Could live a lifetime on Kilburn High Road and be supplied with all the necessities of life plus entertainment - and that’s not even counting the vibrant and innovative Kiln Theatre and associated cinema, located just round the corner from us, or the sports pubs. It’s the street theatre tragi-comic at times but never ending.
We go down to the HSBC at the bottom of the road to sort out winter finances - primarily withdrawing more from our account than the cash points seem prepared to dispense and persuading the teller to exchange the tens and twenties that the ATMs deal in for equivalent value in fifties which fit a wallet better. HSBC, like other major banks, has been closing branches - over a hundred in the last two years - and full service branches extremely thin on the ground. An elderly woman in queue ahead of us says that she lives in Golders Green and has a choice of this location or Wembly if she needs to deal with a human banker and both involve long bus rides.
Pass a young man hoping to provide us with mobile services. Are we local? No. American? No. Ah, Canadian. So is he! Where are we from? J says Sioux Lookout, signalling eye roll from me. Who has heard of Sioux Lookout? Well, apparently this man - his mother once worked there as a relief nurse!
Pavement shopping long gone in many parts of London but alive and well in Kilburn. Easier and usually cheaper to buy basics from soap to biscuits without having to go into a shop. Usually acceptable quality as well. Most things a pound or two and always busy.
J points out that it’s Canadian Thanksgiving. Not much observed here, but a good time, he suggests, to go out for a celebratory meal.
So we head for Roses, conveniently located round the corner. Its busiest times are earlier in the day and it closes at eight but one of its more endearing features is that it clearly serves as a comfortable venue for a number of middle aged and older single men. They’re obviously regulars and usually come in alone. Two might share a table but more often each sits by himself but close enough to engage in bits of conversation with one or more blokes nearby. Can expand to a whole conversation or - without offence - simply be silence punctuated with the odd observation. A warm and undemanding base with well cooked food. In a sense a home.
Posts
