bobble

I didn’t feel well after leaving work yesterday - I could not face the sweaty torment of the 344 bus either.

So, I decided to walk, maybe just a little bit, maybe follow the bus route and then maybe when I got tired to get on the damn bus and grit my teeth until it was time to get off.

[Before I start this is a long posting - I hope you keep with it 'till the end - and apologies for the mobile picture quality - my real photography is much more professional I assure you]

I started to walk. At first leaving my office in Bishopsgate I stuck to the bus route, it was 5.30. Then I began to duck down small alleys to get off main traffic clogged roads and avoid the human tide of office workers. It felt natural to do so, plotting my own path. It was then that I started to notice the small things around me… old city churches with rusted doors, a patch of wild flowers bravely struggling through the pavement. The fact that near the back of Cannon Street station I could actually hear birdsong.

Inspired by our dear Negrito, I got out my camera phone and began to take small pictures of my path. I thought again of what Selfish said of no one writing anything of interest of late, about real things. I was guilty of that myself.

Well this was real wasn’t it? I had made a conscious decision to step out of my normal life for a few moments and notice some new things about me. Maybe that is why I am sick today and felt out of sorts yesterday. As urban dwellers we don’t take time. Time is a luxury. In the frentic rush from A to B, home to work, work to gym, gym to evening class or social committment we never really stop.

And think.

We don’t get the chance to appreciate the side streets - the art of the flaneur - to take a look at that interesting building we half glimpse in our morning bus conveyed torpor.

So I walked and saw and walked. I began to feel invigorated and I wanted to laugh out loud.

This is a back street near Cannon Street - no doubts as to who owns this patch…

but the Church seemed immune to rampant capitalism and just quietly displayed it’s beauty…

Passing a sign for London Triathalon (I didn’t even know we had one) I was feeling pecking so without pausing to admire the muddy Thames in it’s evening colours I ran over Southwark bridge and grabbed a tasty sandwich to fortify the young traveller!

Under Southwark bridge is a great image about the The Frost Fair (I ran my hand over the raised surface).

I was in an area that always looked facinating from the bus, between Southwark Bridge (south side) and Borough Road. A lost area of London, a bit run down, a place people went through but never got off at.

What great name for a street. Imagine living in a road named after a military superpower. Or Amerigo Vespucci.

There’s a building here on Marshalsea Road that looks like a miniture Flatiron building and the entrance to a wonderful little urban park where people were doing outdoor step aerobics (and yes I did feel guilty eating my frosted carrot cake).

There’s also a playhouse,
I didn’t even know existed, an imposing Welsh chapel and a rather overworked young lady in her basement office dreaming of going home. The saddest thing was the Borough Community Centre all boarded up and desolate - what a waste of a fine building and a fine idea.

Coin Street Park is a fantastic modern urban space and I think the people in the flats looking over it everyday are very fortunate for their little oasis.

The best thing about the park was a loverly old couple sitting on a park bench contemplating life, and the intruder (which I was) in their daily life. Oh, and the burnt out car seemed to fit in perfectly.

Leaving the park I turned into Copperfield Street (formerly Orange Street). I immediately wanted to live there (it looked and felt like anywhere but Zone 1 London) and when I found another old couple feeding pidgeons outside their house, I was envious of the people who did.

Back on Southwark Bridge Road there is a rather fine pub, Goldsmiths, that I keep meaning to go into and buildings that make me look up from my novel each morning - the abandoned houses on Great Suffolk Street.

There’s a rusty old estate agents sign hanging outside advertising commercial use but no other signs off life. Just gutted and left. Worn out. I have this mad idea (often) that I will win or acquire the money to buy these wonderful old houses in this forgotten area and make them live again. Maybe a flat or three on the top floors for me and my mates, then some bedsits for starving artists. Then at ground level maybe a coffee-shop run by yours truely selling proper Italian coffee and handmade cakes. Bottles of obscure herbal based Venetian alcohol on polished metal shelves behind the counter and battered sofas to lounge and think in. Next door would be my photographic gallery and shop. I did see one sign of life a few days ago though. Two backpackers were carefully folding away their tent after pitching it round the back and over the wall for the night. Good on ‘em.

On approaching the blight that is Elephant & Castle I needed to be cheered up (note to Norman Foster and his E&C masterplan: hurry the f*ck up). As ever there was joy even in the most neglected areas. I liked the idea of cows and a dairy in the middle of Elephant and Castle! And who could not be cheered up when walking home when you went down Gaywood Street?

The Imperial War Museum always disturbs me. The big guns out the front scare the crap out of me. I know it’s a well worn argument but do we need in the 21st century a museum of war? But as ever in London here was another park to revive the spirits and a young couple were doing just that .. Oh and for BRB fans, there is one right next door for all your wood-fired oven pizza needs.

I passed onto Lambeth Bridge road, the road that would lead me onwards to Battersea, and passed next to Lambeth Towers. I saw an overpriced (but isn’t all London?) flat here for £165K (it’s ex-local authority) once. They’re designed by a famous sixities architect and quite striking. Inside there are a peculiar split-level layout of rooms including a back stair and bomb-shelter-hidey-hole in each flat.

Sadly it was here that my camera battery died. But, I did, at 7.15, finally make it home.

Tired, still feeling grotty but with the happy notion that I had achieved something.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 29th, 2004 at 11:05 am and is filed under Affairs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Subscribe to this comment feed at Bloglines. Both comments and pings are currently closed.