Square Wheels

An impromptu trip out is always a pleasure, especially when it leads to a blog post.  My latest jaunt to Nottingham started happily enough, I made sure I was there about two hours earlier than needed,  just to have a walk around and soak up the day without needing to rush.  I’ve grudgingly admitted before that there is something a little bit romantic about towns and cities if viewed in the right way and even my latest book didn’t get a look in when a chance encounter with inspiration struck.

When out pottering, I like to use all my senses to appreciate something, a touch of old stone, a deep breath welcoming various cooked food smells to my nostrils, the sounds of cutlery and all that, lends me the feeling of being anonymous, almost out of time.  I get to see the magic of the day, as everybody else passes by oblivious, heads deep in their coats trying to avoid the biting wind.

Meeting at the Old Market Square is always a pleasurable pastime, being the hub, hive and plughole around which everyone seem to gravitate and swirl making it ideal for letting the thoughts gather and recede, leaving me to potter slowly along putting the good ones in a bucket whilst getting – to ridiculously stretch a metaphor(?) way too far – grains of revelation between my toes.

Standing like a rock letting the tide of people flow around me, I took in the usual scene of the square.  Apart from the massive great wheel everything was as it always is but like usual I chose to try to see it as something new.  Cities breathe and have their own rhythms and like our own bodies we tend to take them for granted but I love cityscapes at once coursing with life but in a subtly peaceful and pleasant way.

With the soundtrack of Radiohead’s Fake Plastic Trees courtesy of a busker,  I stopped and braved the cold – despite an inviting pub being located 180 degrees to my rear – to film a snippet of an unexpectedly, yet pleasantly quiet ‘rush hour’.  The recognition of the song and the immediacy of everything going on around me was an unforeseen window of beauty into the average day.  All that was missing were the tolling bells which inevitably chimed just seconds after I stopped recording but I couldn’t have everything coalesce to form a perfect snippet of Nottingham life, that would never do!

Nobody was on that big bright wheel which slowly and mutely) span as a silent accompaniment to the city.   I like that time of the evening with shops slowly closing, people winding down and heading home already forgetting the rubbish bits of their day and me, well I was to be shortly heading for some Caribbean food and wonderful company.