London Lives

The clocks have gone forward, there is a definite sniff of spring in the air today. It’s one of those beautiful soft sunny days that never appear to really blossom, but remain fat with promise. The neighbourhood cats are sitting nonchalantly on the pavements (and stalking the nearby woodland). I have been the good citizen this morning and filled in my Census form.

March has been reasonably prolific for me: I’ve completed a short story, a piece of flash fiction and a piece of micro-fiction. I’ll see how these do in competitions. Meanwhile, I’ll focus on some new work. I’m carrying around plenty of ideas in my head, jostling for space. I need to carry on getting them down, honing them until they feel something like complete.

To a Friday rendezvous at my friend’s local in east London, catching up on the week’s gossip over gin and tonics. Friday after-work pubbage is a rarity these days; I’m more likely to be cooking something or eating out. Anyway, good to see some regulars, catch up on my friend’s news and chat to one of her friends too.

There had always been a plan to fit food into the agenda and it was never going to be difficult to persuade her into the the local Indian for a sit-in and natter. We had prawn biriyani, side dishes, and Goan haddock with pilau rice. They have quite an extensive fish menu which we’ve promised ourselves we’ll work through. Biriyani always sounds bland, but I think it’s a very delicately spiced dish, that matched the chilli and lime of the fish. All very lush and for once we didn’t over-order. All of it was eaten.

A quick swish around the supermarket was needed (alcohol, milk, breakfast things). Then we linked arms and trundled home among the blustery streets. We’d been warned about fairly wild weather this weekend and it was starting with bits of squally rain and serious winds. Near the Tube station, a man who’d been walking ahead of us suddenly turned and handed us pieces of paper. We muttered thanks and each of us knew they must be religious tracts. Upon inspection, we were right. “What’s Your Burden?” it asked.

Wandering to my friend’s house, the wind was gearing up. Under the street lights there were piles of enormous leaves, blown flat to the path by the wind and  kept there by numerous sheets of earlier rain. We stood for a while under the light, watching a beautiful tree as it writhed in the wind.

At her house, we sipped Amaretto liqueurs and played with her beautiful cat Phoebe. She is quite adorable. Caught up with music on Later with Jools Holland. He always has someone interesting: Steve Martin playing the banjo (Steve Martin – who knew?) and a great band called Delphic. I must look them up on iTunes.

Overnight, I was snuggled asleep in the living room, but the cat-flap was swinging so much that Phoebe kept cantering to the kitchen to check no other creature was invading her territory. The wind and rain were ferocious.

I got my hair done today and had to venture out among all the wind. The hair is great, veh slinky. I am very pleased with it. I bought nice shopping on the way home with a view to battening down the hatches this evening.

Salmon and mash planned  for dinner. Tomorrow I am supposed to be shopping for a proper winter coat. Weather permitting.

When I’m on my way to work in the morning, I am frequently passed by a man running to the Tube station.

He is neatly dressed in a suit for work, with smart shoes and his jacket folded neatly over his arm as he runs. The first time I saw him, I assumed he was late for work. When I kept on seeing him, it occurred to me that he couldn’t just be late every day; he would simply change his routine rather than have to run to the Tube station each morning.

So, it must be part of a routine, for whatever reason. It struck me that he is wonderfully composed as he runs, never out of breath and evenly paced as he runs in his work clothes. This morning he climbed on to the same Tube carriage as me, still perfectly composed.

I love seeing my street wake up and get to work in the mornings. Parents trundle their children to the nearby schools (mothers check their phones and shout encouragement to kids wobbling along on bikes; a father here and there carries his briefcase and his child’s lunch box). People sail by on bicycles, helmets neatly affixed. The street sweeper appears, iPod on, checking his phone. Cats sprawl themselves on front walls. People walk their dogs. A jogger sidles by. On Tuesdays the refuse collectors and recycling vans make their way along the road. At the moment, men are laying new paving slabs. The normal activity is like a TV drama writer’s dream.

More poppies and fireworks about now. The clocks have gone back and it is dark by 5pm.

The local cat that was lost has been found. Hoorah! There were notices on lamp posts with a photograph and her owner posted on a local blog asking everyone to look out for her. Now, she has posted to say that all is well. Those notices on lamp posts make me feel sad. I am a wuss.

Very lazy day, watching back things I’d recorded over the last few weeks. This included The Pumpkin Eaters, starring Anne Bancroft. Wonderful study of a marriage and people’s motivations. Peter Finch was excellent; James Mason was suddenly and splendidly menacing. I think Anne Bancroft is beautiful and I find it difficult to take my eyes off her when she’s on screen. I know she’s no longer with us, but I use “is” because she’s still alive via her films.

For dinner I made spaghetti with prawns, chilli, garlic and rocket. Lush.

The day dawned in an unpromising fashion then the weather became unexpectedly lovely as it went on. At about 10am, I spotted a fox asleep on the wall of next-door’s garden. He was well camouflaged and snoozing peacefully. I’ve spotted him in the undergrowth at the end of the row of gardens and also sleeping in our own garden. The slinky tabby cat from next door-but-one sometimes sits on the same wall, peering intently into the undergrowth. Now I know what he’s looking for.

I went to Chiswick today. It’s a fairly long ride out west, but the weather was lovely: a beautiful autumn day with a gorgeous sky and shimmery sparkles glinting from anything shiny at street level. The bus noodled gradually, heading out along Marylebone Road. I could write oodles on this blog about Marylebone, but that will come.  There was a wedding taking place at the old Marylebone Town Hall. Always lovely to see happy people and beautiful coloured clothes spilling out onto the pavements as you slide by on the bus. There’s a sense of sharing that snippet as you pass by.

Sweeping across Edgware Road, the bus went on to Paddington and Notting Hill.  There is a road just past Notting Hill Gate called ‘Palace Gardens Terrace’ which I think is a wonderful road name. Palace Gardens Terrace. Lovely.

On Chiswick High Road,  the park at Turnham Green was bright and green and clipped, the church at its centre looking solid and wonderful. Cyclists swooned past, giving off gentle smells of fabric conditioner. I was looking for a shop called Dada, which sells books, CDs and DVDs. Last time I was here, I picked up a CD of Nat King Cole (like having velvet gently fed into your ears) and DVDs about Joe Strummer and the Old Grey Whistle Test. This time I picked up a Julie London CD and a DVD of Leonard Rossiter which I’m planning to give to my father for his birthday. He’ll love it. I think I’ll get him a Hairy Bikers cookbook as well.

When I was a child and living in the Midlands, my parents used to bring us to London to visit various relatives and friends. We came to Chiswick on those visits, to see a friend and former neighbour of my parents. She had a fabulous three-storey house and her husband had a bedroom on the middle floor (they were a couple that had separated but never divorced). Their children had other bedrooms on the various floors. One of the things that intrigued me about this house as a child was that the bathroom was on a ‘middle’ floor. You climbed two flights of stairs to get from the ground to the first floor and this bathroom was reached on a level between the first and second flights. Big chequerboard tiles and you had to stand on tiptoes to reach the long handle to the pull-flush, with the cistern high up near the ceiling.

I remember us visiting in October 1981 and we had an ‘early’ Christmas dinner, because we wouldn’t see them at Christmas. The IRA had left a bomb in a Wimpy bar in Oxford Street and it killed the bomb disposal expert. It was all over the news. I remember it on the TV just before it was switched off as we ate our dinner.

Some years later (1993, I reckon, the year after I’d moved to London), my mother and I travelled to see her friend and we spent a lovely afternoon in her garden, eating food and chatting over old things. Her husband had passed on, and she has since. At some point, I will walk back along that street in Chiswick and look up at the house where my parents’ friend lived and at the neighbouring house where my parents lived as younger people.

Not so much “Mogs on pavements” as “Mogs on walls” today.

There are loads of cats in this neighbourhood, at least seven that I see on a regular basis. On the way to work this morning, a lovely tabby was cleaning her paws as she perched on the wall outside her home. When I called out a greeting (because I’m like that), she came rushing along the wall to be stroked under the chin. Then she walked along the wall, following me as I headed to the zebra crossing. I was dreading that she’d follow me into the road, but she hung back near the hedge, continuing her cleaning routine.

On the way home the lovely multi-coloured cat in a nearby road was sitting on the gas meter box outside his home, in similar mood for being stroked. He’s one of the regulars.

This blog should probably be called “Mogs on Pavements”, as I found another example on the way home this evening. This is a familiar one, all patchy colours, that leaps onto the wall outside his house, demanding to be stroked.

It is a lovely balmy evening, even now, and September upon us tomorrow. The time just slipped by this afternoon in Westfield. Shepherd’s Bush has come up in the world. It still has the tower blocks on its Green; I rather like them and they remind me of the ones on Edgware Road. The tube has been expanded and the rail and Overground stations nearby give a wide and expansive feel to the area. This is before you even set foot into Westfield. We had good Italian food (seafood en papillotte) and nice wine and natter. Spent hours mooching in the big cool centre, then picked up food for tomorrow.

The Central line was packed with people coming back from the Carnival, a hot fug of people holding on and grabbing seats where they could. The Piccadilly was an oasis of calm by comparison.

I slipped out mid-afternoon to go to Muswell Hill. It was still windy, but bright and silent. The streets here are lovely on Saturday afternoons. I remember them when I first came to look at my flat before I moved in. There is a peaceful and purposeful silence to the area at this time of the week.

A brazen moggy was sprawled across the pavement as I approached. I bent down to stroke him and the daft feline promptly ran under a parked car and mewed pityingly at me. Daft thing. (((London cats)))