Charles Dickens famously used to walk around the deserted streets of London at night. As there's a Tesco Metro which opens at 6 a.m about
3 miles distant I thought I'd set off for a walk about 5.00 a.m. One of the big problems walking in town is breathing in traffic pollution which is why its necessary to walk besides rivers, canals, big parks or just as far away from busy roads as much you can. Walking at night or at least at 5.a.m presents none of these problems as there's hardly any traffic.* Arriving at the Metro at 6.00 there were two other people waiting. A man and a woman. They were both getting agitated as the doors hadn't opened at 6.00 on the dot although there was clearly activity inside the shop, So why worry ? Apparently this was an experiment for both of them as well. The first thing to happen was the exit doors opened further down and three shelfstackers from the night shift came our clutching big packs of toilet rolls. But no worries there were plenty more inside. Along with porridge, and tea bags but only in 80's rather than the more economical 240's which were the object of this particular exercise. During the ten minutes I was in there, I would guess only three further customers came in. The two who left before, or the same time as me, were mainly interested in the big packs of toilet rolls. One went out carrying two.
While I mock yokels mercilessly on here I have to confess that two members of my family who I'll call Charlie and Sue were wannabee yokels around
1977 or so. Having lived and worked in London all their lives they bought a cottage/bungalow in Huntingdonshire, just about a mile down an idyllic country lane from an idyllic Midsomer Murders type village with an actual village shop. The idea was that Charlie would get up and amble down to the village for the paper of a morning taking the dog and amble back in time for breakfast. It was only after the first time Charlie tried to put this into practice that they realised the significance of the fact that there were no pavements along their idyllic country lane and that as nobody had been foolhardy to try and walk along that Lane possibly since the war cars were bombing along it at 70 mph. It wasn't funny at the time, they never properly unpacked but sold up and moved down to Shoreham where Charlie could walk along the sea-front every day. I don't know if they had a septic tank or not, in retrospect I assume they must have but I never thought to ask them at the time.
michael adams
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