May 2025. Dalston Kingsland. London.
I know how to get to Dalston Kingsland from Waterbeach; down the M11 to the North Circular, A12 past the Olympic site, slow bit past Homerton Hospital and the Pembury Tavern in Hackney, then park, anywhere.
I hadn’t driven this far into London for an age, reminds be why I’ll avoid driving these days. But there’s no new pubs, I’ve got Mrs RM in the passenger seat to shout “missed it” and “mind the bikes“, and a dry Monday bank holiday evening without football traffic is as easy as it gets.
Free parking 5 minutes from our gig (calm down, it’s not Neil or Bruce), with ChatGPT calculates as a less than 10% risk of getting broke into.
What I don’t know is what Dalston Kingsland is, if anything. East of the Arsenal ground, west of the Hackney craft bars, somewhere near Stoke Newington, whatever that is.
Full of keg pubs, including the Three Compasses (your best bet for Jubel peach beer) at the end of the vibrant Ridley Street market. You interpret “vibrant” any way you like.
With 2 hours till our music at the Shacklewell I’d had a vague notion of getting Mrs RM to walk the mile to Regent’s Canal and De Beauvoir, but the streets off the A10 (the same A10 that passes Waterbeach an hour north) are intoxicating.
Typically, our best bet for that beer Mrs RM suddenly wants is in a Dalston community garden cafe.
Six years ago the Curve looked eerie in the moonlight, now it shines.
You can bring your own bottle of Prosecco and picnic here to eat among the toadstools and tulips. Mrs RM has a half of East London Pale and a cake. Six years ago there were 3 hand pumps, now all is keg.
The cask has taken a pounding along Kingsland Road, but there’s plenty of cafes,
and a lot of independent restaurants.
I’m tempted to take Mrs RM into The Roses Of Elagabalus,
but those curtains remind me of Twin Peaks, or a “gentleman’s club” in North Woolwich, and on closer investigation I find that it’s not a French restaurant after all.
I am so innocent. For many years I believed that these adverts for “Shutter repairs” were, indeed, services to repair shutters.
At that moment, a lady emerges from the entrance to Dil Se, hands me a menu,
and half an hour later we’re discovering, again, that London is a great place to eat Indian food.
Right, time for that gig featuring folk you’ve never heard of.
retiredmartin 