Tuesday
Heavy rain starts at 4:11am. At 7:24am I look at the wrong clock and it says 6:24am. Despite the fact it’s both meteorological spring and astronomical spring, it’s also British Summer Time.
I’d been planning to walk soon, although not today. But there’s a break in the rain and only three people at the bus stop so instead of the wait, I walk: across the bridge and up through the city to the office. It takes about 45 minutes which, on a bad day is the same amount of time as the bus.
From the bridge the tallest buildings and their viewing platforms (floors) look very close together. If all the new buildings have these, soon the only view will be the people in the next building looking right back at you.
Just like the first week of Walknotes I take a cut past Monument and the light hitting the building next to the column is still magic.
There are leaves coming out on the trees at Bishopsgate. I didn’t think they’d make it through winter but most, if not all of them are getting there. And there are two more being planted.
Up past Liverpool Street the new-build blocks loom large over the two-storey buildings in front. I remember a petition against a new development in the city. One of the features was a building with an overhang, right over the top of the Victorian Bathhouse. I see it was passed despite the petition. Soon there will be the city beneath and the city above. It feels like science fiction in the making.
Wednesday
Raining again. I’d planned to walk to the other woods just to see the springs running through it, but instead I finish Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
Before I start work I read a timely newsletter. It’s not new news, but essentially, “…it’s a fairly reliable rule of thumb that you need to have a lot of ideas to have great ones.” Sometimes you just need to keep going.
Thursday
5:08am when the heavy rain starts. By 5:37am it’s so intense we’re both awake.
“Oh my god”
“Jesus Christ”
I don’t think this has much to do with the gods, but still I offer a prayer for the leak in the ceiling.
I replay a conversation from last night. “They say there’ll be droughts this summer. No new reservoirs to catch this rain.” In the wind last week, one of our water butts fell over. I don’t know how. It was full and far too heavy to lift.
As soon as the rain stops, I hear the birds start to sing. It’s 6:11am and apparently the sun rises at 6:28am now.
Later I walk up through the city again. I’m close to Spitalfields market when a man walks past in a sweatshirt with a slogan printed on the front: Create what you wish existed. I wonder if he’s ever seen the news, or taken a history class.
We’re at the spot where, a few years ago, I saw a woman round the corner sitting on a motorised suitcase. At the wrong eye-level she almost got taken out by a taxi. He shouted and she shouted and raised her fists. Create what you wish existed.
Just by the Geffrye Museum there’s a blackbird singing so loudly it cuts through the noise of the traffic, and I stop for a second to listen.
Walknotes 