Sunday 04 July 2021 – Walthamstow.
South Woodford high street smells of KFC. It is a rather unique smell, and totally different to the fried stuff smell that emanates from other chicken shops. Not that there were other chicken shops on South Woodford high street. It may be the next suburb over but South Woodford is not Walthamstow where fried chicken shops seem to breed like rabbits, or maybe chickens. I think both sets of residents would be happy with that difference. They might be neighbours but they are worlds apart.
Perhaps the smell of deep fried dead things only existed for that brief moment I walked up the high street and South Woodford normally just smells of burnt diesel and petrol like every other Range Rover filled suburb on London's Essex fringe. Who knows? I probably won't be back there in the next three weeks to find out, nor do I know anyone to ask, we may be neighbours etc.
We moved back to London the Friday before last, to Eleanor's house in Walthamstow, which is currently occupied by one of her sons and his girlfriend. Yesterday a tenant moved into my flat in St Leonards. While these are eminently practical things as we fly to New Zealand in four weeks and we have a lot of organising of stuff to do, one (or maybe two) more weeks by the sea on our own would have been nice. I am finding it stressful sharing a house and with so much to organise, but we have done a huge amount in the last week and things will ease. I hope.
This weekend I have spent time packing stuff away and throwing stuff out (though not books and records!) and was as organised as I was going to be by lunch time. As we were low on bread and milk I volunteered to go and buy some so I could get out of the house for a bit, stretch my legs, clear my mind and maybe take some photos.
Once out of the house and on the way to nowhere in particular I remembered that I wanted to take some photographs of the overpass where the A406 (the dreaded North Circular) joins the M11 and a road that goes somewhere, though I have no idea where. A minor league spaghetti junction that we pass whenever we drive to and from the flat. It was not too far from one of the many supermarkets I can walk to so it seemed like a worthwhile objective.
I took these two photos on the way.
The overpasses were not quite where I thought they were, or I wasn't where I thought I was and I found myself walking under a rail bridge in South Woodford where I found a closed car park, only very small cars would fit in those spaces.
Out the other side I walked back over the bridge and from the top I could see over the houses to the motorway and where I wanted to go, it wasn't far off. I had just misjudged how deep the bend in the road was.
I found an underpass under the A406 and stopped to take a photo, planning on going through it on my way back; though naturally I went another way back and completely forgot about the underpass until I was almost at the supermarket. Lesson learnt; always do something at the time, never plan to do it on the way back or later. Admittedly, this is a lesson I should have learned a long time ago and have failed miserably to at every occasion.
Back on track I soon found what I was looking for; this wonder of concrete, steel and tar seal. It is not the biggest or most complex intersection, but it is the one I have, and I need to make use of what is local to me, especially now I no longer have a car to hand. I kinda wish I had the big camera with a couple of lenses rather than the little camera with the 20MM lens. [4 days later I discovered that the big camera is now dead, and now I need to make camera related decision again, something I wasn't expecting, or wanting to do right now].
I like how some attempt had been made to green the place, though only half the trees seem to have survived.
Access to the other side was blocked by a fenced off construction storage area so I couldn't easily get to the other end.
I really need to do more urban landscape photography as I quite enjoyed myself.
On the way to the supermarket I stopped on a bridge over the A406 and remembered that I had meant to walk under it.
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