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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