Hinterlands and Peninsulas

8am Saturday morning and North London still having breakfast. Neatly terraced houses, quiet parks, a handful of runners, some dog walkers. White vans and red buses. Vicky Park and the Olympic Park, stadiums and modern office blocks. Exiting the city over canals and forgotten rivers, entering the scruffy bits in the margins of the A-to-Z. The inbetween places, not quite anywhere, neither here nor there. Railway arches and lock-ups. A cycle lane next to six lanes of stinking traffic for longer than is pleasant. A long line of riders stretching ahead and behind. Bunching up at the lights. Long straight stretches of roads that remind me of the outskirts of Eastern European capital cities, Sofia or Belgrade. Urban wasteland, weeds pushing through broken concrete and chicken wire fencing, nature reasserting itself. A zigzag ramp over a railway line onto Rainham Marshes. Greys replaced by overgrown greens. Traffic noise fades… I relax but realise I’ve lost power to my front mech. Ah dammit,…