Camden tiled in soft china blue and cream, with the station name in the tiles.  This will prove to be a theme for the day...

The train rumbles on, only coming above ground at our destination.  The chap doing the train announcements is very jolly and there are plenty of staff directing people to the replacement bus service.  But as L has already pointed out 'replacement bus-whore' doesn't have quite the same ring to it, so this is as far as we're going to go today.  None of us had been to Golders Green before - this is the highest I've been up this branch of the Northern - so we go for a wander in search of lunch, and count a surprisingly high number of Japanese places, as well as the usual complement of fried chicken takeaways and the odd pizza joint.   The architecture is a pleasing style of brick mock tudor village, built in the early part of the 20th century as the tube expanded outwards.  Being a strongly Jewish area, a lot of places are shut, this being Saturday.


We hit the chazzas, with L scoring thrifting gold in the form of the best mad old lady hat which we all decide she just has to wear for the rest of the day.  I find a black wool cape, and a pair of tiny pair of ballet shoes in a box illustrated with a fairy tale, the kind of strange and damaged treasure that you would find in the window of Emily's shop... Despite not being in the slightest bit maternal, they have the melancholy pull of something lost and precious and I buy them.



Buoyed with thrifting triumph we head for the all you can eat buffet at CTV which has a counterpart in Angel apparently. Lovely food, ginger tea and good company.  It's only mid-afternoon when we leave but it's already dusky with a slight fog in the air and the light rapiding failing.  Winter is here...

Next stop, back down to  Hampstead...