We all think we know london. As with any other word city, images of it proliferate on television: through programs like eastenders, writing like that of Conan-Doyle, and even the nightly news bulletin, we are all highly familiar with its main features. Any school kid can identify Saint pauls, the houses of Parliament or the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf. Yet I know a different London, a more intricate london, a homelier London. As I continue to explore the city, I go down streets lined with terraced housing, much like those I knew up in Cheshire; they feel lived in and down to earth. Much like those northern towns, the city here is a rabbit warren of roads, organic, crowded in upon itself. Yet abutting the eighteenth and nineteenth century terraces are modern buildings. Walking through the back streets of Woolwich this afternoon, the place seemed in flux: old and new jostled and juxtaposed. This was an ancient fishing village turned Roman fort turned seventeenth century barracks, now become commuter suburb of a modern, sprawling metropolis. It’s history is as evident as its modernity, and to see the two side by side, yet so clear, is fascinating. Thus I continue to take my walks, as I once did in Congleton and Crewe. Yet here the contrasts and juxtapositions are heightened to an almost absurdly complex degree. We might think we know london from our t.v screens, but this london, the city I am coming to know and love, the suburban, lived in London, is infinitely more interesting. Infinitely more real.