Gillespie Road Local Nature Reserve

me & dinah were walking down holloway road this afternoon, we'd eaten well @ the amazon cafe & i was walking her to her audition for the performing arts degree that's she's doing right now...

a headline for a local paper was written on a board outside a newsagents and it said:

ARSENAL HOOLIGAN DOLLS OUTRAGE

at 1st this only made sense to me with the word DOLLS as a verb... an arsenal hooligan dolling an outrage... but doll is not a verb... even though it's possible to doll up...

anyway - i still don't know what it really means - i'm sticking with the arsenal hooligan dolling up this outrage - whatever that might be...

anyway i dropped her off and i walked down to highbury corner to pay a cheque in to the bank (my week's work's earnings) & then turned the corner to highbury fields and wandered awhile...

i found myself really needing the loo as i walked an area i don't know that well... found myself face to face with the new emirates arsenal stadium and pondered whether one could just walk in & use their facilities... but decided against trying...

a brand new block of flats is being built right there by the stadium... trapped by two railway lines, imagine living there and trying to get out on a match day...

affordable housing for keyworkers...

fantastically dumb location...

anyway i crossed another pedestrian bridge to get off the stadium site and i was close to arsenal station (previously gillespie road station before the team came up from southwest london) and i found gillespie road local nature reserve...

with a building and a loo...

and a good few acres of lovely parkland nature reserve..

amazing to be close to this and to not know it existed before...

so i wandered around in a bit of a daze... i fully intend to return there and soak in it's beauty...

i headed north after and walked through part of finsbury park station, bumping into a man i used to hang out with a fair bit in the mornings... now bearded... he runs a coffee counter in the station - but i can't remember his name... i used to buy a smoothie from him every morning before catching the train into work... (.. sam .. there it is)

finsbury park is dolling itself up a bit these days, i really like the colours in this roofy bit...

x