I will be candid with you here, readers, and confess that I am a streetwalker.
Yes, indeed, I walk the streets, often finding them less busy than the suburban hill, with its battalions of hound-exercisers, joggers and even the occasional cyclist ruining everyone’s day.
There is, in fact, a series of steps in the suburb that runs half way up the height of the hill and, if nobody is looking, I will try to run up these. Usually, I manage three flights before having to lie down semi-conscious for a few minutes.
The trouble with that is that passers-by, seeing me lying prone and breathless on the ground, scold me for being so unfit that I can hardly manage some stairs. If only they knew.
There are grand views from the top of the ‘burb and, naturally, I have come to know several people to whom I can shout hello without risk of arrest.
I choose the house I would like to live in – for this is a much more prosperous place than my own shantytown – and admire the gardens. I never see anyone working in their gardens and have become convinced that they must come out at night.
In the ghetto, I’m the only one you ever see gardening and my quarter acre is a complete mess. The more I do the worse it seems to get. Maybe need to read my Tao Te Ching again (the philosophy that less is more, basically).
My other main suburban walk is on flat ground and, often as not, culminates at the public library, where I like to go if I want to hear children shouting and mobile phones going off every few minutes. Oh, for a return to the days of a stern spinsters shushing anyone who breathed too loudly.
I must say I don’t take my leafy suburban walks for granted. The worst thing about living out in the sticks before was that you couldn’t walk anywhere once it was dark. Indeed, in a lot of fenced-off parts, you can’t walk anywhere when it is light.
The ‘burbs offer the freedom to walk in the evening, underneath the street lights, now thankfully – as recently discussed in this very boutique – less interrogative than of yore.
I’m still having to look for somewhere else to live at the moment and would be hard pressed to find something with both pleasant streets and an attractive hill. Did I tell you about the time I put in a Google search for “hill near …”, naming a somewhat dubious small town and all it came up with was William Hill, the bookmaker’s?
We take nothing for granted. That includes feet, which I find very handy. Often as not, I will wear stout walking boots, even while stravaiging the streets, because the footwear is just so darned comfy. Sometimes, I turn up at the library looking like yon Scott of the Antarctic.
I hate it when I get to the top of the hill in a blizzard or squall and feel really good about myself, and then a jogger in a vest and shorts arrives. It shouldn’t be allowed.
And so, retreating from the hill, I return to the streets, where I am master of nothing I survey, and nothing is master of me.
