The world in four short blocks

Apologies for more infelicities than usual this week. I lost two hours to a petulant printer which didn’t welcome my novel’s complete first draft, grinding out crumpled disordered sheets and requiring intense therapy every ten pages. A charming (no, really: I requested and value her knowledge) Gujarati friend then pointed out everything that was wrong with the chapters featuring a Hindu family. Ten percent of the 300 hard won pages is effectively waste paper.”See?” crowed the printer.”I said you should wait.”

Well, wait I did last night after a puncture revealed contemporary repair kits are a poor substitute for a spare wheel. Three hours later the efficient Turkish breakdown man arrived; then there were three more hours at Kwik Fit this morning. It was my turn for petulance. Friday mornings are my blog writing time!

The charms of the Kwik Fit waiting room are limited (despite the cheerful efficiency of the Afro Caribbean manager) so I wandered along Leyton High Road, which I hadn’t explored since it was tarted up for the 2012 Olympics. And you know what? We writers should get out more. Immediately I found enough material to keep a modern Dickens in business. My quick photos tell a story of their own, just waiting to be peopled with loves, misfortunes and human warmth.Please read it, if possible in conjunction with my posts Peace and about teaching in multicultural areas. This scruffy corner of a soon to be gentrified corner of London deserves to be recorded, and I’m only sorry I did it in such a hurry.

The peculiar hair salon and the monstrous fruit

Peculiar Hair and Mush Turkish Traditional Barbers both looked welcoming, although I avoided Mermaid Massage (special services available) in favour of the Chinese acupuncturists:

Our household now has the shoe rack, door handles, green nail polish, and banana sweets we didn’t know we needed courtesy of the “Carnival” cornucopia, where I was served by an Irish lady while the cashiers chatted in Urdu. Sadly I couldn’t see anything in Blackwell’s window to tempt me, since I don’t need any old toy cars or dusty Tower of London souvenirs.

Zoom in for the Mama Afrika Kulcha Shap and Cleopatra’s, to the left

For the first year in many, I’m told no new Eastern European children were enrolled where I used to teach. Here, three miles west, Romanians and Polish seem to enjoy mixed fortunes: this van certainly wasn’t delivering to Sainsbury’s, and “Gaska” is moving up and down the parade.

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I didn’t get photos of the Muslim Cultural Centre, the Al-Jazira cafe, the yam and plantain displays or the (excellent) Portuguese restaurant but I did discover where in East London Malaysia meets Mogadishu…

…and where you can find Somali, Romanian and Spanish food sharing a block with a more traditional tyre provider than KwikFit.

 

For a breath of relatively fresh air I could have walked around Coronation Gardens but the cricket ground was in use, unlike (apparently) Billy’s wooden workshop by the gates:

A bar whose name I forgot to record (sorry) provided some great street art:

…and I now know where to take clothes for repair:

Last came the moment that may even make a three figure bill and the loss of six hours worthwhile. I didn’t stage this juxtaposition. It was just waiting for a writer to use, outside another empty shop relocating along the parade.

I ♥ London too. Please keep the connection, everyone.

©Jessica Norrie 2017