A Bug's Life

I've just been out for a walk, a proper walk, which was a nice surprise. I reached the post box on the corner, and instead of retracing my steps home I turned and went down the hill toward the canal.

At the bottom of the hill is Leamington Lift Bridge: an odd thing to find, it looks like a level crossing except that there is canal either side of it instead of railway lines. It is blocked to vehicle traffic, but pedestrians may cross it, and I did.

Which way? Left or right? The canal stretches in both directions. I pick "right" as I like the way the sun hits the water on that side, and walk along a wide cobbled path past a half dozen different types of architecture all bundled together. On the canal there are old riverboats moored, and new motor boats. The row of old buildings, houses, shops, looks raw and unfinished - like they have been sawn off at the back as no one is going to see that elevation. Maybe there were more buildings behind it at one time; they look perfectly ordinary from up close on street level.

Next to them are building sites, and shiny new luxury marina flat developments, glassed and curved and nautical, reminiscent of squat lighthouses, with detail features like external spiral staircases. They would be nicer if they didn't overlook the McEwans brewery - Brewery? Factory? - all sheet metal, white-painted, but looking so flimsy.

Now, when I set off, the canal stretched as far as the eye could see. Which was about 100 metres, when it rounded a corner, and came to dead stop. This is the sort of trick my sense of direction likes to play on me, though in retrospect the sign saying "Lochrin Basin" should have given me a clue. It is, I think, called Edinburgh Quay, and has a few restaurants and a lamentation of bronze swans walking and sitting along the decking. They are appealingly solid. But no more canal, so back I went. 100 miles of canal and I pick the dead end!

I am struck by how black the water looks in shade, and how white where the light reflects off it. Yet it is clear, so clear I can see through the black to see yellow fallen leaves at the canal bed.

Passing the lift bridge and going the other way, I pass the back of terraces and trees. The slope up to the houses, covered in wild grass and scrub, reminds me of a walk I used to take as a child in London, but instead of a canal it was a railway line that claimed the wild zone. It's the same sort of reason, there's no reason to develop it and no reason to manicure it so the same sorts of plants and trees move in and grow.

What is with your Scottish churches? They are often so solid, they look more like fortresses than places of spiritual uplift. I can imagine, if the winters got too cold, the whole parish could cram into the church and ignore the winds and sit it out till spring. Sort of like a nuclear bunker.

I walked for over an hour, and it was jolly nice, and if I didn't have work to do I'd go out for another one. Long may this continue :-)