Because it is so steep, few cars run up or down Fairfields Crescent. Its therefore tempting to walk down the middle of the road. A move that irresistibly conjures up a projection into an old Western like you are approaching three gunslingers with bad intent (and no lines). The heroic mythologies of John Ford aside of course, projecting ritual duel like six gun shoot outs – when the historic reality was that most people who died of gunshot wounds back then were shot in the back – it comes with a series of grand musical accompaniments in the head. The theme from The Big Country probably the grandest; and most thrilling. From 1958. The year before Sputnik ushered in the age of the Space Opera.

Half way back up Wakeman’s Hill from dumping our old, clapped out oven at the Community Skip; which appears every couple of months for two hours only at a convenient local spot – a wonderful innovation from the local council that prevents an awful lot of fly tipping – I spot a very thin, quite small, semi deflated Father Christmas suspended half way up the front wall of a house near the summit. Originally meant to look like he was climbing purposefully up with presents, encapsulating hope and anticipation, he is now hanging with his limbs dangling at awkward angles like an animal someone has shot, perhaps as a warning to other Santas not to try it. At any time of the year…

As Wakeman’s Hill is long and steep, and the old oven heavy and awkward, I took it down on the chassis of our shopping trolley, which worked extremely well. Wonderful invention. Everyone should be issued with one when they retire as a rite of passage. Let the wheels take the strain. It should be in Manifestoes at the next election; One Person. One Trolley!

Being away in Thurrock most of the time at the moment, local changes in Kingsbury jump out when you come back. One pleasing development is the number of Lime Bikes that are obviously being well used. A scattering outside the tube station, and some outside flats, showing that people are using them for short term commutes, probably regularly. Some are dumped on their side – which is slobbish of whoever does it – and I tend to pick them up even though my knee is too far gone to use them, as they should be presented by all of us as the community asset they are, not the piece of pavement clutter cyclophobes like to moan about on the local “Next Door” (let’s moan about something local) site.