A different side to London

Spent a very pleasant afternoon with Mark k-punk & Luke Heronbone wandering about what seemed like London's back yard. It reminded me of when I was a child living in the city. I used to love exploring the city, running about abandoned warehouses, clambering along narrow paths beside sludge filled streams and generally relishing in the delapidation of disused buildings that have been attacked by pseudo-nature. Such places also provided excellent locations for street drinking. Unfortunately when we moved to the country I lost my easy access to slow destruction and instead my walks had to take on the more delicate tone of the country which rarely offers as much scope for exploration and discoveries.

My knowledge of London is fairly blinkered; probably because on visits all one ever sees is places like Oxford Street (or the extreme abyss of hell), Picadilly Circus and the like. It was therefore fairly idyllic to stroll along overgrown paths alongside a filthy canal and get stung by militant nettles (I hate nettles.. bastards). The canals themselves are something of a sight. I've never seen such a heavy layer of green slime in my life.... I was fairly astounded to see things that should have sunk floating on the top of the canal as if they merely lay upon grass. Even as a barge floated along the river it seemed that it had to plough its way through all the sludge. I'm glad that I didn't fall in, I'm sure that I would have emerged as a greem monster instead of a glueboot.

We watched birds for a long while in a very sweet bird watching hut. It's very peaceful watching birds, they seem quite content to peck at the water and catch things. If I were an animal I imagine that a bird would be a good animal to be. Eat, peck, spread your wings occasionally in a threatening way. We saw lots of seagulls and a strange bird that we were unable to name... and (very aptly) a heron. It got surprisingly cold in the bird hut so we left and walked to stoke newington. I was surprised at how far we had walked..... I'm sure Stratford to Stoke Newington is a fairly long distance.

It was good though to be away from the hoards and the cars and to delve behind the frantic facade that London seems to have.

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