SomersTownLisa

London Life
2022-11-15 17:02:09 (UTC)

A walk in the park

Sun 13/11/2022
I woke up at 08:00 but had already decided not to do either the Junior ParkRun volunteering or the Regent’s Park 10km with Sarah and Latoya. In the afternoon I went on a walk organised by sweet Rosie, which I’d publicised on our website. I had to wait 15 minutes for a train but got there before met Rosie and her friends outside and I was the first to arrive form my club.

Although it was organised on behalf of an organisation helping people get away from corporate business jobs, all the people apart from the ones I got along were Rosie’s flatmates or ex-flatmates, three of them. The ones I brought were Sree, Fiona, Aine, Ivy, Danielle who we haven’t seen for a while, and a new girl, Laura, in a Christmas jumper already, though not as tacky as most. Sree said she didn't usually see me looking so smart. I don't know what she meant, as she sees me at socials, and I only had my light zip-jacket, an ordinary skirt and flat suede boots. Aine was picking on me again, after a long moan from Sree moaning about me moaning about her moaning. Mostly I chatted with Fiona and Ivy; the three of us were slower walkers than the others. Ivy seemed very disappointed I hadn’t come to cross country yesterday, which made me wish I had, at least for the drink. She was the only one I really wanted to see, who did the cross country.

We just finished the walk, around the wetlands and up Springfield Park, as it began to get dark. I recognised the River Lea, which we crossed twice, as I’ve run and cycled down it, but I hadn’t been along the route we took; Springfield Park has got quite a hill in it. Although I was the last to the pub table, I managed to sit in the middle and had a nice chat with Rosie’s friends, including Jasmine who I talked about music to. She’d earlier asked me “what do you do”. So I said “go on walks, go running, theatre, cinema, gigs…”. I did apologise as I knew she meant work, but to me that’s not “what I do” and she said it was a good answer. I got the bus with Rosie and one of her friends as far as Hackney.

I was meeting Gus in the evening. On my way back, I scheduled our meeting for 18:00,got back with half an hour to spare, and decided to use the Camden Chippy, which was already shut last night at 22:50. I had to wait a while, then the girl who was wrapping up my chips started wrapping up another batch. I’d asked for “large”, but was puzzled and being tired and having had three drinks, I let her do it before wondering if she thought I’d ordered two packets. Sure enough, she charged me £5 and by then I thought it was wrong to point out her error.

By the time I was walking home, I saw Gus coming the other way, who’d left a bit early. I said I’d see him in a minute, then decided I didn’t really have to go home, so followed him to the pub. We covered pretty much the same ground as before, just clarifying what we want to say at the AGM. He now thought it was a good idea to put up our own car park gate, whereas before I thought he’d preferred liaising with the managers of the other block.

I had a lot of chips to eat when I got home. I was in bed by the time Jack got back from seeing her Dad.




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