wending by the wandle

so, as an amateur, as in doing it for love, i got up this morning and traveled down to tooting to check out J's project... he's been my apprentice all year and it was effectively a way to feedback on his teaching and how it's developed...

got up with minutes before i had to leave so my plan of cycling down there... (a very long way) was scuppered, meaning that by the time i'd got there and finished my business with J (lovely guy, i will miss him in my lessons next year) i was on foot in the arse end of nowhere...

really close day, an abandoned looking path seemed inviting at 1st, being as i didn't know where i was going, it drew in hugely and was quite scary - the detritus of humans inamongst towering weeds, nettles, a common theme over the next hour or so...

the path eventually fed onto the back of an industrial estate so i back-tracked and phoned felinity for directions, having established that she'd had lunch already and we weren't all that close anyway she told me how to get to wimbleden park, which had seemed to me closest of the tube stations to this obscure place, i had no intention of walking back to tooting broadway station which seemed miles away... this morning i'd walked along garrett lane with a scalding hot cup of tea inadequately insulated in cardboard - munching on a toasted cheese sandwich with the sun roasting the back of my neck bemoaning the length of the walk...

so following her directions i set off down plough lane, a horrible road full of trading estates, before long i was drawn off the road by some kind of electricity sub-station that i had to get to the back of a ford dealership to take pictures of...

i rejoined the road but left it again almost immediately as there was a bike/pedestrian path that led alongside a small river & seemed infinitely better than the road,

so i walked along this path, passed the electricity sub-station from a different angle - all kinds of industry going on on the other side of the river - the wandle as it turned out to be...

no clear idea of direction, just a vague thought that i was heading (with the flowing water) to the thames.. at one point i heard thunder, probably a little before my own house was briefly wetted in a shower as i found out later...

after a little less than an hour the path stopped as the river widened, i did find another path by the river but it was another human detritus/weed zone, and it ended fairly quickly, i took a nice piece of video of the rail bridge ahead, just caught a southwest train crossing it... (can i be arsed to youtube it and post it here...?)



so i decided to leave the river and follow the trainline to the right, odd to be on streets again after that openended river... i met a couple of guys unloading something and asked to look at their A to Z and saw that earlfields station was very close, had i just walked as i'd intended i would have found it anyway...

for some strange reason i decided to get the train in a big W, one stop to clapham junction, then up to willesden junction, then from there to highbury, then finally the tube up to finsbury park... deliberately indirect... i had a fair amount to write in my journal (some of which appeared in this post) and the neil labute shortstories to keep me company, they really are good...

and then tonight, after a brief lovely kiss with my dinah just before she went off to work, producerG came round and we made beautiful music... very nice day...

very tired now,

x