The Mole Man and The Hipster Hell Mouth

I thought that Monday’s walk deserved its own post, free of bowel related content, so you’re blessed with a twofer today.

Our finances are complicated. I am in the lucky position at the moment of being able to take some time out. It is unclear at this point in proceedings what the future looks like, fiscally and also job wise. We veer wildly from maybe catastrophe to probably ok on a daily basis. It is as many people enjoy saying, a spectrum.

While I am able and reasonably stable, I am making hay, because I have learned, over years of fluctuating fortunes, that the worst thing I can do is not take advantage of good times when they are handed to me on a plate, or I have the opportunity to make them for myself. As my ex-mother-in-law was fond of saying if you offered her seconds; ‘It would be rude not to.’

In the old days, when money frightened me more, I spent it fast so that I didn’t have time to think about it a lot. My very fucked up reasoning was that nobody could take from me what I didn’t have, so spending it was a safety mechanism. It was, for a long time, a lot of fun. It was also extremely stressful and brought with it a horrible shame that I am still working through.

These days I take a more measured approach for my own sanity and the sake of everyone that loves me. My hay needs to be hay and not ‘straw into gold’ to strain an already extended metaphor. My adventures have a set of flexible rules that allow me to do what I love, but which stop me from breaking the bank every time I clamber off the pontoon. I walk because I love it. It allows me to exercise without getting bored and I am able to explore all the things. It is also free. I use public transport when I need it but try not to rely on it as a quick fix. Food is allowed but has to be thought through. Things can be browsed but again can only bought with a great deal of thought.

This might sound logical, but me and money do not have a logical relationship and spending money has the same effect on me that shooting crack has on other people. It’s very moreish and it feels fucking great, so I have to be extremely careful. I have also learned, over the years, to be kind to myself if I fuck up. That’s where the flexible bit of my planning comes in. I have learned to think that I am not a problem to be ‘solved’ I am a life to be lived, and that requires a bit of compassion.

My Monday adventure could have taken many routes. My list of things to do grows exponentially bigger as people suggest stuff. I pondered all my options and decided that I would go to De Beauvoir Town. I had never been and it came highly recommended as an area I might enjoy exploring by my friend, Zak. It didn’t have a price ticket and there was the promise of a big walk, which after a few days of mostly sedentary life, I really needed. Also the weather was fantastic and it won’t last, so I decided to make the most of it.

Old Street seemed to be a good point to set off from, so I headed in the general direction. I walked up through Canary Wharf and into Limehouse. Exiting Limehouse I had a spectacular hot flush and had to stop to dry off at a bus stop. Mid revival a bus pulled up that was going to Old Street, so I got on it gratefully. I was going to go all the way to Old Street, but got completely side tracked by the bus stopping at ‘Curtain Road’ and got out to explore.

Apparently people think that Curtain Road is called that as an allusion to the fact that actor/manager James Burbage lived nearby and wanted to build a theatre there in Tudor times. According to a website I found, this is completely untrue and it is actually something to do with the wall of a Priory that sat there in the Middle Ages. Both the monks and Burbage would probably be horrified that it is now the hipster paradise that is Shoreditch and is full of graffiti, coffee shops and strangely named businesses that probably advise people not to write Substack newsletters about poo.

I wandered around the myriad streets for a bit, taking photos of street art and stickers. I found the fancy Japanese restaurant Nobu, which was very beautiful and which the old me would have probably gone into debt to eat at. New me was tempted, but wandered on. I doubt they would have let me in anyway. I’m not trendy enough or rich looking enough although I might be able to pass as an eccentric, elderly heiress. I didn’t try.

My rules got bent slightly as I rounded a corner and came across a branch of Eggslut, which is somewhere I have been desperate to try for some time. It crops up a lot on Off Menu and I couldn’t resist going in. I had already eaten lunch to make it harder for me to do what I was now doing and dropping money on food I could eat cheaper at home. I decided against testing everything on the menu (again, hugely tempted here and had to talk myself down) and instead went for a side order of the truffle hash browns with rosemary and the berry custard pot.

One of my other rules is that if I do end up breaking or bending my own rules, I have to enjoy the transgression. If you break a rule, you should feel good about it, otherwise it’s a waste. Luckily it was extremely easy to enjoy Eggslut. The food was genuinely magnificent. I spent ages there, savouring every mouthful. It was a beautiful experience and my stomach felt honoured. I will totally be going back when funds allow.

Suitably fuelled with deliciousness I set off for De Beauvoir Town in a much more organised fashion. It turns out that De Beauvoir Town is somewhere I have circled and crossed on many occasions without knowing where I was and without ever actually going into it fully. It was surprising to me how often I had missed it.

It’s a small area that sits to one side of Dalston. It’s not a showstopper place, but it is architecturally interesting and has beautiful parks. It’s edged on one side by the Regent’s Park Canal and on a sunny, August afternoon it was a lovely place to be. There were lots of people out, enjoying the green spaces and taking it easy. By the time I arrived, my walking had become slower and more liquid and I was fully into my flaneuse role. My brain had slowed to match my pace and I dawdled on the warm pavements, sniffing the late blooming roses and feeling beautifully at ease. I spent about twenty minutes looking at a wonderful hydrangea that looked like it had been sculpted out of raspberry ripple ice cream. I moved on when I started wondering if you could be arrested for loitering near a hydrangea.

I found a gorgeous square with a municipal rose garden in the middle. Unlike the squares around Westminster and Victoria, it was not locked up behind railings and only available to rich people with the right keys. It was full of families, chatting and playing. A girl was learning to ride her bike behind me on the path. Her dad said: ‘Do you want to come over here and practice some more where there are less people?’ She replied: ‘No, daddy. I am pretending that I am riding my bike on the road and all these people are actually cars.’ This seemed very sensible to me.

Sitting on a bench, soaking my bones in sunshine, I did a quick Google to make sure I wasn’t missing anything vitally important that I would kick myself about when I got home. That’s when I found out that I was mere yards from where The Mole Man of Hackney did his tunnelling. I was so excited I had a small surge of adrenaline and leapt from the bench. I had read about the Mole Man in a book years ago and was absolutely delighted I could go and see his house.

I found the road and wandered up and down, wondering if I would be able to spot the house from the outside. The problem with someone who is famous for tunnelling is that unless they cause the road to cave in (which he did, on several occasions), there is not necessarily any external evidence that would suggest this is the house of a Mole Man and not just the house of a non mole adjacent person. I couldn’t discern any mole like qualities to any of the houses I was looking at so I did another Google search, perched on a wall and hit the jackpot.

It turned out that when the Mole Man died in 2010, his house was remodelled by a famous architect who wanted to keep some of the more mole like qualities of the house and make them more obvious from the outside. The article I found had lots of photos of the house and a house number which I shoved into Google maps so fast my fingers blurred. The road is one of those long roads that splits and splits and I was on the wrong section of it. When I actually found it, it was completely mole man like and made me very, very happy. It is now owned by an artist called Sue Webster, whose work with fellow artist Tim Noble, I have long admired. Her work is quite macabre and entirely suited to being created in a house of moles.

I do wonder if, in the process of renovation, some of the tunnels were also made safe and kept? Apparently they were up to eight metres deep and ran for twenty metres from the house in all directions. I have so many questions. I also wonder if Sue Webster has taken up tunnelling since living in the house. It looks exactly like the sort of house that you might wake up in and find yourself possessed with the ghost of a mole man and an irrepressible urge to dig. It’s a house that Buffy and the Scooby Gang would definitely investigate if it was in Sunnydale instead of Dalston. Although who is to say that Dalston doesn’t have its own tiny, hipster hell mouth?