Walking to the station - Monday morning

Walking to the tube station, by myself, at about 8 o'clock on a Monday morning I think of how for well over a hundred years commuters just like me have left these Victorian terraced houses and walked to the tube station every morning to catch their train to work.

• A neighbour, further up the street, is standing with the builders who are putting a new roof on his house this summer. The neighbour and both the builders are all howling with laughter, bent double and clutching at each other for support.
• A black cat is stretched out, soaking up the early morning sun, in the middle of a catmint bush.
• A man wearing a backpack swings out of his gate, loudly munching an apple. He strides purposefully up the road, and pulls a second apple out of his pocket when he’s finished the first.
• At the greengrocers a woman with a very shiny purple handbag is buying a banana and a packet of sesame snaps
• As I get closer to the station more people are walking in front of me and behind me. We are like a procession of worker ants.
• The schools I walk past have an air of dusty neglect. Their playground gates are fastened with chunky chain locks.
• The flowers on the railings outside the tube are vivid and lush in the sunshine.
• Monday morning has an air of perkiness and ironed shirts about it that very much pleases me.