It's a dog's life

"Yeah, I've read all of these ones already"

Ari looks up exasperated, waiting for me to just give-in and admit that I'm a fraud. He knows it, everybody around us knows it, I'm the only one in denial. I'm attempting to discretely tie him up inside the shop, behind a cardboard cut-out of Beyonce, because there is nowhere else to do so. A bemused security guard heads over and asks us to please move along: "No dogs allowed in here, I'm afraid."

The same rules apply for all supermarkets, coffee shops and basically anywhere that I want to go that's not already outside. I can't bear to leave him where I can't see him because Ari, a mini-schnauzer-cross-chihuahua (a schnau-huahua or a chi-nauzer?), is not mine and I am not a dog owner (never have been) and therefore I can't trust that he won't dissappear the minute I turn my back. Ari is on-loan to me from a good friend who is kindly humouring my obsession with owning a dog. I won't go off on a tangent here about this life-long fixation, or the tears shed when my mother gave birth to my little brother and not a puppy, but I am still desperate to own dog and it is a yearning that no amount of www.borrowmydoggy.com can fix. And yet, I am unwilling to even consider adopting one until I find somewhere in London that truly loves dogs as much as I do.

On our way back to Chalk Farm on the Tube Ari perches precariously on my lap and I feel guilty about anyone who doesn't like dogs who is sitting nearby. I wonder how you can travel across London with a dog without feeling like you've brought your boyfriend along on a 'girls night out'. My discomfort is only encouraged further by the couple opposite me and their labrador, who is manoeuvring himself awkwardly across the packed tube like a lorry reversing out of a dead end. We get off a stop early at Camden because Ari is figgetting and wound-up after a day of avoiding being trodden on by the crowds, and because I'm convinced the whole carriage hates us. I feel I owe him the rest of the way home on foot, via a park.

As we're leaving the station I realise I've forgotten to get the one thing I left the house for and phone Camden's Waterstones to check if they have the book that I need. I manage to reserve it on the way, hoping to reduce the time Ari spends hiding behind a Harry Potter cut-out. In front of the shop we begin looking for a place to pitch when a member of staff wonders over. I brace myself for the re-buff but he just grins and beckons us both in. That's right, dogs are allowed into Camden's Waterstones and everyone seems happy about it. I spend a wonderful half-hour talking about a customer's shared love of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Alsatians, while Ari sniffs the bottom shelves. I feel like we've been let into the VIP area of a party by mistake.

In high sprits, with a bag of books that I hadn't intended on buying, we potter back along Chalk Farm Road in the direction of Primrose Hill. On Chalk Farm Bridge I can see the afternoon sun illuminatng Regents Park Road, and it looks like the French Riviera of North London, where posh pooches go to sniff and be seen. Outside of chic cafes and Italian restaurants Cock-a-Poos are rubbing shoulders with Pomeranians, Spaniels are checking out Shih-ztus, and Ari doesn't know who to eskimo-kiss first. I watch an un-leashed Westie plod after its owner into Greenberry cafe and we hurry after them intrigued. Nervously hovering on the doorstep, unsure if we're welcome, the barrista waves us both in with a smile and I order a skinny cappuccino and a bowl of water to stay.

Once refreshed we're ready for the park and Ari unashamedly flirts with everyone en-route. As soon as we reach Primrose Hill he runs off with two Basset Hounds and a Beagle. Watching them tear happily around each other on the green I feel my heart race after them. The voice in my head reminds me that adopting a dog is an enormous responsibility and a huge decision to make, but I know at least I've found a place that would support it with open arms.

Bloodsucker

from Montreal Canada, 1972

The garage of good fortune

"Yeah, I've read all of these ones already"

Camden: read all about it

Knight in Shining Armour

by Dan Kitchener

April Showers

Coming undone

I'll take one in every colour please

Painting Lane Only

Move over Uber, there's a new way around town

While my father was recovering from a heart attack, all notions of me taking my driving test were shelved and any attempted conversation on the matter was quickly shut-down. If he could have swaddled my siblings and I up in bubble-wrap and sent us by special-recorded-delivery whenever we left the house, he would have done. After slamming a few doors I backed down and didn't bring it up again for most of my teenage years, or the majority of my early twenties; I was too busy waiting for a bus.

I should probably add that it was rarely ever one bus, but a series of poorly connecting buses whose drivers often abandoned ship mid-route for a thermos of coffee and a flick through the Sun. Familiar is this tale to anyone raised in the remotest corners of rural England without a driving licence. I do, however, feel execeptionally aggrieved having grown-up on a small soggy island off the south coast (no, not the Isle of Wight - the even smaller one), meaning that an additional bus was required just to get onto the same landmass that I lived on.

This became my cornerstone for loathing buses. 

But really it all began with school buses. School buses meant; a fear of those who sat on the back seats of them (an unspoken pecking order which is often replicated on public buses), the risk of starring in the graffiti scratched into their back seats (rarely complimentary), the horror of cans of deodorant and lighters becoming fun-sized blow torches, and last but by no means least, the terror of being pelted with sandwich crusts/ sanitary towels/ bodily fluids when leaving or walking past one. 

Bus timetables soon became another reason. Bus timetables for me are a lot like horoscopes; both hint that at some point in your future what you are waiting for may or may not happen: you might fall in love, you might get a new job, you might board a bus. Precisely when that will happen is unknown because despite all the auspicious dates and times, ('watch out for July 23rd,' 'the lucky full-moon on the 5th,' '07.32 am'), they never correspond with anything that actually happens.

However, night buses were the last straw. I'm not going to elaborate too much on this, but before I completely swore off buses for life, I was happily eating my double cheeseburger and chips on a night bus to Victoria station when a man in front of me was nearly punched through the front window. We were on the top deck at the time. 

One of my personal USPs for moving to London was its Monopoly board of Tube stations, and getting about was just a question of learning which colour took you where. Yes, I soon learnt that the space in between tube stations is unnavigable without Google maps and sure, by 11.50pm of every night-out I was running to the Tube faster than Cinderella from the ball (my shoes also removed), but it meant a life without buses, and that's what I'd signed up for. That is, until now...

The 24 bus came into my life like the new love who makes you forget all the others who came before. We met in the pouring rain while I was walking back from doing the weekly Morrison's shop with my flatmate, but I was having none of it. I would have happily carried on getting drenched with my plastic shopping bags cutting off the circulation to my fingers, but my flatmate insisted. Not wanting my neurosis to spoil what had been a perfectly lovely afternoon, I grudgingly agreed to clamber aboard.

Clean, sleek, with not a compass sketch or burnt-out seat in sight. I looked around bewildered as my flatmate's eyes glazed over and her cheeks flushed after I asked her how long this had been going on for. She explained that she'd been loyal to 24 bus for a while now: "Always there ready to scoop me up and take me home, anytime of day or night...totally changed my life."

Not wanting to fall for first impressions I did my homework and found out that the 24 bus does in fact run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There are 27 of these shiny red charges and they can be spotted moving along their journey from Hamsptead Heath to Pimlico every 6-10 minutes. At the end of a night-out a few weeks later, thumb hovering over Chalk Farm Cabs' number on my speed dial, I decided to give the 24 a chance and see if it could live up to all the hype. I bought my double cheeseburger and chips from the Tottenham Court Road McDonalds and was astounded to be tucking in ten minutes later on the 24's top deck. Chips still warm. Not a single head flying-through-a-window to be seen.

Not only does the 24 bus brigade run on the clock, around the clock, but thanks to its prestigious route through London's centre (same route since 1910), a 24 also comes in handy if you find yourself being squashed like Simba in a Saturday-shopping-stampede on Oxford Street. What makes them better than a Batmobile for a sharp getaway is that these 'routemasters' (as they're known) had a vintage re-vamp last year with entrances now at both the front and back; perfect for leaping onto. This also makes them ideal for leaning one-handidly off the back of one whilst doing a Gene Kelly rendition of Singing in the Rain, though the conductor didn't seem to agree. The final horn to blow is that there are now 600 of these 'New Buses' issued across London and they all have hybrid engines, meaning they guzzle less gas, so you can feel green about yourself too.

Before you shake your head at me, I know this is young love, a honeymoon period at best. There may well come a day when traffic is bad and it doesn't show up, or it even drives through a puddle spraying me as I run after it. I've also heard that some of my tax money paid for its shiny new makeover and that last Summer the 24 got pretty steamy top-deck with whoever happened to show up, thanks to a hiccup with the air-conditioning and there being no opening windows. I know all of this already, but I'm still faithful, after all, it was there for me on Valentine's Day when the Tube was being all flakey and aloof about keeping a date. And given that the Tube won't be taking us anywhere from now until Wednesday the 30th of April, I recommend giving the 24 a shot if you're going its way, you might be just be won over too.

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/bus/route/24/

Fruit-pastel-lolly-sunset

Morning run-spiration…its all downhill from here

For as far as the eye can see

From every angle

The end of the rainbow