Walknotes

Monday

Nothing but work and tea.

Tuesday

“Do the Wordle!”
“I don’t want to!”
“We should do the Wordle.”
“I don’t want to tell you the word I use.”
“Let’s do it!”
…
“Is that the word you use?!”
“Yes. I said I didn’t wanna tell you.”
“Omg.”

School kids on the train, ‘doing the Wordle’. Accidental education.

According to my phone, today is the first day the sun has risen before 7am this year. Yesterday it was 7.01am and today, 6.59am.

There’s a busker on the corner of Fenchurch Street and Bishopsgate. His violin is hooked up to a speaker, an amp and a backing track. Classical music soars above the sound of the traffic – and for a moment everything changes. It’s like being in a film. Or walking in slow motion.

On the other side of the road the city seems twice as loud. Cars, cranes and machinery. The scaffolding and supports for new building work are staking a claim on the pavement and disrupting the flow. Sometimes we’re redirected. Lines of commuters, lines of traffic, bending to the will and whim of the people in hi-viz and hard hats.

Back in the early 2000s I booked a cheap flight to Italy to see a friend. I spent any savings I’d made on the flight by paying for a 4am taxi from Brixton to Liverpool Street station. As we drove up Bishopsgate in the dark, the taxi driver whistled and shook his head. There was building work going on even then.

“Look at all these new buildings. You know what this is?”

I said I didn’t. “Dot coms. Dot coms! They’re making so much money now. Just imagine.” A half laugh, a sigh, another shake of the head. “Dot coms – dot coms!”

What were they building? I can’t remember. Whatever it was, it’s been taken down or rebuilt, reskinned, failed, succeeded or started over. The buildings and the dot coms.

Wednesday

As I walk to the wood, I see the daffodils have come out. But the wood is the worse for wear after the storm. I look for the vertical lines and get snagged on the diagonals. Trees lean on trees and others have already fallen. Some branches ripped, some trunks uprooted. But it’s not all bad. They coppice this wood, and it’s well looked after. Some of the trees were already due to come down. Others will give new light to the undergrowth, more space for other plants to thrive.

When I walk past the cow field the grown ups are grumbling in the shadows at the side. The calf is in the sunshine in the middle of the field with no one but her own long shadow for company.

I puff my way up the steep hill and when I reach the top, remember this is supposed to be exercise anyway. I should be walking faster. I speed along the ridge and notice they’ve already chopped fallen branches into neat logs and raked over the undergrowth. Won’t be long before this is full of ferns.

Thursday

Russia invades Ukraine.

Friday

Swap the walk for news and doom scrolling.

Did it change anything? It did not.

Saturday

Sunshine. Social media is a bizarre mix of the serious and the trivial. Not sure they sit well side by side – although on reflection, this is also life.