For over forty years i’ve been using Canterbury Library, in the Beaney in the main street. Since retiring i’ve visited most Tuesdays, together with any other business in the city centre. Keeping the same day makes it easier to remember when books are due back. Used to go and return by shortest route, about two miles. Now i go further for exercise. Hope of rejoining to DATROWS leisurely walks, three miles.
Library used to open at 9. Would go there first to finish business before city centre is crowded. Now opens at 10 so aim to end business there.
Last Tuesday planned to visit Waitrose, Wholefood, Waterstones and library. Need to plan and make a list so i don’t forget anything. Then seek coffee. A warm sunny day. Raincoat in my backpack. In case.
Oxford Road: Victorian and twentieth century housing. Used to be one of my routes to work. Later part of leafletting area for Safeway. Steeply up Norman Rd. Cross Nunnery Fields to Prospect Place. Down Puckle Lane. Short stretch of Old Dover Road. Left on quiet Abbots Barton Walk above old lime quarry with flats. Left on noisy New Dover Road. Cash from machine by Tesco. Bought Big Issue from John.
Feel affinity with homeless, rough sleepers and the like. Could easily be me. Worked, badly, for the Simon Community decades go.
Used to feel buying Big Issue was a donation and the magazine was an excuse so it wasn,t begging. Found the mag a good read. Then i realised the seller has a business, buying at £1.50 and selling at £3. Not a handout but a hand up. John is not the recipient of my charity but a person with a history and his own problems. Remarkably he always manages to appear cheerful. So i feel better. Thanks John.
Waitrose for quiche and finger plasters. Across carpark to Longport. A notice that council wants to sell site for housing. Church Street St Pauls. Church hall, now residential, was scene of parties years ago after Mystery plays in the cathedral. Pedestrian crossing across busy ring road at lights. Burgate. Wholefood for baguette. Cross main street to Rose Lane. Waterstones for new highway code. Escalator to top floor, stairs down. Difficult with stick.
Library: nowadays i borrow one fiction: Asimov’s “The naked sun” oddly not in collection at home. One nonfiction. Broaden interests by going through the Dewy decimal numbers. 306.094109. Iain Dale “Why can’t we all just get along…” Good question.
Coffee in the yard of Cafe St Pierre. Across St Peter’s Place into Westgate Gardens. Pleasant riverside walk. Punt, mallards on water. Ate apple at Toddlers Cove, children’s playground.
Avoided noisy Rheims Way and Wincheap by walking by river and through tunnel under railway to industrial estate. Past Autocare, Bamboo Tiger to Spring Gardens. Cross Wincheap and home.
Three miles, but more than two hours walking. Not good enough to rejoin the group.
Rambling Brummie 