Thursday March 4

Mark:

I’m on a little trip out to the shop for milk and other basic things when I see a nearby house has left a whole bunch of garden stuff outside their front garden. I don’t register any immediate interest and walk past it without too much of a second look. But then, just as I get to our garden I glance back and see that there might just be something of interest. Not anything actually in the display, more what a portion of it is actually on. I walk up to it all and see that this section is arrayed on a two level trolley. A very dirty trolley, but quite interesting nonetheless. I wonder what this would look like cleaned up, I think. Only one way to find out. I have no idea what this kind of thing could be used for, but I think it’s something worth having a look at at least. My idea is to take it into our back garden, give it a good clean, then chuck it back out into the front garden and then show it to Maja who can decide if it’s worth keeping or not. I really expect her to say no but that’s OK. Apart from anything else, it would probably be just more clutter in a tiny room. It might not even comfortably fit. 

Oh well. Let’s see. It really cleans up quite well and I can now see it in all its silver and gold newness. Now it also finally looks like what it is. A cake trolley. I take it upstairs and place it in the front garden. Now to go and get Maja and see what she thinks of it. She comes up the stairs mildly curious and, before I open the front door I say, ‘Feel free to say no. I’m really not sure myself.’ I open it up and there it is. She’s not hugely impressed but she’s not dismissing it either, saying, ‘Let’s bring it in. You never know.’ I didn’t see that coming to be fair. But OK. In it comes. We now have a cake trolley.

Maja:

After receiving the perfect little gift of a cake trolley, which sits perfectly as a little wheeled table in my room, it’s time to go out. Out to explore the world. Or more like: out to see Camden market. Yes, I know, everything is closed. But that is not stopping me. Let’s go and see what we find. The streets are, well, not quite empty but almost. There’s not that much movement around. We start walking down the highstreet, where most of the people are walking around. It’s a nice walk, the weather is fresh and the cold is slightly biting but not too much. Actually very comfortable. After a while we reach Camden again. It’s a town filled with empty bars, and there’s almost no one walking around. Mark keeps pointing out all bars, with trivia in the style of, in this bar this and that famous band started out, but it seems to not have survived the pandemic. And, I played there with the Insiders, and other stories. I listen and can’t help but feel a little overwhelmed. It’s a lot. Just… A lot. 

Walking for a little while we reach Camden Market. It’s a famous place that tourists usually go to. A sightseeing spot. It has restaurants, bars, food stands, boats and shops. Everything you can possibly imagine a sightseeing spot having. Expect people. And everything is closed. Except for the food stands. London is currently open for take away catering, which means that food stands are allowed. But there is a catch here. You’re not allowed to sit down, or stand at one place and eat. So you need to eat while walking. We see this getting enforced by security officers walking around the area, and if they see someone sitting down for a little while on some steps or something they walk up to the person and ask them to walk along. I never saw them enforcing it any stronger than that, but this really makes it impossible to rest, even for a little while. Since the food stands are open we walk around to see what they have open. It’s a lot of different food options, Chinese, Mexican, all kinds of food from countries I can’t remember and of course, fish and chips. I want fish and chips. I don’t think I’ve ever actually had it before. It’s just not something we eat in Sweden. We don’t have a culture of deep frying things, so everything fried is quite new to me. I want to try it. We order one serving each, and we get this wonderful fish and chips with a nice pink sauce to it. It’s really nice, and feels very very British. Mark starts a little chat with the chef in the food stand. It’s obvious that these places have had a rough time, but it is always interesting to hear a little more detail about what’s happening. A lot of the places around here that have a possibility to be open look like small businesses and they seem to be some of the more lucky food places. And of course, Mark and the chef soon start bonding over something specific to northern English people. I think it’s about curry sauce with pineapple in it. Whatever they mean by that. I’m not quite sure. There’s so many kinds of curry in this world that I can’t even begin to guess.

We want to stand there and eat our fish, but the chef asks us to go stand by the railing of the river since they can’t have people there. We do, but soon a security officer comes and tells us to continue along. So we do. Trying to eat the fish while also trying to not let it cool down too quickly in the slightly icy wind. 

It’s still a very good fish. 

Time flies when you have fun, and we realise it starts to be time for us to return home to get our gear and walk over to Sarah’s for our first rehearsal. Halfway home Mark gets a phone call. It’s Sarah, cancelling the rehearsal once again. Well, it’s fine, we’ll just do it another day.

I’m not really complaining, it’s nice spending time with Mark. We have a couple of stories to tell each other today as well. And the ceiling is starting to get a little bit lonely since we’ve not been there to watch it.