New Office, The Constitution and Daphne's

Posted on 2016/11/06 17:07:53 (November 2016).

[Monday 31st October 2016]
First day officially working from new office in King's Cross - I had packed my desk up before I went off to Italy, and my things had been moved in crates while I was away. Of course it wasn't the first time to see the new office, some people having moved across earlier in the year, so I had already popped in a few times... but it was the first time to have all the floors fully occupied, and as of today I was officially based here.

I predicted the slight feeling of alienation I always seem to get when a big change like this occurs, some combination of being in a new flashy environment and being surrounded by lots of people I don't know (people had moved from various different offices in London into this one). So I went to work forearmed, wearing a tweed suit, which helped to insulate me from that.

At the end of the day I thought it appropriate to toast the new office with some of the usual suspects, and also wanted to give the walk home a go, so I managed to somehow combine the two, and persuaded a few people to come and join me at a pub called the Constitution, which is along the canal towpath that forms part of one potential walking route between home and the office. It's a funny sort of pub, seems to be a mixture of slightly rough around the edges locals and hipsters (which is an odd thing in itself for Camden)... but I imagine the beer garden with its canalside setting will be very pleasant in summer.

I'm not sure everybody else particularly wanted to linger much longer, most people I know seem to have quite negative feelings toward Camden, and it was a dark, cold Monday evening when it was quite forgivable that anyone would rather be at home in the warm. Ricardo's girlfriend Catherine had, I got the impression, come to the pub in order to retrieve him in the not unreasonable expectation they might spend the remainder of the evening together - particularly as I'd also occupied rather a lot of his time on Saturday afternoon in Hampstead. ...but if it indeed was the case Ricardo certainly did not detect those signals!

So anyway somehow I roped them in to joining me for dinner, which based on no other reason than we happened to be nearby was at a Greek restaurant in Camden called Daphne's. I thought I had been there something like 15 years ago, when I first lived in London, with Chie's friend Junchan, but the interior wasn't quite how I remembered it, so it may actually have been one of the other Greek restaurants nearby - there does seem to be a little cluster here. I quite enjoyed the food this evening, and particularly liked the fact I recognised almost none of the names of the dishes on the specials board.

Post a comment