Tag: Gipsy Hill Cat

#420 theoldmortuary ponders

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This joyful scene of snowy hospitality from Monday makes me smile because I am not contemplating trying to get to work with slippery roads and an unreliable train service. In the spirit of Advent+2022 it also gives me the chance to share a photograph that has never made it into a previous ponder. This snowy view or even the same view without snow is immediately outside Gipsy Hill Station in London. Gipsy Hill Station is the home of a very famous London cat.

Fanny has her own Twitter account.

I follow Fanny on her Twitter page and was pleased to see she approves of this year’s Gipsy Hill Christmas Tree.

© The Gipsy Hill Cat

Not that she was neglecting her normal duties.

© The Gipsy Hill Cat

When I returned home to Gipsy Hill Station and Fanny was on duty I would get a warmer welcome from her than the aloof and reserved cat I shared my home with. In fact even after the aloof cat and I moved to the West Country I would still get a more joyful sense of recognition from Fanny when I returned to my London home than ever I got from my own black and white cat.

Fanny has a loyal following both locally- https://gipsyhillfriends.org/2017/11/05/the-gipsy-hill-cat/

Nationally and internationally. In 2022 she has her own calendar.

And the local brewery has a beer with a name that probably isn’t accidental.

Happy hump day and here is my own picture of Fanny making sure I swiped my Oyster card.

Pandemic Pondering #458

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Summer Saturdays are an early morning swim.

Although at low tide the first bit is a bit of a wade through seaweed beds and rough stones. The ferries to France have become more regular swimming neighbours.

Saturdays are also about loving a friends picture of Fanny the Gipsy Hill cat completely owning the Oyster/Card reader, no fare dodgers on Fanny’s shift.

©Keith Hide

Saturdays are about enjoying new poppies in a friends garden, grown from seed from our own poppies @theoldmortuary

©Kim Cole
@theoldmortuary

And currently Saturdays are about loads of domestic admin, represented here by Peonies and the dining table which looks calm in this picture but has been a dumping ground for all sorts of stuff in the last few hours.

All clear and ready to be filled with even more stuff in a few hours. Summer Saturdays are currently about being busy!

Pandemic Pondering #436

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Mornings here are very bright this week.

In some exciting news, a sign of loosening of Pandemic Restrictions I’ve just booked a Cheap Day Return ticket to go to a party in the City of London with old work colleagues. Home again by 5:15 in the morning , exactly like old times. The relevance of this to Pandemic Pondering is that the last time I saw any of this group of people was Pandemic Pondering # -24 . A blog that didnt exist but possibly should have. We had a wonderful weekend seeing friends and family. @theoldmortuary had what was assumed to be a very nasty cold and was a bit under the weather. There are very few photographs of the weekend.

This typewriter is the only interesting picture. I love old typewriters.

The rest of my pictures are really interesting to me but hardly represent the usual pictures of London.

Fanny, one of the famous London ‘ Station Cats’

Then another Gipsy Hill Blue Plaque.

Annie Besant swapped Gipsy Hill for India and California. I walked Hugo and Lola past her house every day before work. Gipsy Hill not California, sadly.

Annie Besant was a British socialist, theosophist, women’s rights activist, writer, orator, educationist, and philanthropist. Regarded as a champion of human freedom, she was an ardent supporter of both Irish and Indian self-rule. She was a prolific author with over three hundred books and pamphlets to her credit. © Wikipedia

Annie Besant https://g.co/kgs/FN1G5h

She founded what is now known as The Besant Hill School of Happy Valley. Kaffe Fassett was educated there, his autobiography lives in my colour theory book pile.

One last underwhelming image of London is this street sign.

Time for another googling moment dear readers. Orinoco is not only a river but a Womble who cares for Wimbledon common.

The Wombles https://g.co/kgs/ojkBNK

Orinoco Womble © eBay

A pre pandemic pondering ponder on the strange links of life. Inspired by a train ticket.

Libraries and bookshops, journeys to somewhere else.

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Saltash Library

All my reading life I’ve loved libraries, as I got older bookshops took over because library opening hours are not always convenient for working people. We always visit libraries whenever we travel to cities. Birmingham and Seoul stand out as two of the best. Yesterday I was in our local library doing some admin for a book group. Not planning to get anything for myself I had a quick wander around in case something irresistible caught my eye. Two books leapt out at me, not because they would take me on new journeys but because they reminded me of journeys already taken.

Alan Johnson’s In My Life will be the second Alan Johnson book I’ve read. The first one The Long and Winding Road was the third book of his memoirs. I have yet to read the first two parts. The Long and Winding Road was significant to me because during the period it covered we were neighbours, not close, but some of his roads were my roads and when his days of secure chauffeur driven cars were over we shared our regular commute into Victoria or London Bridge. Obviously like proper London commuters we never made eye contact.

Looking down Gipsy Hill

© theoldmortuary

Alan Johnson is not the only recognisable face seen on the platforms of Gipsy Hill Station.

One stands out as the ‘ most’ famous. Fanny, the Gipsy Hill Cat. Famous throughout London for her duty of care to the commuters of South London. She has her own station waiting room.

and is nearly always on hand for cuddles or ticket checking.

Spiri Tsintziras book Afternoons in Itheka is the second book that grabbed me and is the second based in Itheka that I have read.The first was North of Ithaka by Eleni Gage, a book that fueled a trip to Itheka last summer.

The trip to Ithaka was serendipitous and wonderful. It is such a peaceful island.

We had a huge rustic supper in a general store and occasional cafe.

Some of the artwork was surprising.

The food was everything you would expect of Greek hospitality. Comforting, delicious and never ending.

Reading is my favourite pastime, it gives me time and location travel. Sometimes backwards like these two books but often projecting me forward to adventures as yet unknown.

Abundance #everyday inspiration

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IMG_5393Crystal Palace is the town that gives . A bustling Triangle  of loveliness, somehow defying all the preconceptions of London, it has a community feel that any small rural town would be proud of. Crowd funding to repair the station cat following a road accident is one example of the abundance of community care that just pops up in this south London gem, or the gentle cuddling of a small,lost, fox cub by a commuter prepared to wait until rescue arrived.