Yesterday was a pretty weird day for me to be honest. First things first I needed some cash, so I headed up to my Building Society in Eltham bright and early before it shut at midday. That was nothing unusual to be honest. The problem was, it was starting to rain, but going back home wasn’t an option as Serkan would be still cleaning my flat. It’s usually best that I’m out when he does so, so my freshly-mopped floor has a chance to dry without me getting footprints or tyre tracks all over it.

I decided to hang around on Eltham High Street for a bit, dodging the showers and trying to get the loud, annoying street preachers to shut up, before hopping onto a bus to Woolwich. I thought that perhaps there I’d find something interesting, without any luck. From there I hopped onto the Elisabeth Line to see what was going on at the Excel Centre, but that too was oddly quiet for a Saturday. The rain was clearing a bit by then though, so I headed out to explore some more of North-East London.

East London is an odd place: much of it reminds me of the town centres in Cheshire I grew up in, but it is much more compact with none of the wide open farmland dividing the commercial areas. There are, however, quite a few pleasant paths running through parks and beside rivers which I often like to follow. Most of these lead up to the Olympic Park in Stratford, so that is where I eventually found myself yesterday afternoon. By then, it was around 3pm, and the park was getting busy as the England Football match drew closer and closer.

At the far end of the park is Canalside, a line of four or five nice little bars built into the former media centre. By the time I got to the area, I was getting hungry, so I bought myself a wrap from the Tesco which is now there and went into one of the bars to eat it. It was one of these trendy little places where people go to play video games, with various kinds of games consoles lining the two side walls. The situation seemed straightforward at first, but as kick-off drew closer and closer things became busier and busier. Fortunately I had managed to eat my lunch before the place became really crowded: two or three large screens had been set up for people to watch the match on, and they were filing in by the dozen. To begin with, from the table I was sat at I could see the football perfectly well, but as time wore on my view became more and more congested. To make matters worse the bar was card only, meaning they wouldn’t accept my cash for drinks.

Things were, it must be said, getting less and less comfortable, so when the first half ended a disappointing nill-nill I decided to call it a day and come home. It had been an interesting day, but the culture and excitement I had been looking for had never really materialised: It had just lead me to quite a pretentious bar in an increasingly gentrified corner of the city. By the time I got back, extra time was just ending, so I hadn’t really missed much of the match. It’s always great to go out into this vast metropolis though, to experience a bit of what my fellow Londoners are getting excited about.