East from Oxford Street

Out of Liverpool Street east side this time up the escalator and then across Bishopsgate. Once on the other side of the road I head down Devonshire Row in the direction of the Travelodge but before I reach it I take a right into Cutler Street off Devonshire Street. Walk down Cutler Street and cross Houndsditch the place where plague pits lie deep beneath the surface of the ground and onto Goring Street, then across St. Bevis Marks and onto Bury Street and then I come out in front of the Gherkhin a relatively new landmark on the cityscape.

It is a hot June morning and I am feeling good, the sun is beating down on the pavement creating deep shadows and all the construction workers are just in hats and shorts, staring down at people below as they strut across the scaffolds. Look up at the Gherkhin as I walk around it and into St Mary Axe where I head up to Leadenhall Street and cross over in front of Lloyds Building. Here I have to stop for a couple of minutes and take in the sight of the new three-tiered Mace Building that is going up in front of Lloyds. It looks like it is going to be an amazing construction, in fact it already is. Not only that but they seem to be able to create huge structures these days out of nothing and in next to no time. I stand there for a few minutes in the hot morning sun feeling pretty awestruck at the sight of it. After taking it in and thinking good thoughts about the ingenuity of man as well as muttering a few Om Mani Padme Hum mantras I go on my way down Lime Street and then take a right into Leadenhall Market. It is a Saturday so the market is empty apart from a couple of tourists pointing and shooting with their digital cameras. I come out of the deserted market onto Gracechurch Street and walk down in the direction of the Monument which I soon pass and then cross the road to walk on the west side of London Bridge as I cross the river.

All this has taken not much more than 20 minutes since leaving Liverpool Street and I am feeling good as I make my way to the south side of the Thames and go down the steps beside Southwark Cathedral and into Borough Market. Crossing the river I notice the water is low and that already by 11 am there are many crafts on the river, most of them making their way between Westminster and Tower Bridge. Once inside the market I head straight for our usual meat stall and buy a piece of belly pork for nearly 8 quid. I have it well wrapped and then I put into my shoulder bag, kind of half worrying if it will go off or not as I still have a good bit of walking to do in the hot sun. But the meat is cool and I don’t think there is going to be any problem. There is nothing else I need from Borough market so I don’t hang around although it is tempting because there are so many different types of food to buy.

I walk back across London Bridge and once on the north side of the river again I head down King William Street in the direction of Bank. Needless to say the streets in the City are pretty empty at the weekends and this is by far the best time to use them as all the trauma of witnessing stressed out office workers and city sharks on their mobiles is avoided. When I get to Bank the Royal Exchange is to my right but I walk straight across and onto Princes Street. At the end of Princes Street I can either go straight across onto Moorgate or take a left onto Lothbury that segues into Gresham Street. It is the latter which I choose to do and then I cross the road and go up Basinghall Street which runs beside the Guildhall. Off Basinghall Street I am able to walk up steps that take me onto the network of Barbican highwalks and that is exactly what I was hoping to find. I am at the southern end of the highwalks that give one elevated views of the city and spares one the struggle of walking on the streets and beside the ever moving traffic. I make my way through the highwalks, eventually coming onto Frobisher Crescent which leads me into Defoe Place where I sit on a bench for a few minutes and take in the scene of the Barbican lake and waterfalls in the late Saturday morning June sun.

It is all rather glorious and when I get up I follow the route out of Defoe Place and across the bridge that spans Aldersgate Street and then down the steps past Barbican station. Here I turn into Long Lane and walk down into Smithfield which on this particular day has a fair, a recreation of the medieval Bartholomew Fair which was a major event in the London calendar a couple of hundred years ago and I daresay a hell of a lot rougher, as eventually they had to ban it due to the amount of crime and violence that it generated. Things are very different these days and just to stand there and have some sense of the history and all that has gone before made me appreciate just how peaceful the times are that we now live in. There were a variety of stalls at the fair and it was the food stalls with their delicious aromas that caught my attention, and I made a note to try and go back to it once I had done my business in the West End.

I walked out of Smithfield going down Cowcross Street and across Farringdon and through lower Bloomsbury, past Gray’s Inn Gardens along Theobald’s Road and eventually taking a rest in Bloomsbury Square Gardens before heading into the West End. Once I had done what I wanted to do which was simply to buy a copy of the second volume of Simon Schama’s History of Britain I made my way to Bond Street tube station and took the Central Line back east, this time getting off at St.Paul’s. This allowed me to keep good the promise I had made to go back to the Bartholomew Fair; when I got there I bought some rice and beans from a food stall selling Ghana cuisine and pretty damn delicious it was too. I just sat there on the edge of the pavement like many others were doing and concentrated on eating it all up. The weather was going to ensure the fair was a success there was no doubt about that and once again I marvelled at how civilised it clearly all was in comparison to times past. People with toddlers ambling by, babies in prams. A relaxed atmosphere which we should all be grateful for.

After eating the food there was not much point in hanging about and I once again walked up and onto the Barbican highwalks and made my way along them until I descended the escalators that took me down into Moor Lane right by Moorgate station. I crossed Moor Lane and then crossed Moorgate and made my way into Finsbury Circus where the park was open and people were playing bowls on the green in the middle. By now it was around 2 in the afternoon and on and off I had been walking for nearly four hours so my exercise period was now coming to an end. I sat on a wooden bench in the sun and took in the beautiful scene of this hidden park that is in the heart of the city. I read a little bit of the beginning of the new book I had bought but it was tiring trying to concentrate in the heat so after a little while I put it away and then not long after that made my way to the tube at Liverpool Street to get the line back out east. Things had come more or less full circle and it was time to go home. Looks like Bob Dylan's Modern Times is going to be out on Aug 28th 2006.