I spend quite a lot of time walking around. It is possible I may have mentioned this.
Every day I walk three and a half miles into work, via my children’s nursery, and then back again. I always try, if practical, to walk into town: backpack on, laces yanked tight and the latest grime cuts booming through my headphones, by which, of course, I mean old episodes of Radio 4’s In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg. Good old Melvyn. He’s been a constant companion on my sweaty treks around London, giving academics grief and going on about the Middle Ages.
Why do I spend so much time walking? I’m a bit self-conscious that people might think I’ve deliberately set out to make this ‘my thing’. I never meant for it to be ‘my thing’. To be honest, I’d always hoped that ‘my thing’ would just be ‘being a cool ledge’. But the reality is that I am not a cool ledge and that I do spend half my life walking. So there you go. Still, there are big plus sides. You achieve incredible clarity of mind.
All my very best ideas happen when I’m walking. The other day, trudging through Shoreditch, I had a brainwave: I could make millions by introducing hipsters to evaporated milk! Those guys love conspicuously consuming slightly kitsch, slightly blue-collar foodstuffs at exorbitant prices, so why not cash in? Imagine, a dedicated evaporated milk café. A licence to print money. I made a note and walked on.
There’s also a clear fitness benefit. Weaving through the oncoming foot traffic crossing London Bridge has given me dancing feet. I’m now, in my mind, one part Lionel Messi, one part Gene Kelly.
I hardly ever barge into people any more. Plus I’ve become more social. You see the same people again and again. You nod. Smile. Or, in the case of my three-year-old and a friendly dinner lady who stands outside a school we always pass, exchange high-fives. Got to be careful though. Last week I saw a young schoolboy carrying a big model castle. ‘Nice castle!’
I thought, and then gave him a big grin and a wink. He looked afraid and scurried off. I later realised that I’d only complimented his castle in my head.
If that was you — or, more realistically, your child — then I’m sorry. But it really was a great-looking castle. Bet Melvyn would have loved it.
