Thursday, 18 February 2010

First sight


My first glimpse of Kilburn was walking up Belsize Road towards it. We were just boyfriend and girlfriend then. It was 2006.

The first thing I saw was The Kilburn Bookshop - which has not changed its shop front at all in these four years. I can remember looking at the long stretch of shop-fronts, thinking 'Here's another piece of the London', like it was all a jigsaw puzzle and I didn't know where or when I'd see this piece again.

It still thrills me to walk that bit of Belsize Road, thinking about the past and the present overlapping - at the time, of course, I had no idea that I'd ever return to this mysterious place, Kilburn High Road, or that I'd one day be pounding the puddle-strewn streets pushing a buggy containing Mr Q's baby.

I can remember asking 'What's it like round here?' to which the reply was, 'Uhh, dunno really, don't really come here that often.'
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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous22 February 2010 at 02:25

    Word of warning for those who take their bread seriously from one who eats no bread for a week or two, then scoffs a whole loaf - the Co-op's 'truly irresistible' bread range may look that way on the shelf, but is very easy to resist once you've paid your two quid and eaten a slice...

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  2. rachel23 February 2010 at 15:32

    Thank you for the tip! Where's the Co-op in Kilburnia? I'd like to pop in, if not for the bread then just for that whiff of communism-not-yet-fallen. I used to live near a ScotMid (Scottish version of same shop) and could afford to buy pate on my student loan.

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