Flashbacks

I had to go to London today, and was coming home from Victoria [which I don't normally do; it's ordinarily better for me to catch a train from Charing Cross, which takes a different route out of the centre] when I looked out of the train window and realised that we were in Brixton.

It was really odd; I had been thinking all the time I was using the tube and wandering around Ealing that I didn't miss London at all, and then seeing the market and the Reliance arcade (not that it's called that any longer, but I forget the new name) it was like catching a glimpse of your childhood home - you would not necessarily want to go back, but it was achingly familiar even though you hadn't thought about it in ages.

I'd had a similar thing just before Christmas on my way into Victoria when I'd looked up and the only thing I saw on my journey up to town [bookworm] was the Christmas tree at Brockwell Park.  I had an end of "It's A Wonderful Life" moment.

I loved living in Brixton, but haven't thought about it for ages [apart from missing my lovely neighbours I left behind], so unexpected sightings catch me unawares.  I'm guessing it's changed a lot [it was changing even the last few years we lived there, but these days we read about bars/cafés/restaurants in the Evening Standard, and it sounds pretty well served, rather than being a bit homespun like when I first moved there], but then again it changed a lot in the twenty years I lived there...

That was the longest I've ever lived anywhere, so I suppose it was bound to leave an impression!

Lovely place, lovely neighbours, and a warm feeling in my chest; can't have better memories than that, can you?