I met my friend Kerr's Pink on Saturday morning to go for a walk. You will recall that Kerr's Pink is my friend who is excessively fond of potatoes and talking. (It is a mystery to me why all the people I go walking with are so irritating.) We met at Waterloo Station which was thronged with people as it was the beginning of the Bank Holiday and, very unusually, the sun was shining.
I prefer going for walks on Sundays and KP prefers Saturdays. It will tell you something about how accommodating and reasonable I am that it was a Saturday when we met. It was actually extremely inconvenient for me because on Saturday night I was due to go to a concert in the Barbican. For this reason I chose to go for a walk along the Thames as it would take less time to get there. It is a rule of mine that my walking companions are never allowed to choose where we go and quite often I don't even tell them the destination until we get there.
KP was already at the station when I arrived.
"Right, we're going to Teddington - the walk's 11 miles and I need to be heading back by three so we need to walk quickly and there's to be no talking and especially no talking to strangers!"
"Thanks for asking. Yes, I am well."
I had never been to Teddington before although like all normal children we watched Magpie rather then Blue Peter, so the name Teddington is imprinted on my brain....(Magpie, Thames Television, Teddington Lock, Middlesex) and I was pleased to discover it was quite pretty in that kind of I-would-die-if-I-had-to-live-here English sort of way. All the toddlers were blond, all the women were wearing Boden florals and all the men were in cargo pants and each and every last one of them looked like they could be invited round to Dave and Samantha Cameron's place for drinks any night of the week.
We set off at a brisk pace.
On the way I discovered a new and alarming fault that KP has developed - name-dropping. The previous week she had appeared on television in a documentary film. (I must say I don't find it particularly impressive to be seen on national television wearing a yellow vest and a hard hat but that's just me.) KP also informed me that her cousin had met Barack Obama when Brian Cowan was over in the US on St Patrick's Day and it was him who coached Obama how to say "Yes We Can" in Irish. I was extremely impressed by this but pretended not to be.
"Really, well James Nesbitt came into my cousin's shop half an hour before I was there."
"Who's James Nesbitt?"
We managed to reach Putney just 15 minutes later than intended.
KP was so busy telling me all about her relatives' connections to world leaders that she'd had no time to engage strangers in conversation. I was getting my A to Z out to check where the station was and KP says, 'why don't we just ask someone?'. Before I could stop her she had approached a man carrying a can of Special Brew who directed us over the bridge. I spent a further ten minutes consulting the map and then said 'I think we'll just go over the bridge.'
I got home in time to shower and change. I have decided to walk the entire Thames Path before the end of the summer.
I'm sure it was the other way round. Normal children watched Blue Peter. Watching ITV was always a bit like have sweets before lunch or chips with everything. In other words, the beginning of the end.
Posted by: David | May 26, 2009 at 07:34 AM
What's Magpie?
Posted by: jg | May 26, 2009 at 04:51 PM
What a very sad upbringing some of you must have had.
Posted by: ganching | May 26, 2009 at 09:35 PM
I agree with you David, but then I had a Blue Peter badge. Magpie was a bit wild, like 14 year old girls who had boyfriends with motorbikes. I still love the theme tune.
Posted by: curious | May 27, 2009 at 12:10 AM
I never watched ITV before early evening (except perhaps to see Rainbow at lunchtime). "Teddington Lock, Middlesex" will for me be forever associated with Hughie Green (who always read out the address at the end of Opportunity Knocks).
Posted by: Luton Diesel | May 27, 2009 at 10:38 PM
I so wish I knew what you lot were talking about...
but I do like the idea of walking the thames path, which I imagine is very very long.
Posted by: fifi | May 29, 2009 at 12:06 PM
Is feidir liom walk the Thames path, or the Shannon paths [any and all of them],on Saturdays AND Sundays. That's how accommodating I am! If only I lived anywhere near them. Sob.
Posted by: molly | May 30, 2009 at 04:36 AM
Fifi just be glad you don't understand what a priggish lot this crowd are.
Molly I am off to see the Shannon in a couple of weeks and will think about you when I walk past it.
Posted by: ganching | May 31, 2009 at 09:13 AM