Wandering a way to work

There were so many distractions on the way to work this morning. It is a miracle (and also a tragedy) that I managed to get here before dusk.

I remembered that on my route to work I walked past Dennis Nielsen’s house. You know, the one where he strangled his lovers in their sleep and buried them in the garden. Anyway, I meandered along the avenue trying to identify the right house. You would be amazed how many candidates there are. Its possible that some actual live serial killing is going on in some of them as I type. They are going to build some new houses on the tiny tiny patch of waste land at the back near the lock up garages so they’ll have to dig it all up again so the new guard may be discovered sooner than they think. This is one of my big fears – to live in a house and find out, months later, that it was once littered with the corpses of unfortunate murder victims, many of whom suffered hideous torture. I fear that more than the serial killer I think. Dennis Nielsen was a civil servant. Which makes sense really.

I have never, in my whole life, seen so my dogs sniffing each other's arses before. In my whole life. I think today must be national Sniff a Dogs Arse Day in the canine calendar. I was pleased to see that our four legged friends are not subject to the same bigotry and prejudices as we are. There were small dogs and big dogs, black dogs and spotty dogs, shaggy dogs and wiry dogs all sniffing each other with gay (and straight) abandon. I did feel sorry for three dogs whose owner would not let them play with the other dogs. He was one of those Queens Park types that had wandered over to our postcode by mistake – perhaps had a heavy night on the old champers – and he had two of those dogs that look like they have dreadlocks and no eyes and one Irish Wolfhound who looked thoroughly depressed, as any good colonialist whipping dog should. They weren’t to fraternise with the poor people’s dogs for fear they became diseased. Or had fun.

I walked across the playing field/abandoned patch of grass and happened upon a woodpecker. Although the pesky bird insisted on flying off every time I got near it, I persevered and positively identified it as a green woodpecker (picus viridi). Why it was in the middle of a stretch of grass and not moshing half way up a nice tree I’ll never know. Mostly because every time I asked it, it flew away in either terror or disgust.

I inadvertently gathered a large amount of gravel in my turn ups and was forced to stop and clear my jeans of little stones and twigs twice. Then I had trouble folding them back up again so they were even and also so my ankle area didn’t look like a fan of Bronski Beat. Or Bros.

There were no aeroplanes in the sky whatsoever. This is more disorientating than it sounds because the skies of north west London are usually teeming with aircraft, and not just police helicopters. This is because, if you don't know, the police have foiled a terrorist plot and now the horse has bolted they are trying to nail the stable door shut with a bag of marshmallows and a lego pirate figure.

I was cold. You think this would make me quicker. But no. I savour being cold, after being too hot for so long it was a blessed relief. Although now I am finally at work and the air conditioning is on as though it were 103 degrees CELSUSIS outside. I am in fear of hypothermia.

Can you imagine? It's a wonder I'm not still out there somewhere marvelling at it all like some village simpleton.