Murkier Mistical Tour / Curmudgeons Ahoy! (79/80)

Post 79 of 80. Wednesday 11 December (11/12/13) – Woodgrange Park (Square C9 on the Tube map), Wood Green (A6), Wood Lane (D3), Woodside Park (C9)

I get to Forest Hill station almost two hours later than I’d planned earlier this morning. I catch the 10.49 a.m. Overground northwards. There are a number of silver linings – the heavy murky blanket of mist is lifting, the sun is coming through, the air is fresh, the Albion Millennium Green looks splendid – all in all, the makings of a perfect winter’s day. Plus this is the last consecutively-numbered day now for ninety years – how mystical-mathematical is that!

Mist lifting over the Albion Millennium Green. ‘Labyrinth’ by Maria Strutz in the foreground.

Ambiguous Neighbourhoods, A Buffed Fingernail, A Happy Man (61/80)

Wednesday 18 September  – Seven Sisters (Square B7 on the Tube map), Shadwell (D7), Shepherd’s Bush (C3), Shepherd’s Bush Market (D3), Shoreditch High Street (C7), Sloane Square (D4), Snaresbrook (B8)

I pass through seven very different stations and neighbourhoods today and discover that not only humans but stations, streets and whole districts can be afflicted by psychological disorders. Of course, I’m not saying that madness lurks around every corner, only that some neighbourhoods suffer from what could be called Neighbourhood Ambiguity Disorder (NAD), ditto the sibling condition for stations – SAD. Other neighbourhoods and stations are approaching their zenith, yet others haven’t quite realised that they’re a little past their ‘Best By’ date. I’m bucked up by chancing on what may be the hippest neighbourhood in London and, perhaps, the happiest man – two very different states of being.