And it was not only a mild concession to fitness, it was also a voyeurs paradise – tantalising insights into the human condition could be sneakily snatched every ten yards, from teenagers heavy petting on the sofa while dad dozed beneath the fluttering pages of the Sunday People, to Mr. Wilkins at No. 47 vigorously ironing in his corset and suspenders (if he wasn’t away polishing his woggle at scout camp). It beat ‘Play for Today’ into a jauntily cocked hat.
Nothing hindered one’s progress save a stray leaf from a recently trimmed privet, or a retired major (who would invariably offer a cheery salute) taking Monty the Lab for a spot of recreational squirrel chasing.
Pure pleasure. And a far cry from the absolute hell the poor pedestrian has to put up with today.
A few years ago, fed up with either the misery of being stuck behind a delivery truck or a very poorly parked Panda for half an hour, or having my arm ripped rudely from its sockets as I hung on bravely while the driver did his best Lewis Hamilton impression, I decided to give up the bus in favour of Shanks’s esteemed pony. More bloody fool me.
I’ve learnt to avoid the potholes and cracked paving slabs that are waiting for a budget that will never come, and lie in wait to send me arse over tip. I can just about negotiate the lumps, bumps, gullies and gutters created by hundreds of criss-crossing cable TV installations. I can skirt graciously round the coned off, litter-filled holes that mysteriously appear overnight. And I’ve developed a sixth sense that stops me sliding, banana-skin like, on pools of urban fox-shit, and giving the local builders their much anticipated morning slapstick comedy instalment. (If we’re going to have to live with these beasts in the city [that’s foxes, not builders, you understand], shouldn’t we make sure they get some fibre in their diet? They currently seem to survive on left over vindaloos, and consequently poo in odd coloured puddles).
But still, I seem to spend most of my journey walking in the road. Sometimes because it’s simply impossible to climb over all the green, wine-bottle filled boxes, the white bags that pour plastic detritus all over the pavement, and the orange bags that spew garden waste into the gutter.
Sometimes it’s to avoid the black bags of rubbish that were carelessly put out after 6.30 am, and thus missed and left ‘til next week, or it’s to get past the piles of stinking household rubbish that have spewed from their bags, as they were carelessly missed by the catcher in the dust-bin men’s game of urban basketball.
Sometimes it’s to avoid the head-phoned half-wits who are too busy texting to look where they are going.
But mostly, it’s to avoid the bloody tank sized buggies.
Endless streams of marauding mothers and nattering nannies hurtle towards you, pushing things that Boudicca would have happily taken into battle. And worse still, they now have tiny outriders on little 3-wheeled scooters stationed at either side, to ensure that passing is all-but impossible. So we’re forced to leap for our lives, and take our chances with the traffic.
They career towards you, their faces and gilet swathed breasts puffed up with pride – mocking us singleton’s with an attitude that screams, ‘Bow before me, for I am fertile! These are the products of my loins, and we shall ride roughshod over all who dare to obstruct our journey!’
Well, do you know what? Mrs. there isn’t enough Guinness in the world that could make me find you yummy, mummy? I may well be on my way to the station all on my Jack Jones, but I have a couple off-spring of my own, thank-you. And they were brought up with a sight better manners than yours, it would seem, and a bit of respect for other people and their personal space.
Still, feeling somewhat guilty that when these boisterous little blighters grow up they’ll have to live with the terrible cock-up we’ve made of this once fine planet, I manage to bite my lip, and soldier on.
Until the silent assassin appears, that is.
One tiny step of the straight and narrow, and bang! they’ve hit you. Right up the bloody jacksy. Clattered into you on their bloody shiny new bikes.
When I asked one Star Wars helmeted, lycra clad idiot why he didn’t use the road, I was quickly informed, amongst a novel combination of expletives, that it was too bleedin’ busy. And dangerous to boot. Well pardon me. I’ll skip in and out of the 4x4s instead, mate, and leave you to complete your private Tour de France on a pedestrian free pavement.
Worse still, my fume-filled stroll back from Hangar Lane station now has to be completed backwards. I kid you not. Because business suited buffoons and orange vested workmen come hurtling up behind you at such lightning speed that any attempt to step aside and avoid overgrown hedges and discarded carrier bags of empty lager tins would result in permanent, painful injury. And being run over is one thing, but being run over by a cyclist is just plain embarrassing.
My cry of, ‘Get a f**king bell!’, is usually met with ‘Get f**king stuffed!’. So I fear drastic measures will have to be called for. It’s war.
Maybe a box of tacks, liberally sprinkled, 007 like, to puncture a tyre or too? A sturdy walking stick that could be wielded, Steed-like, and thrust between the spokes?
Surely no court in the land would convict you.
And it beats walking in the road.
