drizzly day I drew in the woods

2011-11-08T07:14:00.000-08:00

Drizzly day I drew in the woods and tried to enjoy the grayness and damp, the sound of the rain on the leaves....it is possible. People don't seem to go mad for the magic mushrooms the way they used to, sad to think the tradition is dieing out, perhaps I could persuade English Heritage or the Streatham Society to mount a campaign to revive the practice. It's a shame they are all going to waste, my head is naturally muddle enough without psilocybin swirling around it, so no point in me imbibing them either.

Fish, Mabel and Toque

2011-11-07T10:27:00.000-08:00

Fish, Mabel and Toque enjoying a cupof tea on the common this morning in mist and leaves.

London to Brighton Car Rally

2011-11-07T10:23:00.000-08:00

Got up earlyyesterday morning to see the noisy old cars chugging through Streatham, These two motor bikes broke down but they soon got them going again. I like the other photo because you can just about see the Priest in the church window looking at the ancient cars like everyone else.

Bird Watching Walk on Streatham Common

2011-10-29T12:21:00.001-07:00

I went on a very interesting bird watching walk this morning on the common. straight off we saw a flock of Goldfinches feasting on spiky fruit from the plane trees that line Streatham Common South Side, must look out for the emigrating pigeons flying in their thousands to warmth every morning that Peter told us about, and at night all the Parakeets zooming home to their spooky roost in Hither Green Cemetary. I'm Reading Wildwood by Roger Deakin at the moment, it's a prolonged meditation on wood as the fifth element. I really felt the truth of that today in the woods above Streatham Common looking for Woodpeckers...what he says about woods being like a kind of ocean: 'once inside a wood, you walk on something very like the seabed, looking up at the canopy of leaves as if it were the surface of the water..'

Cycling from Streatham to Richmond

2011-10-23T09:49:00.000-07:00

Perfect Sunday morning cycling with my friend D.M, from Streatham to Putney and then along the Thames path to Richmond, back home across Richmond Park and Wimbledon Common...apart from the odd whiff of sewagey grunge at Barnes the journey had a rosie fragrance and freshness that is really distinctive along this route. We'll have to re-do it in a couple of weeks when the leaves have turned red and orange. Couldn't ask for a better day to do this trip, near cloudless sky, warm west wind - two great Lattes, one at Carluccios in Putney, with a very funny waiter and one at the Tide Tables Cafe under the archway in Ricmond, with a beautiful palm leaf on the froth. Great, feel like I've had a holiday!

Voulunteer gardening day

2011-09-25T00:04:00.000-07:00

Voulunteer gardening day today as part of the little Big peace event across Streatham. I'll be there with my boots and fork..looking forward to it, as it's an unseasonably warm, beautiful day and the Rookery is looking very misty and magical.
http://groupspaces.com/StreathamCommonCommunityGarden/

2011-08-26T09:40:00.000-07:00

The common has thankfully survived a season of riots, heatwaves, car fires, tree fires, etc etc, I've probably spent more time on it then ever this summer, come rain or shine. It's a haven from the insanity escalataing around it.

Heatwave and smog

2011-04-22T09:14:00.000-07:00

I'm turning into a misanthrope.

I've just been for an unfeasibly hot run around Streatham Common and Norwood Grove. It feels like the middle of July. The illegal barbecues are burning already and the place is completely covered in litter. I just saw children swinging from branches and ripping up a tree with their mums sitting unconcerned beside them grinding fag-ends into the dried out grass.

The common is mine and no-one else seems to realise it – where have all these trespassers come from? If the common isn't good enough for them in the drizzle and frost they don't qualify for entry on the good days.....grrr...and more grrrr

2011-04-11T01:01:00.001-07:00

Huge kite day on Streatham Common

2011-04-11T00:37:00.001-07:00

Biggest Kite Day ever on Streatham Common, heaving with people knotted up in lines of nylon!
I've never grasped the art of kite-flying or enjoyed unknotting stuff for hours on end, but the kites looked spectacular against a dazzling bright sky. I cycled to Peckerman's Woods with my friend M and we could see the kites from miles away. I selfishly dislike seeing lots of people on the common though, and even worse to see cars parked on the side of it...cycling in the woods was refreshing, hardly anyone else around except a few volunteers helping to clear it up, I'd like to do that..
Dulwich park was crammed with the supposedly pinched middleclasses scofffing lattes and cupcakes , the cafe there was too busy (queues right round the buiulding) to get our own lattes etc so we whizzed back to Streatham and had lunch at the cafe on the common there, hardly ever gets as horribly busy as lardydadulwich...

2011-03-25T12:25:00.000-07:00

Spring! Boing!!! The common is heaven on toast at the moment, I just hate leaving it after my morning coffee, it smells so delicious, its warm and fresh...running this afternoon was so good, everything just right, bouncy ground, clean air, little mud, happy dogs, daffodils, narcissi, blossom....much better then revision

2011-02-04T06:26:00.000-08:00

Extraordinarily windy, my capuccino froth blew off the cup this morning, nearly hit Mr T. His coffee cup blew right over..this is the same Mr T who got so cold last week he tried to wrap slices of bread round his hands to keep warm. Had to retreat indoors in the end it was soooooooooo windy.

2011-01-29T11:33:00.000-08:00

Its chilly again, too cold for me to hang around for very long outside the cafe, must be windchill as the grass isn't actually frozen. I've been running over the last two days wearing gloves, a thick top and a rainproof jacket, but still feel unbelievably cold, even by the end of the runs - which is very unusual. The common feels and looks quite bleak. The skies are gray like my gloves and press down claustrophobically. I'm beginning to long for spring, which is silly as I know we have to just knuckle down and appreciate what we have now - it's all we've got.. So tomorrow I'll go out and enbrace all this with gusto....

2010-12-31T09:29:00.000-08:00

I've been going to the 'Caffe' Nero in Streatham since the cafe on the Common closed for Christmas, and I have spotted a few fellow refugees, looking rather confined and awkward in the noisy, cramped interior of Nero and a few ofthem actually smuggling their dogs in, which is sheer genius. But what strikes me as particularly weird is the sudden emergence of Apple-Mac-using, vaguely intellectual looking Bourgeois Streathamites - where have they all been hiding? Where do they all come from? Or are they travelling in from Balham and Clapham and even further afield? The noise is extraordinary, but I've been able to get a lot of reading done. I hope I'm tough enough to return to the common on Tuesday..when I ran there this afternoon the peace and quiet was like a haven, the worse the weather the better it gets. Though it wasn't actually raining, just a bit gray and damp and squelchy..yep..came home covered in mud..hooray

2010-12-26T08:21:00.000-08:00

An important day in these twins lives - their first visit to Streatham Common. Although they slept through it all I think they enjoyed the fresh air, as gurgling sounds occaisionally emanted from the depths of the buggy.

2010-12-26T05:44:00.003-08:00

Frozen ground this morning when running, more like glissading over the common. Managed to find some mud in the woods however, it's a talent. Not that'running' is quite the right word, 'waddling', after yuletide indolence..it's a beautiful frozen Boxing day however.

2010-12-20T05:10:00.000-08:00

The cafe has shut now until January 2nd - what on earth am I supposed to do with my holiday mornings!? Carry on as normal of course, sharing a disgusting instant cappucino experience with the toughest of the tough and assorted canines this -8 morning on Streatham Common. We closed the gate after ourselves, shame they didnt leave us a key to the cafe...
The common is very special in the snow - so still and almost silent, I don't know why people complain about it, the snow makes London much more magical, calm and slow.

2010-12-01T09:48:00.000-08:00

Streatham Comon this morning, freezing but magical. Its so quiet on the common, the snow absorbs much of the sound and Gatwick airport is shut, so the only sounds here are my heavy breathing in the cold and wildy happy dogs barking in the snow, which seems to put them into a state of ecstatic rolling, sprinting and, in the case of one Tibetan Terrier puppy, running through people's legs and trying to get into their coats! I feel the same..

London to Brighton Vintage car rally

2010-11-07T09:15:00.000-08:00

London to Brighton Vintage car rally at the bottom of Streatham Common

Got up early this morning to watch the London to Brighton Vintage car run. It's amazing how many cars there seem to be, somehow there are more and more each year, faster and shinier than the year before...maybe time is actually going backwards?

2010-11-04T14:27:00.000-07:00

Streatham Common is looking particularly gorgeous this week. I've started to notice how clever the planting of trees is, not just on the common but around the edges of it. The autumn red trees look amazing beside the red bricks of Albert Carr Gardens. The avenue of trees going up Streatham Common South side is golden, everything looks gentler this week.

2010-09-29T05:28:00.001-07:00

Took part in this today - the Streatham Common 6 mile Cross country race, and a tough old thing it was too, I finished in 49 minutes (on the official result) which isn’t exactly spectacular but is better then conking out completely I suppose..My cafe chums were very supportive and didn’t laugh in front of me, so thank you to them..for their encouragement and discretion. It was lovely running through the woods and down the side of the common - much nicer than road running and easier on the poor old feet.

2010-09-29T05:28:00.000-07:00

well, obviously not Streatham.

2010-09-07T04:36:00.000-07:00

These pictures were taken at the marvelously chaotic dog show that took place on Streatham common this sunday. There were all sorts of bitings, inappropriate canine couplings, barkings and other un-Cruftslike behaviour arguably true to the spirit of all that Streatham common stands for...an anarchy and resistance to bourgeois gentrification that even, perhaps especially, applies to the dogs of Streatham Common. My Irish terrier friend and camping comrade, Lolly came third in the dandiest girl dog competition, shame I forgot to get a photo of her with the magnificent yellow rosiette she won. Lolly barked all the way through the show, which is her way of resisting all this anthropomorphising silliness.

2010-08-22T11:41:00.000-07:00

It's been ages since I've added anything to this project, but making this a couple of weeks ago makes me want to do more. It's my favourite view of Streatham Common, looking downwards towards the West. In August the view looks gentle and dreamy. Maybe I'll do more pictures of it in autumn and winter....

2010-04-15T11:32:00.000-07:00

Here I am today on Streatham Common, waiting to be engulfed by blizzards of Icelandic volcano ash. But none was forthcoming, though all British Airports were shut. Amazing. The skies were quiet and vaguely roseate to my( all too suggestible) eyes. Shame it didnt affect the A23 in the same way. Apparently volcanic ash gets into jet engines and turns to molten glass. This sort of drama is all too rare on Streatham Common, in fact the last significant Act of God I remember round here was the hurricaine of 1987. Not that it wasnt miserable to see trees collapsed all over the common once the thrill of hundred mile an hour winds had ebbed. Anyway, in stereotypically British fashion it was all another excuse for having a nice cup of tea.

2010-04-06T13:31:00.000-07:00

A record breaking 27 dogs were in the cafe this afternoon, almost every size and breed imaginable was present, but there was very little barking. The children in the cafe were far louder! In fact I had lunch at the cafe on Tooting Common (also, confusingly called Cafe San Remo) and the screaming of babies was almost intolerable compared to the civil patience of this lot illustrated above.

2010-04-03T16:08:00.000-07:00

Streatham Common 03/04/10

Spent about three hours one way or another on the common today, reading in the morning, having lunch with a friend and running. The birds are particularly noisy at the moment, I heard a woodpecker in the early evening and a whole gang of escapee parrots shrieking in Norwood Grove. I wonder if they feel annoyed with themselves for being in such a chilly, unpredictable climate when they could be lapping up the sun in Costa Rica or somewhere equally luscious and tropical ? It was odd seeing them in the snow earlier this year, they seemed quite happy though. I've got birds on my mind, since collliding with that poor pigeon on Thursday. This one got some Lemon cake crumbs after it looked at me accusingly. The sun suddenly came out with force at lunchtime, the family in the drawing were having yellow and blue ice creams.

2010-04-02T11:01:00.000-07:00

I Cycled through Kennington Park on my way back from the South Bank this afternoon, hoping to revist a cafe I used to go to quite regularly in the early 1990s, but it was shuttered up for Good Friday, so I'll have to return on another day. The park looked a bit bleak and grayish, despite the daffodils lining the paths. When I compare my drawings of South London with ones I did last year, its clear the trees are not growing leaves so quickly this spring, they are still dark hard forms surrounding the parks and streets, so London still looks spiky and gray.

2010-04-01T16:10:00.000-07:00

Dogs waiting outside the cafe on Streatham Common earlier today

2010-04-01T15:31:00.000-07:00

Manor Park Gardens, Lee, Se12

Even colder today, and here, at Manor Park Gardens, as usual surrounded by very grubby looking piegeons while drinking my tea. One pigeon I have seen many times under my table appears to have swallowed a tennis ball. A great wobbly sphere moves beneath its throat. It looks very uncomfortable. Today I gave it some of the cheese out of my sandwich, I felt so guilty because earlier that morning I killed a pigeon. It flew through the front wheel of my bicycle as I went down Brenchley Gardens near the cemetery. Somehow it came whizzing towards my head and then just changed its mind at the last moment and swerved into my wheel like a suicide pigeon. I looked behind and saw it had broken its neck. I feel horrible. There was no trace of it left in my wheel, it just flew right through it.

2010-03-31T06:40:00.000-07:00

Above, outside the Streatham Common cafe, 31/03/10

So its snowing in Scotland and Northern Ireland and feels pretty bleak here too. I managed to sit outside for nearly half an hour in the freezing drizzle before I gave up and went inside. I've only done that twice this year, so not a bad record. Inside the cafe an old man approached two young women and started to make personality assessments based on their star signs, which they politley tolerated, albeit edging away from him as he spoke. I was hoping he would approach me too and provide an accurate but upbeat assessment of my future, but when I smiled invitingly at him he skirted around my table as if I was obviously quite dangerous. Typical.

2010-03-30T10:17:00.000-07:00

Cafe San Remo on Streatham Common,

A cold morning on Streatham Common but I chose a good moment to go out and actually caught some sun. Yesterday there was a large film crew making an advert for McDonalds, it was bucketing down and thoroughly miserable despite the enforced jollity of the fake fun-fair set in the paddling pool. In fact the bright colours and balloons just made it worse, like one of those torrential, hellish, Streatham fun days.

In the afternoon I walked on a very soggy Tooting Common and had lunch at the cafe there. I sat outside next to two older women with lots of madly bouncing dogs. I often end up sitting next to professional dog walkers. They seem happy to gossip about their clients - not the dogs - the people. It seems like a difficult relationship, the dog-walker owner one; in fact I'm reminded of Jean Genet's maids, or, more topically, Heather Mills's Nannies. They seem fascinated by their rich clients but also enraged by them, it leads to very interesting conversations. I highly recommend sitting next to dog walkers (if you can bare the yapping and barking) to all my fellow Flaneurs. Though I'm fond of this cafe and Tooting Common there's something a bit inferior about it, altitude wise. I like the giddy heights of Streatham common and the fresh air. On good days you can smell sea breezes blowing in from the South coast. Tooting is too flat, but quite nice for running on, and of course, fantastic for swimming. I hope to go there in the summer and draw the lovely cafe and art deco fountain. If you look out of the train windows when chugging towards Balham you can often see people swimming in Tooting Bec Lido, even in winter. I can relate to the stiff-upper-lip spirit of the Tooting swimmers. I try to bring the same attitude to my cafe visits, more or less disregarding the weather. Its quite true there is no such thing as bad weather, only poor clothing choices. Since this principal has sunk in I've been able to eat outside in London's parks throughout the whole year. In the right hat you can easily train yourself to enjoy a bit of drizzle.
Below, the cafe on Tooting Common 30/03/10

It's not just my drawings that are wonky, the building on Tooting Bec Common is also strangely irregular, you can imagine a Hobbit living in it, but I checked the cafe owner's feet and they looked perfectly normal.

2010-03-30T08:04:00.000-07:00

Despite today's rather horrible weather managed to catch some miraculously bright moments this morning, and was more or less the only person there, sitting as always, on the sunnniest seat at the Rookery end outside the cafe on Streatham Common. Yesterday a huge crew was filming an advert for Macdonalds in the paddling pool near the car park, it was bucketing down with rain and everything looked really miserable up close, despite the fake jollines of the pretend fun-fair props. It's etched an indelibly depressing impression of Mcdonald's into my mind. I prefer Cafe San Remo anyday.

2010-03-28T05:13:00.000-07:00

Above, the cafe on Streatham Common this morning

Above same time last year

Welcome to London Park Cafes, a drawing project about open air cafes in London.

I start here with a drawing from this morning, a cold Sunday morning in March, everyone seemed a bit disoriented by the clocks going forward. This is my favourite open air cafe in London, the cafe on Streatham Common,which has recently changed its name to 'Cafe San Remo' , though it is still run by the same people, I am glad to say.