Back in the Walk. I flew back to London for a little bit, one of my oldest friends is getting married in Ireland this month (he lives in Dublin), and so he had a stag party (that’s a bachelor party to my American audience) in London a month before, which is just about enough recovery time for us forty-somethings, and so I flew out to London to take part in that. My Mum was going to Spain during the same time though, so I went a little bit earlier to spend some time with her, which meant I got a week or so in London to (a) work from home in the evenings and (b) see friends and family and (c) do lots of London sketching. So I did lots of London sketching, and as always I start at home, looking out of my old bedroom window in Norwich Walk, Burnt Oak, which is up the northern end of the Northern Line at the edge of the north part of London. Zone 4, so not that far out. Takes about 30 minutes to get to Tottenham Court Road on the tube. I always wake up early on those first few days, though after a long journey I did arrive in Burnt Oak quite late in the evening. On this particular day I did an early morning sketch as the daylight was rising in the east above Watling Park. I showed it the old fellow who lives across the street in that house. I’ve drawn this view across the street since I was a kid.

Here are a couple of drawings I did for my art homework looking across the street in the evening in (checks dates) November 1988. That was a very long time ago.

I’m not going to show all my drawings of this street but here’s another one from more recently, 2014. You will notice that in between 1988 and 2023 there was at one point one of those pointy trees growing in front of the house across the street, and another which looks like a bush standing on a pole, which have both gone now.