Jalan-jalan lagi

i had my walk.

the sun was out. windy too, but it wasn’t that chilly anyway. i was planning for a little walkabout today anyway. i was driving to work a couple of days ago in the rain and i thought i’ll take some shots of autumn scenery. sod’s law dictated today. the sun was up like it was summer. besides it’s only october. guess i’ve to wait till the end of the month to see more red/orange/yellow leaves!

my walk brought me to the nearby little shopping precinct of the suburb i live in. nether edge is pretty nice, it’s not too upmarket nor is it a dump (like some student-y areas, and this comment is not only limited to sheffield!). it’s in the southwestern part of the city. someone once told me the reason to why west sheffield is so much nicer. sheffield is famous for its steel industry. apparently, for most of the time, the wind blows in an easterly direction, bringing the soot emanated from the steelworks with it. therefore, the wealthy cutlers had their mansions in the west while the poorer working classes lived in the east. a cutler by the name of george wostenholm used to own the nether edge area. his 19th century mansion is now the marriott where the snooker players stay during the annual world championships. i digress.

for a small suburb, i quite like the shops they have. small and personal. decided to have a late lunch of the fattest (in both size and content) cheese and mushroom pastie i’ve ever seen (for those who’ve been to the UK: the 63p excuse for a pastie just doesn’t cut it), accompanied by a salad dressed with some wholegrain mustard/olive oil combo. like it’ll make the pastie any healthier. it did make it look classy, though, and it went down well with my hazelnut latte. there were a couple of new shops that i checked out. like this neat deli called dish, which sells a multitude of italian stuff like semolina, arborio rice, pasta (both dried and fresh, even the black squid ink ‘uns: pasta nera): you name it, they (might/most likely) have it. they also had amaretti biscuits, which reminded me of tiramisu. hmmm, tiramisu *leleh*

a trip to the record store was fruitless; no interesting secondhand items. i almost had a fit seeing a copy of hendrix’s are you experienced, only to find out that it was a reissue. you know it’s one when you see a barcode on the sleeve (geek alert! geek alert!). got nick hornby’s high fidelity (no, i haven’t seen the film) and marquez’s cholera from the kedai buku lama, though. oh yes. the neighbourhood is also moving further up in the world: waitrose is opening where the old safeway is. ooOOOoo.

parallel to the shopping precinct is ecclesall road which is lined by trendy eateries and wine bars/pubs. food-wise, they’ve got everything from doner kebabs to… err, lobster. i haven’t tried all them places, but one memorable place i’ve tried was slammers, which serves some of the finest seafood dishes i’ve ever tasted. i had to book two weeks in advance and they have like a two-hour turnaround time. go figure. ecclesall road will be pretty chock-a this time of the night, as i am typing this entry.

i didn’t know much about nether edge when i first moved here. all i knew that it was not far from the hospital, and when i first drove around looking for property, the first thing i noticed was its leafiness.

leafy is good.

i must say i was lucky, though. i wouldn’t move elsewhere.

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by the way, i saw this on a shop window this afternoon. anyone interested?