Wednesday, June 08, 2011

close to home

The trip wasn't over last night when I made it onto the bus that took us out to the plane. Though it was the middle of the night and there was no one around, the jet wasn't parked by the gate. It took us a good ten minutes to make our way out to hangar 2 where we had to wait some more before we were allowed to board.

The flight arrived at Heathrow at half past midnight, just in time to miss the last tube into town. By 12:45, I stood at the central bus station, waiting for the night bus, which was just around the corner, the first bit of luck on the trip. Less than an hour later I got off at Olympia and took the home stretch down North End Road in the darkness of what appeared to be a peaceful night.

Appearances can be deceiving. Very near my home, too close for comfort, a man was stabbed to death on a little patch of grass. I saw the police cordon and a solitary officer this morning on my way to work, but the night before I saw and heard nothing. The scary thing is that the crime happened only minutes and meters from where I was walking.

newsclip
From the Evening Standard

3 comments:

Dee said...

very apt label

Stacy said...

I hope your mother doesn't read these posts!

Andreas Förster said...

Very true, Stacy. My mom freaked out when it was in the news that two Imperial students got robbed and then burned in their flat, which was at the other end of London. I won't tell her this story - and she doesn't read the blog.