In the village for the turning on of the Christmas lights. Someone says a melodramatic prayer and the lady Lord Mayor makes a speech. Isn’t it all a bit early? I like Christmas but not if I’m bashed over the head with it everyday for two months. Bah!
It’s buzzing tonight. Little pockets of mostly student-lead activity. The tables outside the Albion are all a murmur at the end of its own cobbled drive.
Turning onto Boyces Avenue I stop. I always love this arch – I don’t know why – but I could walk beneath it a thousand times and never grow tired of it.
When it opens into the corner of Victoria Square the moon is hidden above the half naked trees in the square. The path goes diagonally across the middle of the green in the middle of the square lined by low walls.
The ubiquitous dull orange street lamps of Clifton emanate a dopey, dirty light like an opium dream and reflect the same orange glow in the puddles along the pavements.
The moon appears, shrouded by cloud, fading and then reappearing as if being smothered by smoke. That and the wind are a form of ecstasy.
It’s suddenly a pocket of relative quiet after the busyness of the village. Perhaps that’s what I love about this gate that opens onto this – it’s the transition in view and mood it creates.
On the corner of the square the silhouettes of the trees are momentarily projected onto the grand Georgian architecture growing and then disappearing as a car rolls past. This is the start of Lansdown Place. The balconies stretch the length of three town houses, some sixty metres in length with curved white painted ironwork.
I stroll past the end of Richmond Terrace where there used to be a crap nightclub called Luna which was only good for a late drink after the pubs were closed. I used to go there with Anna, my hard as nails first flatmate from Krakow. When she left she said in a most definite way ‘I won’t see you again.’ Ok then. Was it something I said? That was six years ago. Great to see the old offie, the Ten O’clock shop is still going though, like a little Aladdin’s cave retreating into the old basements of the townhouses behind.
It’s getting cold and I start to pace my way home. Just before the flat someone has left some bunting forlornly, rakishly dropping beside the bubble writing of the Cathedral of St Peter and Paul. The little hankies seem to be dropping and drooping like the brown and yellow leaves that lie scattered around and above it while a hot hatchback revs its engine in the background. Late at night often the silence is shattered by people tearing up the straight half mile of Pembroke Road to the Downs.
The Slow Walker 