Wednesday 1 June 2016

Urban Diary


I get off at Kew Gardens tube station and straight away I realise that I will have a longer distance to cover to Richmond Park. Whereas last night it seemed like a good idea to get off a stop before I was meant to in order to enjoy the sudden burst of spring sunshine on this May Bank Holiday, now that decision looks a bit rushed. Still, the hazy, scanty, beams of light dappling this remote corner of southwest London are reason enough to make me regret my sudden, unnecessary and uncalled for moan.

I leave the station and make my way up North Road, a street so Hitchcockian that the great director could have shot The Birds here and most people would have found it hard to tell it apart from bleak Bodega Bay in California where the movie was actually filmed. It is not the absence of habitation that brings to mind the cinematic vehicle that launched Tippi Hedren’s career but the dearth of human life around me as I set off for Richmond Park. As I find out later North Road has neither ascent nor descent; its flatness extending for about a quarter of a mile. I am reminded of Radiohead’s Street Spirit as rows of trees on both sides of the street are “bearing down on me/I can feel their blue hands touching me/All these things into position/All these things we’ll one day swallow whole/And fade out again and fade out.

Fade out and fade back in is what the sun seems to be doing today. It is a peculiar spring day with warmth and cold both having a say in how the weather has shaped up so far. On the pavement a battle between light and shade is fought. The evanescent sun contributes to that. Blossoms are still few and far between but noticeable. Once in a while a car zooms past, the noise of the engine breaking the stillness of North Road.

As I come to the end of the street I think of Robert Frost’s poem, The Road Not Taken, and its fourth and final stanza: I shall be telling this with a sigh/Somewhere ages and ages hence:/Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— /I took the one less traveled by,/And that has made all the difference. I have no idea if North Road is the less travelled by, but at least I am glad I got off at Kew Gardens tube station and added these extra few miles to journey. I carry on, a spring in my step now.



© 2016

Photo taken by the blog author

Next Post: “Saturday Evenings: Stay In, Sit Up and Switch On”, to be published on Saturday 4th June at 6pm (GMT)

16 comments:

  1. Lovely post. I'd die to be riding down that street.

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  2. I was thinking about you this morning when I was watching the news and hearing about a treasure trove of Roman tablets from 35 AD discovered in London.

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  3. It sounds a delightful ride. And hooray for the road less travelled. Always.

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  4. Love the new cover pic! Thanks for bringing me along for the ride. I love biking but haven't done it London yet.

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  5. You never know what you will find or see as you go the road less traveled.

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  6. Wonderful wandering through Kew Gardens in spring....you took me with you!

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  7. An interesting trek wonderfully described, a cool photograph and a few lines from my favorite American poet: Neat post, CiL, one I enjoyed.

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  8. Hi ACIL - what a good find ... an easy walk and time to look around - our gardens and suburbia are blossoming ... cheers Hilary

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  9. I love your leaning trees! These are streets I used to know well, in the day before marked parking bays!

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  10. Were those trees leaning or was it a photographic illusion. Whatever, they are beautiful. I love to see and walk down tree-lined streets.

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  11. Chosen detours are the best, even when they don't feel quite right at the very beginning. The feeling we are left with in the end--that "spring in [our] step" makes it all worth it.

    Greetings from NYC!

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  12. Ah sweet and great pic. Thanks for bringing us on your journey. Great word pic too and of course I love the frost though I fear I took the road more traveled. Sigh. K.

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  13. Nice travels. And I've been to Kew Gardens (taking the boat down the Thames and then the train back into London.

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  14. Perfect match of good music and setting. Radiohead started at the school (Abingdon) my son attended during our sabbatical year in England, although before his time. We all became quite attached to the band. I miss the British spring with all the blooms.

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