Walking in Hackney

Staying in Hackney for a few days. I took a walk today, and this is what I saw.

A Fair Trade cafe. A Saturday food market. Pain au chocolat for a pound each. Stained red brick buildings. Old women smoking. Young men wearing stripy scarfs and in tight jeans. Young women wearing knitted hats and knitted gloves. Vietnamese restaurants. Vietnamese cornershops. A police notice stuck in windows offering a reward for information leading to the arrest of a murderer. An Iceland with a security guard. A church with no steeple and glass plate windows. Internet cafes offering cash transfers and the chance to call Ghana and the Caribbean for low costs. More Vietnamese restaurants. A church with a proper steeple and a sign outside it in Greek. Hackney town hall. A KFC. A Wetherspoons. Hackney Empire. Tesco.

I don't know what I was expecting around here. The Tesco was a bit busy. I also saw a car break down in the middle of the road and allsorted sized kids pushing it to the pavement. A black man dressed all in white smiled at a waiter. A moody teenaged girl pulled faces at no-one but the world. A mum telling her girl not to run off so far. A gang of men standing outside a barber shop. Youths loitering on fences. Pubs filled with people wearing sunglasses.

I'm staying in Hackney for a few days. That was what I saw today.