Saturday October 25th, went for a walk through London, big walk. God how I love walking through London: the city is like a blank canvas, any picture you like can be painted upon it. Walked so much that the next day my body ached more a less from head to toe but there was a kind of ecstasy about it so I didn't mind too much, if at all.
That Saturday went into town quite late for me. Usually I'm a morning man but this time I didn't get on the tube till just before 2pm. Reason was that Tamdin was coming back from Brussels in the evening and I said that I would most probably meet her at St Pancras. That would mean staying in town till 8.30 pm. So, no point in having to get in that early if that was the case, otherwise I was afraid of flagging and then the whole thing would turn into little more than an endurance test.
Got off at Bethnal Green to walk into the City through the old East End, Brick Lane in particular. Kind of had to make a quick change of direction when I got to Vallence Park due to a large group of youths being in the middle of the park.They made me feel vulnerable and I didn't fancy the prospect of walking past them. Me in my dad's old leather jacket that he had recently given to me and with wallet full of cash sitting in the inside pocket. White middle aged man walking past a bunch of street smart black and Asian youths; at the very least I would be humiliated. So I gave them a miss by taking an exit from the park that I didn't usually go through whilst saying a load of Guru Rinpoche mantras.
When I usually walk down Brick Lane it is on a Saturday morning and the whole scene is more or less empty but by Saturday afternoon things have changed big time and the place was full of people, mainly people younger than me. Virtually everyone appeared to be far better dressed than me, a million times sharper and I soon felt very self conscious indeed, almost out of it as I made my way down the Lane. Not a nice feeling when you are in a public situation and you feel that every single person looks cooler then you do. I cut a hasty path across to Spitalfields down Hanbury Street, there the crowds emptied out and things felt a bit less intense.
You know how it is, sometimes you can just feel that you are in the wrong place at the wrong time and that was certainly one of those occasions. It can quickly lead to feelings of paranoia, the feeling everyone is watching you, but for completly the wrong reasons. Not for cool reasons but for what's that stinking bum doing here reasons. Resolved to myself I would have to buy some new clothes so that if I ever did Brick Lane again outside of normal hours I would not feel so exposed.
Spitalfields was emptier than Brick Lane, giving me a bit of breathing space, and then things really levelled out as I made my way into the City proper after picking up a wholemeal veggie pasty at a pasty stand outside Liverpool Steet Station. On my way to the pasty stand as I walked through Cutlers Gardens I had passed a man going through the contents of a bin looking for food. I thought it would be a good idea to maybe buy a couple of pasties then I could go back and give one to him. Somehow by the time I got to the pasty stand I forgot all about him, then as I walked down Bishopsgate holding the hot pasty in my hand I passed him again and I'm afraid to say that I didn't give him my pasty.
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