A pondering in which we queue for good coffee in Plymouth. Saturdays are made for good coffee. For the 6 weeks of lockdown we’ve not had a coffee made with love and care by a proficient barrista. Given the Coffeeshop in question you could say we’ve missed out for 6 months. Hutong which closed in October for a rebuild, ‘popped up’ today at The Lord High Admiral.
Queuing for coffee is not unknown to us as Monmouth Coffee at Borough Market is another favourite coffeeshop.
Hutong coffee is worthy of the queue. The new environment at The Lord High Admiral is pretty cute.
On reflection , it was lovely to see George…
and Emma who didn’t make it into the mirror.
Perfect Social Distancing throughout the process we took delivery of our coffee.
It was every bit as good as we knew it would be. Right to the bottom of the cup.
If you are in Plymouth next Saturday the Hutong will ‘pop-up’ again next Saturday 9th May from 8am. The other ‘pop-up’ at The Lord High Admiral, Knead Pizza had sold out all their Pizza slots today and I think all of next week’s are sold out too. We were too slow for Pizza for both weeks and actually missed out on Hutong bacon butties today.
Note to self, get up earlier!
What to do after a Hutong Coffee? Drive to Stonehouse and do the usual walk.
This could not have been a better decision.
Firstly we parked up near Elvira’s,
who were serving bacon butties. By a strange coincidence we queued up at Elvira’s with a couple who had also been at the earlier coffee queue. They were much braver than us and ordered take-out Eggs Benedict. I would have been wearing egg yolk all day if we had ordered that.
Obviously once you’ve queued twice with people, observing social distancing, you can talk for ages even though they are complete strangers. (Pandemic observation, talking to strangers is a lovely thing now we all have more time)
Our Stonehouse walk is one we do often but everything in Lockdown is changed , there seems to be more to see.
Even at Elvira’s we saw these two lovely unusual things.
Non-local people can have a chuckle at the name of this location.
Admiral’s Hard; another saucy Plymouth location is Pennycomequick.
I just threw that in, it’s nowhere near our walk.
Stonehouse did not disappoint, we met another complete stranger at the proper distance, for more lovely conversations and Devils Point itself thought it was on the Mediterranean.
Pretty houses on the way back to the car.
Saturdays and Sunshine
Hutong Coffee
Elvira’s Bacon Butty
Lockdown rules all applied
Leviathan was installed in 1996 and is made of patinated steel. Leviathan is a sea monster created from regular sea creatures. Cormorants feet, the fins of a John Dory ,the tail of a plesiosaur, lobster claws and the head of an Angle fish. Despite this callaloo of body parts Leviathan is majestic.The Leviathans location is on one of my regular dog walks. There is a fabulous circular walk around the harbours and quays of Plymouth taking in both historic and contemporary port buildings and activities. I’m tempted to photograph the sculpture almost every time I see it , sunshine is the very best weather for Leviathan snapping, not unlike life really.
I used the fishy subject for a watercolour subject, minus the drumstick! Although a competent image of a skewered Leviathan kebab eludes me.
A little bit of printing magic and I’ve created a psychotropic Leviathan. At night The Barbican is nightlife central. Who knows if the Plymouth Prawn partakes.
And then just one little move to create a completely abstract image with no hint of sea creatures.
Not such a romantic blog as the date would suggest but to my regular blog readers a simple message, thanks for all your comments and feedback.
This blog is linked to a social media Instagram project. The prompt for today was #valentinesdaynohearts.
I believe Leviathan has a heart. It just needs to find its Sole Mate.
theoldmortuary.design 