I thought a trip to Heathrow and back from Rye on a Friday wouldn’t be such a big ask but it took me all day. I dropped Bella off with no issues whatsoever and then went home via mine. Into central London and back out again on a Friday. That was my mistake. Every queue you could imagine.
In a fit of misplaced optimism I trusted Google when it routed me through Croydon. Hours later I found myself at the turn off to Birch in Selsdon. Looking at the signs still there made me sad.
Birch was a lovely thing in theory. I got to know the one in Selsdon as I was a Panda there for quite some time. It is a vast building and the new people running it were lovely idealists. They were rewilding the golf course and trying to run a member’s club out of it. They made the most incredible swimming pool, imported a few pigs and cows and the like, slung hammocks in trees and invited a load of young businesses folk to join a gym and coworking space and so on, with bars and beanbags and restaurants building menus out of local produce.
It all very suddenly went into administration and then, shortly afterwards – more’s the pity – The House is St Barnabas in Soho, which also ran Birch – announced a sudden closure. That place was very special, but Grade 1 listed and renovations can be punishing when you have to use horse hair plaster. It was a member’s club that trained up and employed people from Soho who might have been slipping through the cracks. It always felt a little less bum than some of the other members clubs in that area. Birch and Barnabus both lying empty now, and I’m wondering what will happen to them.
There’s a little patch of Croydon that probably has rich bird life now because of what they did a Birch. Hopefully whoever takes over won’t make it into flats. I bet they do.
I’m in the woods again. Tomorrow I’ll just get to exist here with Lou. Today was spent driving, with my eyes streaming from contact lenses, I hoped, or perhaps this damn February cold.
Good food, good company, cats and recovery. Should be a great weekend.
AlBarclay 