Telly

Today is a toasty sock watching Christmas DVDs day..It is cold, yet sunny (my favourite weather) and I am all warm in the house with food at my disposal.
I shall be making my charity donation this year to Shelter or Crisis or perhaps direct to the homeless as Christ it is flipping freezing to be sleeping outside in this weather. It's even cold in my bedroom with the heating off and I have walls and carpet (as you would expect)!

Taxi!!!!!

We regularly use Amber cars for shipping our friends off into the night to far flung places outside of SE London and I think they are the best cab firm around. Relatively inexpensive as well for trips across town (bloody cheaper than black cabs too)!
It is so much easier in a cab then trekking into town and then back out again if we want to visit friends in Dulwich or the like.
One of my favourite things is being in the back of a black cab though. I love how it feels slightly decadent and you can have a right old nosey around London.

Let it snow...

I love the snow when it falls in big fat flakes! It was like that last night, I stood at the window looking out over Plumstead watching it fall, bliss.
Slightly disappointed this morning that it is not much deeper although it is on the road, but not as much in the back garden - how odd!
The Common looks so pretty at this time of year, all I need now is a mug of hot chocolate. Or my favourite way of serving it in a jug and then just topping up my mug.

The High Street

I am excitedly awaiting the opening of a new restaurant/bar/eatery on the high street. Clearly I have no information that this is actually going to take place but there is a retail space for rent under the new flats that at present are being done up. What a lovely venue this would make for a coffee shop or restaurant.
I wrote recently to both Starbucks and Costa Coffee asking why they had 2 or more coffee shops in Woolwich but hadn't thought about Plumstead and listed all its merits but so far no-one has even bothered to acknowledge my emails let alone respond to them. Darn cheek.
I really hope someone other than a mobile phone cum barbers cum fresh fruit cum kebab maker opens up and rents this space.

Christmas time...

My favourite thing about this time of year is that people have their Christmas trees up in their sitting rooms and often leave their curtains open so that people can see the twinkly lights, which means I can have a lovely old nosey! I especially like it late afternoon when it is getting dark enough to turn your lights on but not dark enough to draw the curtains. I love seeing how people live...You might say I need to get out more, but I do, to see more houses!!

Estate Agents

When we wanted to get our house valued recently we thought we would try what some other people had done and had some estate agents from Plumstead value the house along with some from Blackheath. The reasoning being that it would if we decided to sell we would open up our house to a wider audience, those looking around the Standard/Charlton with a similar budget to what our house is worth but in this area only able to afford a flat. It is how we ended up living here. An estate agent a friend had put me in touch with said we could buy a house "what with stairs"? was my response (really, I am a genius sometimes). So off we popped to Plumstead having never heard of the place to find that we could buy many a house indeed!
Anyway the upshot was that the two estate agents we used locally (Robinson Jackson - close your eyes, think of an estate agent and yes the stereotype is alive and well in this branch, and Beaumont Gibbs - slightly less shiny) were considerably lower in their valuations than the estate agents in the Standard

Ha ha ha ha ha

Thanks Plummy Mummy for my lesson in blogging, all being well I should be up and running..

I went to the comedy club (hut) on Saturday night and what jolly fun it was too. It was heaving, standing room only and then a v amusing disco afterwards.
It's great fun, if you havent been go

Sprucing up the neighbourhood

I read this week that under some scheme or other two places in Plumstead are to get some sprucing up. One is the tennis courts and bowling green, which to me already look OK but I am all for things looking new and sparkly and the other is Plumstead Gardens which is to get a new playground, teen play area and youth zone or something. Sounds good to me, except I dont know where it is, must get googling. As other bloggers have pointed out there really is no decent playground around Plumstead Common. The one attached to that school near the Slade seems to be the most decent but who wants to be on a slide surrounded by cars whizzing by.
A playpark on the common would be a great idea. I know there is already that wooden play thing for older children but one near there for younger tots would be just right.

New Abbey Wood eatery..

I read about a new cafe looking to open in Abbey Wood yesterday and this is just the type of place that Plumstead has been hankering after. It is going to serve breakfast and lunch and then in the evening turn into a pizzeria, they wont serve alcohol but you can bring your own which is always such a cheaper option. She is still looking for additional funding, basically trades people to donate bits of plaster board, taps, blinds etc. Surely Plumstead would be the ideal place to try this type of thing. Ablair's could provide bits as can Carpet Corner and there are no end of places on the High Street that can do something...
I really do miss not having anywhere in Plumstead to go for weekend breakfasts, meet parents during the week for coffee and cake and go in the evening. I have eaten out 4 times in the last week or so (OK so slightly more excessive than usual but it is the Christmas season). Once in Blackheath, once in Bluewater, once in the O2 and once in town. Two of these events could easily have been in Plumstead had there been anywhere decent to meet people and have some food and wine..

Trains

Never mind the fact that SE railway has buggered up the service from the New Year. What is happening with all the cancelled trains at the moment? This morning I got on a late running Cannon Street train which then turned into a Charing Cross train with no announcements! Luckily I had noticed we were on platform 6 at London Bridge! On the plus side I understand there are more trains leaving Cannon Street now in the evening rather than direct trains to Plumstead being an hour and ten minutes apart in evening rush hour.
There are also going to be no direct trains to Blackheath in the morning which seems strange..

Jack Frost

Has certainly visited my car this morning and in the process has drawn love hearts on my car which made me smile. Obviously I haven't checked closely so it could be drawn with a key and then I won't be as happy, but it could be worse and have been a penis! Still it made me smile..
Blooming cold though