MEMOIR | ESSAY | WRITING | CREATIVE WRITING
I’ll Have My Freshly-Baked Loaf With Coffee and a Spoonful of Memories
Remembrance of toasts past
A memory…
It’s 1998 and my son is a few weeks old. I’ve just started working at a travel agency in West Hampstead. My commute begins on Green Lanes, Palmers Green, Enfield, and winds up on West End Lane. It lasts roughly forty-five minutes and it takes me from north London to the centre of the city and from there to NW6, a V-shape of a journey.
My son, my ex-wife and I are staying in a B&B temporarily. Note to non-Brits, B&Bs come in two guises. One is the better-known holiday accommodation. The other one is the private sector-related. A landlord makes their lodgings available to people who are usually on the council’s waiting list to get social housing, or just haven’t got anywhere to live. Whilst some landlords are law-abiding second-home owners, many fleece the local councils of hundreds or thousands of pounds and provide next to nothing to tenants. Sadly, our landlord falls in the latter category.
To get to my bus stop I use a shortcut down a passage. Along the way there’s a Turkish shop with a bakery inside. Every morning, at the same time, I’m exposed to the delicious smell of freshly baked bread…
