How did it all happen?
I went on yet another Stratford 'exploratory' walk, saw the oldest parish church, an abandoned building which once housed a bar called... The Angel, a park with a fountain, some buildings; all the time taking pictures, as I do.
When I got back to Stratford High Street I decided to go a bit towards the City which I'd never done before. Hence I discovered more and more...
and finally went ahead and reached Abbey Lane which led me to the famous Abbey Mills Pumping Station, a marvel of Victorian engineering. Right beside the wall surrounding it I saw a small building which houses a community centre. Play, Sow and Grow it is called. I wish I had taken a picture of this local hub, but at that point my phone was on its last breath and I wanted to save the remaining shot or shots for the pumping station building in its glory. No such luck. The big red brick wall and a fence inside it guard the premises and make it impossible for a tourist equipped with a camera in their phone to even attempt a decent picture. As you can see below, I did try. Then I walked along the lane. Abbey Lane narrowed and led under a railway bridge. I headed that way not wanting to go back the way I came. Three lovely little girls came hopping merrily towards me from under the bridge. One looked at me trying to photograph the hardly visible top of the building.
Following the girls emerged a young woman. As she came closer I greeted her and asked for advice regarding my return route. She was pretty astonished to see me there alone and on foot as the sun was going down. She was trying hard to dissuade me from the idea of going back the way I had in mind. Seeing her efforts were in vain, she told me to wait two minutes so she could take the girls to Brownies and she would give me a lift to Stratford Station. That I didn't expect in the slightest. Quickly in my mind I evaluated the risk. 'Do I get in a stranger's car? But this stranger is a woman and a mother, and obviously has concerns about me walking from here', I thought to myself. And so I waited. She came back quickly and we went to her car.
On finding out that my phone battery was nearly gone, she put it on charger. We chatted. Of Caribbean descent, she's lived in Stratford for years and years and loves it. She'd liked it even before the Olympics 'upgrade'!
The car was parked near this row of stylish fairy-tale houses of which very few survived the German bombs during The Second World War. Of the whole city, East London suffered the most during the Blitz...
As we drove along the winding road among many industrial premises and sites, I was feeling immense grattitude to my new friend. It definitely didn't look suitable for walking alone as the sun was disappearing below the horizon. And then we got back to the busy Stratford High Street. I was amazed to see how much I had walked. My Guardian Angel dropped me off by the steps to Westfield Shopping Centre next to the station entrance. I emerged there from thetube at lunchtime and stopped to listen to the percussion sounds. I my smartphone had more power, I'd have recorded the music. I loved it. Having put some coins in the busker's pot, I felt entitled to take a picture of him:
Then I climbed the steps behind him to set foot in the third largest shopping centre in The UK and look at London from there:
It was still daylight when I embarked on the Central Line train. There was no danger of oversleeping and missing the station as I had to get to the end of the line.:-)
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