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Jul. 19th, 2002 03:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vyvyanxRecently, I have been deeply occupied with moving stuff to our new place. On Wednesday afternoon we got the keys; I brought assorted stuff from my place in college, and G went back to his old place to pack stuff up. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
zotz kindly gave us a hand ferrying G's computer and other heavy stuff over in his car. We all went to the Kingston Arms for a drink afterwards (the Kingston is now right on our doorstep). Spent that evening putting things into appropriate places, while G set up his computer. Yesterday I went back to college again to pick up more stuff, bought a strangely-coloured assortment of cheap bedding from the Salvation Army shop, and did lots of laundry. It's amazingly wonderful having a washing machine in the flat. Laundry is now so easy! I've spent 10 years living in an institution - whenever I had to do laundry, I would have to pack it up into bags, buy tokens from the Porters' Lodge, lug everything to the underground laundry in Whewell's court and set it going, go off and do something else for half an hour, come back to change it over to the dryer, go off for 3/4 hour, come back and fetch it, and then lug it all back to my room. Often the ancient washing machines in college would break down in amusing ways; sometimes there were no free machines when you got there, and you had to wait for one to finish and then drag someone else's laundry out and stuff it into the bags they'd left; sometimes someone else had done this to your laundry when you got back to collect it, but hadn't bothered to use your bag and had just strewn it all over the floor...generally it was a great pain and I used to put it off as long as possible. But now it's trivial! It's almost fun...I shall be rather disappointed when I finish all the backlog of stuff to launder :-)
Another great thing about non-institutional life is that I don't need to worry about a bedder or porter or random person from the Works department coming in without warning - I don't need to hide stuff that might alarm them, I can leave the door between the bedroom and the living room open at night, I can wander about the place stark naked if I feel like it.
I keep discovering marvellous shops on Mill Road. I've just found Al-Amin's - sort of supermarket, selling all day-to-day things I might want at reasonable prices, but also specializing in exotic foodstuffs - they have numerous kinds of bizarrely-shaped vegetables and fruits with names I've never heard of; they have a delicatessen serving obscure Middle Eastern cakes; they have a whole room of spices - you can buy 2kg bags of turmeric, for heaven's sake! I was tempted to buy one, because of the economy of bulk buying - but then I thought I probably wouldn't use that much turmeric in my entire life. They also sell 20kg bags of rice. 20 kilos! They're huge! Anyway, they also sell all sorts of vegetarian stuff that I normally find hard to track down. It really seems very easy to be vegetarian on Mill Road - all the snack food places advertise lots of vegetarian stuff, all the shops have a great range of vegetarian food. I suppose it's because of the large Asian population in the area.
Today I went to G's old place in Chesterton to pick up some more of his stuff. It was a long walk, and very hot - especially on the way back, when I was laden with bags. G has gone off for an interview with another agency. Ah, the washing machine has just finished. Time to start another load :-)
zotz kindly gave us a hand ferrying G's computer and other heavy stuff over in his car. We all went to the Kingston Arms for a drink afterwards (the Kingston is now right on our doorstep). Spent that evening putting things into appropriate places, while G set up his computer. Yesterday I went back to college again to pick up more stuff, bought a strangely-coloured assortment of cheap bedding from the Salvation Army shop, and did lots of laundry. It's amazingly wonderful having a washing machine in the flat. Laundry is now so easy! I've spent 10 years living in an institution - whenever I had to do laundry, I would have to pack it up into bags, buy tokens from the Porters' Lodge, lug everything to the underground laundry in Whewell's court and set it going, go off and do something else for half an hour, come back to change it over to the dryer, go off for 3/4 hour, come back and fetch it, and then lug it all back to my room. Often the ancient washing machines in college would break down in amusing ways; sometimes there were no free machines when you got there, and you had to wait for one to finish and then drag someone else's laundry out and stuff it into the bags they'd left; sometimes someone else had done this to your laundry when you got back to collect it, but hadn't bothered to use your bag and had just strewn it all over the floor...generally it was a great pain and I used to put it off as long as possible. But now it's trivial! It's almost fun...I shall be rather disappointed when I finish all the backlog of stuff to launder :-)Another great thing about non-institutional life is that I don't need to worry about a bedder or porter or random person from the Works department coming in without warning - I don't need to hide stuff that might alarm them, I can leave the door between the bedroom and the living room open at night, I can wander about the place stark naked if I feel like it.
I keep discovering marvellous shops on Mill Road. I've just found Al-Amin's - sort of supermarket, selling all day-to-day things I might want at reasonable prices, but also specializing in exotic foodstuffs - they have numerous kinds of bizarrely-shaped vegetables and fruits with names I've never heard of; they have a delicatessen serving obscure Middle Eastern cakes; they have a whole room of spices - you can buy 2kg bags of turmeric, for heaven's sake! I was tempted to buy one, because of the economy of bulk buying - but then I thought I probably wouldn't use that much turmeric in my entire life. They also sell 20kg bags of rice. 20 kilos! They're huge! Anyway, they also sell all sorts of vegetarian stuff that I normally find hard to track down. It really seems very easy to be vegetarian on Mill Road - all the snack food places advertise lots of vegetarian stuff, all the shops have a great range of vegetarian food. I suppose it's because of the large Asian population in the area.
Today I went to G's old place in Chesterton to pick up some more of his stuff. It was a long walk, and very hot - especially on the way back, when I was laden with bags. G has gone off for an interview with another agency. Ah, the washing machine has just finished. Time to start another load :-)
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no subject
Date: 2002-07-19 09:18 am (UTC)There are some very nice Chinese supermarkets along Mill Road as well - something like 3-4 AFAIR; my preference is for the one nearest the railway bridge.
And The Standard curry house is on Mill road as well - they do some of the better vegetarian Indian food I've come across. Its more than vegetable korma/biryani/etc which most other places do.
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Date: 2002-07-20 01:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-07-20 11:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-07-21 02:37 pm (UTC)They've got a nice selection (about 15-20) of unusual dishes which I've not seen in any other resturants; things like a nice mint based dish; dishes with mangos and other fruit; etc.
The owner is very friendly and is quite happy to look to see if dishes contain wheat or anything else I have problems with. They even make their own paneer cheese as well.
The Kohinoor is okay, but E-J has suffered a cross-contamination reaction from they food they've served in the past so we're rather wary of going back there.
no subject
Date: 2002-07-19 10:07 am (UTC)When's the house-warming? :)
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Date: 2002-07-20 01:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-07-20 01:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-07-20 03:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-07-19 10:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-07-19 01:51 pm (UTC)so does mr tom
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Date: 2002-07-20 01:47 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2002-07-21 12:27 pm (UTC)and the barstaff sometimes wear funny wigs..
no subject
Date: 2002-07-20 01:45 am (UTC)