'New' William Hill for Stanstead Road

So, it looks like the old furniture shop at 294 Stanstead Road is to become a William Hill as planning permission has gone in.

Hardly what the area needs, but at least the building should be maintained in a reasonable state of repair. It is hard to imagine that even the neon of WMH could be any more offensive than the hand painted advertising above.

Cheese!

In the run up to Christmas, Mr Love (I kid you not) is selling cheese from a stall outside the Honor Oak Pub every Sunday. It is nice to see a little bit of Borough Market closer to home and I enjoyed some stilton and something with bits in the other week.

This week it looks like olives are also on offer and someone was selling Christmas trees too.

Good on the HO for letting their outside space be used.

Horniman Museum is for adults too!

On Saturday after more than 6 months in the neighbourhood, I went to the Horniman Museum. To date I have been both under and overwhelmed by the voices of support from the community - especially from the highly vocal pram pushing brigade. As I have a slight allergy to under 18s, I was a rather intrepid visitor this Saturday- but it was raining heavily and the museum looked rather inviting.

The museum is beautifully presented and well laid out. It is what I consider the ideal size for a museum, with enough space to keep you interested, but not so much that you feel overwhelmed. The main focus is natural history and anthropology, which I have to say don't particularly interest me. But I had wanted to see the Aquarium - and it is a little cracker (despite my camera work above...). I plan to go back with the bf and show him what you can do with a fish tank (well maybe not). The guard suggested that 5pm at the weekend maybe a good time to go as the little'uns tend to have headed home for their tea by then. This only gives you 30 mins, but I would love to see it when a little quieter.

Of real interest to me though was a photo essay on 'India Recycled' showing how your Oxfam cast offs can make it into blankets in the markets of Delhi. I hadn't seen any promotion for this, but found it was really interesting, well laid out and as of no interest to children, was beautifully peaceful. Delightful.

23 club does Honor Oak Tandoori

The 23 Club is an offshoot of the Forest Hill Society. On the 23rd of the month, you are invited to go along and dine en mass at a local eatery. I say invited, this month's night out was hidden well within their website and not terribly well publicised. So, this Thursday was the first time I managed to go. There were 6 of us.

This was a shame as the chosen venue the Honor Oak Tandoori, did us proud. On Thursday & Sunday nights, they do a special offer of starter, main, side dish and rice or nan for £6.95. Now that has to be good in anyone's language, but added to this, the food tasted great and as the restaurant is a skip from the train station, this has got to be a good thing on a Thursday night after work (or a Sunday night when you can't face going back to work!).

I hope to go again, hopefully with the bf this time (he didn't come..). Not so sure about the Forest Hill Society next night out. If it is another cold & wet night out and it isn't well publicised, I reckon I'll get a take away - possibly from the Honor Oak Tandoori.

'Forest Hill Central' mothballed!

Susan Wise tonight confirmed her knowledge that Berkeley Homes have indeed 'mothballed' the Forest Hill Central site.

The cessation of work at present gives residents issues with the fact that the road is closed and there is concern that the promised work on the footpath & the railway underpass may now also not be completed. Susan is actively taking an interest in pushing this forward and believes that the company is duty bound to complete the community work within pre-agreed time lines - even if their build lays stagnant.

Susan agreed that she would update everyone at the Perry Vale Ward Assembly next month.

Go Susan!

What a real shame for Forest Hill. I can't help but feel saddened that FH was just getting its act together when the credit crunch came and bit. Long term, I truly believe that FH has a lot going for it, but in the short term, I think we may suffer just as much, if not more than other areas of the UK. For the time being, the promise (and reality) of the East London line looks like it is well out-weighed by the property crash, rising fuel & food costs and real concern about a UK recession.

Ironically, if you had the cash - it might not be a bad time to buy.

Forest Hill Pools

The hot topic of Forest Hill needs an answer from me. After weeks of reading the debates on http://www.se23.com/, attending the briefing session by the station and putting aside the pamphlet of 3 choices that has been sitting on my in tray, I have made my decision.

The council having already made the sensible choice (half the forum have just fainted at this point) of doing away with the 2 Victorian brick blocks that make up Louise House and the old pools, the choice is down to basic economics - if you want more facilities, you gotta pay for it - and that means flats. In light of the fact that I think we deserve the very best facilities we can get, that means how many flats do I want?

And I have to say I have changed my mind. My initial thought was to go for the multi- residential option. In my mind, Forest Hill could do with more modern housing by the station to rejuvenate the town centre. There are quite a few developments going on, but I think we need a few to build enough of a presence to attract younger professional types - and with them the shops and diversity that the area so desperately wants.

So why did I change my mind? Well the payback didn't work for me. Additional housing would pay for a link between the pool and the library (why would you want that?); a larger community space - good, but there are several already in the area; and a larger retail space - well given the number of shuttered shops, I struggle to see us needing them. But also the additional housing dwarfed the pools and I would like to see a set of pools that we the residents could be really proud of and that would stand out as a real asset in our community - so it's Option 2 for me.

Lets hope the council don't procrastinate as much as the rest of us and get on and build us the damn things!

Knit one, pearl one.

This makes me smile every time I pass.

The adult learning centre on Brockley Rise is showing some of the fruits of its students labours - learning, art and knitting all in one.

Tree hugging in Lewisham takes on new meaning?

Sapporo Ichiban

There can be a no more unlikely spot for an evening meal than tucked away behind the council offices, amidst the shuttered nail salons and amusement arcades that make up Catford Broadway. But that is where you find our local Japanese restaurant.

As a huge fan of Japanese food, I was keen to find somewhere when I moved to Forest Hill.

Sapporo Ichiban is a solid local London Japanese restaurant. A step up from most local Japanese, the sushi we ate was fresh and satisfying with enough variety to keep us interested. It is also nice to see a local family run style place, as opposed to the omnipresent Hi Sushi, Yo Sushi etc of town.

On the Tuesday night we visited, the place was busy with groups of friends, I think attracted by the weekday buffet option. A good sign was that the clientele was Asian and looked happy with their food. We certainly were and we shall be back.

To Tip or to Fly Tip? Undoubtedly a question....

Having just moved into a new home, one of the first Council amenities I need to use is the tip. As with all the other London boroughs, Lewisham now has a "recycling centre" - whatever!

A quick review of the council website and I found the address, though not the opening hours. So, last Saturday saw me off to the back of beyond in search of the tip. Given my sense of direction round these parts of London and the abysmal sign posting, this turned out to be more of a challenge than I expected. Nearby to Milwall's ground, it's also not the best place to be on a Saturday lunchtime as the traffic is horrendous.

Having eventually located the road, I end up in the TFL East London Line extension site. Wrong, surely. Turns out the lack of signs meant I had driven straight past. How could this be? Well the tip, sorry 'recycling centre' is shut on Saturday afternoons - quite sensible given the location, though pretty useless for most residents of the borough.

So Sunday saw a retry. Easy to get to and at 11am in the morning, a cheerful man told me there was a 30 minute queue - which as I had a date with a friend, meant - no can do.

So this week I made it. What a misery of a service. It is tiny - though I have to say every effort is made to recycle. But it just isn't big enough for the borough. No wonder the streets and all the bins are overflowing.

Score card: Must try harder

P.S. Wandsworth has a very good tip. And if you leave early, you might beat the traffic on the South Circular....

SE23 - Here we come!

At the beginning of the year, I had a brain wave.

Let's move house.

Living in NW London, I thought that we couldn't afford a house anywhere in London. It was a couple of people at work that suggested Lewisham and with a bit of research, I decided to base the search along the East London Line extension - hence Brockley, Honour Oak, Forest Hill & Sydenham were in the frame.

We quickly became enamoured with Forest Hill - partly for the quiet, residential streets of Victorian houses and partly because of what our money could buy us. We had a look at East Dulwich to see what the allegedly upmarket cousin had to offer and though we liked the buzz along Lordship Lane, the actual housing stock left us unimpressed.

As it turned out, the first weekend of looking and we saw somewhere we liked in Forest Hill. The next weekend, we saw it again, put the offer in and we began our relationship with SE23.

What I used to think was just a kink in the South Circular is about to become home and I'm thrilled. All the excitement of exploring a new area, finding new amenities, working out how to get to work!

There is only really one thing I am apprehensive about and that is my blog. I currently blog about where I now live, West Hampstead. I have lived here for 7 years - I know it, I feel I can comment on it. In SE23, I'm a new girl.

The one thing I've learnt about blogging is to have a theme. Be it having sex on the brain, or walking the streets of your postcode. I think this blog will show my experiences and things I find as I explore SE23. Only time will tell how it goes.