Kensington memory street

Now that the car stereo is fixed so that CD tracks come out of the right and left speakers instead of just one, music en route is back to what it should be. The drive to Kensington is just about long enough to play a good selection of tunes and short enough to not have to repeat any of the two albums and two singles I've usually thrust into my bag in preparation for the drive.

Kensington is a funny place. Mainly peculiar rather than ha ha, but in a good way. I realised yesterday, as I walked up Earls Court Road towards the Commonwealth Institute and then on to the station, that I've spent numerous hours of my life in this particular street and its offshoots, and have had all kinds of times, most memorable and many evocative. I'm old enough to recall feeling cool as a teenager sneaking around Kensington Market with its winding passages, plenty of burning substances and leather... I also remember walking past Derry Street and being envious of the journalists who worked for Associated Newspapers, who could step out into the High Street, party at the Roof Gardens and lounge in the modern coffee bars that started springing up in great number during the early 1990s.


Kensington High Street has seen me sad, happy, annoyed, ecstatic, mournful, distraught, drunk, drunker and drunkest. I've gulped tea, coffee, stupidly expensive wine, normal-priced wine, G&Ts, cocktails and water in huge measures, in settings ranging from a tiny, wonderful, restaurant run by a tiny(ish), wonderful woman on Kensington Church Street at one end, down to an Italian place that keeps changing its name, near the cinema. Loved ones, friends, friendly colleagues and one (sort-of) foe have all accompanied me on excursions to Ken High Street. It's a wonderful place – not for the shops – but for reminders of time well-spent. When I'm there, I can remember almost exactly what was said, where I went, what I ate and drank, with a strange clarity I don't associate with many other areas. Peculiar.