After that wonderful trip to the English countryside, I’m not in the mood for being in the big, noisy city so much as seeing more Nature. I’ve been to the main parks I’d seen in my books, save for a few that are further afield than I feel like venturing today. So I decide that today is the day I will go to “Little Venice,” an area of canals, and follow the Regents Canal into Regents Park. I may even make it to the zoo at the far end of the park, depending on how long the walk is.
I do my research. My guidebook has a walk all mapped out, and so does one of the City Walks cards. Unfortunately, they only overlap for a small bit, and then branch off from each other. I like the walk in the book better, but don’t want to carry the heavy guide with me. So I decide I’ll use the card as a reference, but try to remember where the book says to go. (Anyone who knows me well can tell right now that this is not a good idea, as I am probably the most directionally-challenged person alive.)
I make it to “Little Venice,” where I see the canals down below, but can’t seem to find the entrance from the street level down to the pathways next to the canals. I wander around a bit, and finally do find a gateway and stairs leading down.
Canals at Little Venice
Boatside Café
There’s only one direction I can go, so I take it, and walk along in the shade of plane trees. The narrow houseboats line the canal.
Boats Lined Up on the Canal
Each little boat is different, and most of them have gardens on their upper decks. In fact, many of them seem to be competing for who can make the best little garden.
Garden on Boat Deck
This is all lovely. I keep walking, but strangely enough, the neighborhoods seem to be getting funkier, and the canal is getting dirtier. I know that the canal is supposed to lead into Regents Park, and Regents Park is in a very nice area, but I’m not seeing things improving.
Neighborhood Getting Funkier
Finally, I see this mural, made by schoolchildren, out of litter they’ve found in the canal and near their houses.
Litter Mural
Okay, that's clever and all, but I'm not that interested in seeing areas where litter is the focus for the residents. I go on just a bit further, because just like at home, London has some areas where one block is nice, and the next two are funky, then you get back to nice again. But after a couple more minutes, I see what look like projects on my left, and a freeway up ahead. This cannot be right. But there was only one way to go when I got down to the path in Little Venice, so how could I have gone the wrong way? It makes no sense, but I don’t want to keep going this way. It’s been about half an hour, and I should’ve made it to Regents Park by now. So I turn around and head back, trying to figure out where I might’ve gone wrong.
I’d read that some of the path is closed so that the houseboat owners have some privacy, and maybe somehow I’ve stumbled into their area instead of the public path. But no, that can’t be right. The whole path here is open to the apartment blocks on either side of the canal. I just don’t know…
I make it back to Little Venice and wander around where I’d come in. I ask someone in a small convenience store boat how to get to the park. She tells me I have to go back up to the street, cross over, and then go down the other side and turn the opposite way I’d gone. Then I’ll have to bear left, as the canals fork there. Well, no wonder I’d gotten lost. I’d come in from the wrong side, and didn’t realize it. Nothing is marked here of course. There are no signs on the canals saying “Regents Park This Way” and “Funky Neighborhoods That Way”. Oh well an hour lost, and it wasn’t all that bad. But oh, things are ever so much nicer here. People are eating in canalside restaurants, and the area is getting more upscale as I head toward the park.
Canalside Restaurant on the Opposite Bank
So by this time I’m really hungry, and I see a restaurant that’s situated on a road that crosses the canal. There’s a little deck with a couple of tables that juts out right over the water, so I decide to go in there and eat. It’s a posh area of town, and I know it’s going to be expensive, but I don’t care. I’ve spent an hour walking the wrong way, and know it’s going to be quite some time until I get to Regents Park, so I’m just going to do it. I get a table on the little deck and watch the boats go directly under my seat.
View From the Deck of the Restaurant
Boat Heading Under My Table
I enjoy a lovely salad and then head back to the canal. But this is where the path next to the canal is private, and I must walk on the sidewalk. Which is no problem, as it’s absolutely lovely here.
Gorgeous Buildings in the Maida Vale Neighborhood Near the Canal
Even though I can’t get down next to the boats, I can see the tops of them from the street level here, and the gardens are even more lush and elaborate. I poke my camera through a wrought-iron fence to capture a picture of one of them.
Maida Vale Canal Boat’s Garden
Now there’s another problem. My card says that the entrance back down to the canal path is across the street from house #64, but I can’t find it. I wander through the gates of a housing estate, but there are no steps down to the water anywhere. I look on my map, but there’s no street name for this strip. London can be incredibly frustrating this way. Tiny pathways and alleys between streets aren’t labeled. Directions are by landmarks like pubs and chemists (pharmacies), not by street names.
I see an older woman walking two small dogs, and decide to ask her. This leads to a rather long conversation, where she asks where I’m from, and proceeds to tell me of her trips to San Francisco and Las Vegas. Actually, I’m not sure she is a woman. She’s dressed like a very elegant woman, but her mannerisms are much more like a transvestite’s, or transgender gay man's. She reminds me quite a bit of the “female impersonators” that used to live in the Fauxbourg in New Orleans. And her stories are like something out of a movie. I half expect an aging Al Pacino to come out and ask her when they’re going to dinner, isn’t it getting late, etc. She’s quite a character, and I thoroughly enjoy talking to her, although it seems like it could go on forever. Fortunately, a neighbor with a dog comes up and they become engaged in dog-owner conversation, so I take my leave and head to the nearly invisible stairs she’s pointed to further down the street.
The stairs lead down to a rather scary looking area, with a long tunnel to navigate.
Tunnel Back to the Canal Path
Eventually I make it through the tunnel and see the canal again. At first it’s okay, not quite as nice as in Maida Vale, but not as funky as by the litter mural.
Other Side of the Tunnel on the Canal Path
I pass the tower of a local mosque, which lets me know that I am, finally, nearing the park, because both my card and my book had mentioned it. (Of course, on their walks, this was one of the first things I’d see, not hours after beginning, but we won’t dwell on how I get lost all the time.)
Mosque Tower
And then I round a bend in the canal and oh! Stunning mansions appear on the opposite bank. I think they’re called “terrace houses” and were built by the architect John Nash. They were supposed to be part of the view from a palace up on a hill on the side of the canal on which I’m walking, but that palace never got built.
Mansions on Regents Canal
Terrace House on Regents Canal
Even the mansions that are hidden by trees have gorgeous rooftops to admire, with decorative chimneys and metalwork.
Beautiful Rooftop on Regents Park Mansion
The view down the canal reminds me a bit of Bay Farm Island, where the canal runs the length of the island and has nice houses on either side. But the scale is much, much grander here.
View Down the Canal
I keep walking, for quite some ways. It’s warm, nearly hot out, and I’m beginning to get a bit tired. According to my card, I should exit the path at the Park Road Bridge, so I can enter the park itself. Well, I’ve crossed under a number of bridges, none of which have been labeled. Since both the book and the card mentioned the bridge by name, I assumed that the Park Road Bridge would have a sign. But I’m beginning to get the feeling that I have been walking through part of the park, and I’m worried that I’ll end up all the way in Camden before I figure out where I am.
I see a young man sitting alone on a bench and I ask him if he knows what the bridge I’ve just passed under is called. He answers me in an Eastern European accent, and says he knows Hyde Park well, but this is his first day in Regents Park. I’m tired of walking so I sit and chat with him a bit. Turns out his name is Algis (with a hard “g” as in “gift”) and he’s from Lithuania. He is not surprised to find out that I’m not British, as he says British people would not stop and talk. He seems lonely. He tells me he’s been in London for 6 years, in and out of work. After a while I mention that I was headed to the zoo, and he points directly across the canal and says he thinks the zoo is there. I’ve come way further than I intended to by the canal, so I decide I want to go into the park, then back across it to get to the Tube station to head home. I’ve already been out a couple of hours longer than I’d planned.
Algis says he has no agenda and is willing to accompany me into the park. He will head back to Hyde Park toward his bus stop when we get to the center of the park. As we walk he tells me more about his immigrant experience. He arrived at the age of 19, and found work in an upscale hotel. Apparently the hotel is a favorite of has-been movie queens and other wealthy women, some of whom take a liking to him. He tells me stories that leave little doubt that he made money on the side by being temporary companion to some of these women. But alas, that job ended, and he went in and out of less fancy jobs. I asked if he had any girlfriends his age, but he’s between lovers right now. He tells me London is a huge city, and that the women he meets will stay with him for a while, but always seem to find someone with more money, more to offer, and then leave him.
During this conversation, as we walk through the park and check the maps and try to find our way back to the other side, he tells me how he likes the color of my hair, etc. He mentions seeing people making love in the long grass in the park, mostly, but not completely hidden. It’s pretty obvious he’s lonely and hoping our encounter will turn erotic, possibly even romantic. I guess I remind him of the wealthy older women from the hotel or something. Or maybe that’s all bullshit, and he’s just hoping to start a career as a gigolo, with me as his first benefactor. He’s just a little older than Horizon, as his 25th birthday was this week.
I feel sorry for him. I know many immigrants, both at home and in France, and I know how hard life can be. I can only imagine what it must like to leave one’s home and family, friends and support system, at age 19, and come to a big, impersonal city like London. He told me one has to work for a solid year before one can apply for benefits (unemployment, etc) but that he’s never managed to hold a job for that long, because there’s a lot of turnover in the unskilled labor he does. So he saves what he can, then when a job ends he lives off his savings until he can find something else. He complained about the dangerous parts of town he’s had to live in, about the flatmates he’s been stuck with, etc.
We finally make it to a place in the park I recognize, as it’s near my Sunday classes. I think I know my way to the Tube station from here, so I try to initiate the end of our time together. He obviously doesn’t want me to go and grabs me in a big hug saying “No, don’t go; I don’t want to be alone!” My heart goes out to him, but I feel that I’ve already spent a couple of hours with him, and now I’m tired and want to go home. I can’t give him what he wants anyway, which is a ticket out of this life of working on and off but never really getting anywhere, of being lonely and wishing for a decent relationship. I extricate myself from his hug and tell him no, I must go now. He’s so sad, but he doesn’t push it, and we head our separate ways.
I’m further from the Tube stop than I thought, and my feet and legs are aching by the time I reach it. I pray for a seat, but once again it’s rush hour and the trains are packed. It’s not far, though, with only one change, and then I’m finally home.
All the while I’m sending out wishes for Algis to find a good girlfriend his own age, to get a steady job, to be able to move to a better neighborhood, to feel happy living in London. It’s all I can do, really. I hope it’s enough.
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