Willesden: twenty minutes walk away from Kilburn tube. We go up Chatsworth Road (so suburban it kills you - they've cut down the eucalyptus tree that used to enliven my walk to Willesden Green Writers Group on a Thursday evening. They = the suburbanites at number 89. Why do people live in such places? All the houses are horrible mock-tudor, built like the back ends of galleons.)
I can't help loving Willesden, though, the little bits that I know of it. The Samaritans shop is charity shopping to the max. Always something I want to buy: today a novel by Barbara Trapido, The Travelling Horn Player - bought because I loved (although it had a whiff of trash about it) her rollicking read Brother of the More Famous Jack - and a Penguins 70 by James Kelman (because I feel ill-read by him).
Mr Q bought DVDs for our projector nights-in; though Pie's arrival has meant we've not been to cinema together since, we've made up for it by watching lots of stuff projected onto our livingroom wall. Tray sophistickay.
There's a jeweller's in Willesden. We found it last year when I needed a new watch glass. The last one fell out in the snow on February 3rd '09 (deep traffic-ceasing snow in London) and was never seen again. That time the husband-and-wife team persuaded me to let them send off to Japan for some new glass. This time they've parted me from my little Lebanese gold cross while they solder a link onto it so it fits on a lovely gold chain. They are masters at the art of persuasion, clearly.
I feel slightly odd describing gold as lovely. It is expensive and I hate equating the cost of it to things which would be more worthy of money being spent on them. However, it is both a birthday present and an heirloom. God... now I sound like an aristocrat.
Lastly and oh no no no means leastly: The Willesden Bookshop. My word - and anyone else's word who's been in - it's good! We browsed for an hour (I would have said 'for hours' but Mr Pie's nappy changes and meal times dictate otherwise) and bought six or so books. Such suckers, we even fell for two books at the counter. There you go, I've pasted a link to a blog where the writer (an American I think) waxes lyrical about the selection of childrens' books on offer. In actual fact we got nothing for Pie this time: though I CANNOT WAIT for the day when he wants to have books read to him, at the moment we're still on the cardboard books with photos of animals. His favourite is a picture of a mother and baby gorilla, and he shows his appreciation by licking the page.
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