It’s a twelve minute walk from my flat to the tube station.

 

It’s a twelve minute walk from my flat to the tube station.  I make this journey about 12 times a week, so over two hours of my week is spent walking up and down the very same patch of road.  Over a year into my blog, it has been remiss of me not to mention some of the things that happen.

The first half of the walk is quite pretty.  It’s a hill, but not too steep, and there are the quantities of trees on either side to make it feel pleasant.  The second has pavements divided equally between paving slabs and cobbled stones, to stop I assume, cars tearing up onto the pavements.  It is one of those types of streets. 

If you are trying to overtake the meandering locals on your way to the station, which I generally am having left on average six minutes later than I meant to, even in trainers, its like walking on piles of books in your bare feet.

There’s a little bakery next to the station and I have never brought anything in there.  But sometimes, as I come out of the station, I get the feeling for something sticky and homemade and this week I went in for the second time.

It has the usual assortment of large creamy cakes and bagels and cholla bread and after a while the sound of my salivating distracted the man from licking his fingers and he came over. 

I’ll add briefly that in my old flat (four minutes to the station) there was the best Jewish bakery that sold mini danishes  – almond, little pineapple things and a cream cheese with another nut sprinkled on top.  It was always the highlight of my week to leave with a little plastic box filled with the pastries so that they were squashed against the top. 

The first time that I went in was to ask whether they sold these.  They did not.

On the spot I opted for a danish ring thing that had clingfilm on top, and although I couldn’t be sure the finger licker hadn’t prepared it, it looked worth the chance.  The exchange went something like this:

Me – How much?
Him – Um (much thinking, I assumed wondering how much he could overcharge me) £3.
Me – I’ll take it. (I offered him £20)
Him – Do you have anything smaller?
Me – (I am hypnotised thinking about what could be on his fingers that are making them so irresistible) No, but I’m going to the corner shop so I could change it there?
Him – Yes, would you.

I went to the corner shop and brought some milk, a pack of cigarettes and at the last minute a bag of haribo and have been sneaking past ever since.

It rained pretty hard this week and when it does this hill of mine tends to fill up with puddles of water with inevitable consequences for the pedestrian vs sadistic motorer. 

On these days, I see a woman with a grey and dark purple golf umbrella.  It’s enormous, I literally can’t see her waist.  It’s as if she’s taking it for a walk.

They’re pulling down one of the blocks of flats at the side of the road.  There’s a crane or digger, and I can’t think of any other way to put it, it just sits there and tears away at the walls.  Inside are intact door and window frames, wall paper, and in one room, a charred rectangle on the wall, where I imagine the old gas heater used to be.  Every time I walk past, I keep on thinking I must bring my camera next time. 

By the time I took this the digger was sitting on the entire block, made up of bricks and dust, as if it had won, if I were to personify the digger further.  I had forgotten my camera again but I took this with my phone.

  

And reader, sorry I erased your comment by accident so I didn’t get a chance to read the article, so definately send it again if you would like.   I’m gutted but everything is a cliche and I try to avoid writing too many in one month.