Cappuccino sighted in Burnt Oak

Burnt Oak is not noted for its fine dining opportunities. The cafes on Watling Avenue and Burnt Oak Broadway are alright in their own way. (I will spare you the sordid details of every cup of tea I've ever drunk in one or other of them - since I am not standing for election there is no call for such shameless name-dropping.) But none of them provides the decent coffee and pastry that I have come to expect almost as a human right.

Imagine my delight, then, when as I bustled up the road to Edgware Hospital this morning for my free cholesterol check, I saw a new cafe called "Lalgerois". It boasted "pastries, paninis, coffee, wedding cakes". Behind that eccentric spelling - it should be "l'algerois", non? - I thought, might nestle a north African eatery. I was right!

After a 14-hour fast (I think, the longest I have ever gone without something passing my lips), my appointment with the phlebotomist over, I went in there and fell on a tasty apricot danish and very acceptable cup of strong coffee.

Just opposite Lloyds Motor Spares, Lalgerois has a pleasant salon with tables inside and outside, a really impressive display of cakes, a charming lady serving, and the sound of French hip-hop drifting not too obtrusively from the kitchen.

Added to the shisha garden that has rather incongruously opened in the car-park of the Lansdowne pub, perhaps the northern end of the Edgware Road like the southern will soon have its own "Arab quarter". (Apologies to any Iranians reading, who generally, not always for good reasons, hate for their culture to be mistaken for Arabic.)

I, for one, would be most happy for that.

Edgware Road trees: why is nothing ever simple?

There is controversy about the species of tree that Barnet council plans to plant on Edgware Road. Fair enough, but rather depressing that they can't get it right. The Edgware Road is not 'leafy, green' Barnet but 'grey concrete' Barnet and badly needs some prettifying.

Times series report here and Barnet Eye's view here.

Trees reach Edgware Road

Barnet council's plan to plant 100 odd trees alongside the Edgware Road around Burnt Oak is going ahead. Hoorah! They are always going on about what a green, leafy borough it is, without addressing the fact that vast swathes of it are in fact horrible and grey.

Read the Times series report here.

Of course, they are not spending Barnet money on it - the money is coming from the Mayor of London.

Back to bed. (The flu-o-meter is showing six days now.)