By the time we're finished eating the sky has gone from merely overcast to almost foggy, and even though it's only a quarter past three we are already in danger of losing the light quite rapidly.  Winter sneaks up on you...

We return back South, and head underground as the train bores through the bump in the landscape that is the Heath above us.  I totally fail to look for the Bull & Bush station, more properly known as North End, unique in being abandoned before it even opened - apparently you can see the surface building out the window between Golders Green and Hampstead.  The stations along this stretch represent the deepest lift shafts below ground level, and North End would have been the deepest.  There's a nice little graphic and explanation here, along with a site visit to the station.       


Hampstead Station sits on the slope of a hill, surrounded by post boutique shops.  There's no obvious signage towards the Heath.  Part of my thinks we're missing an opportunity to go exploring, but it's a dismal day, and we're getting peculiar stares - including as we left the lift a chap doing an actually physical jump in amazement at girls in ruffly dresses appearing before him - so leaving heath-walking for another day, we head back down under the  hill.  Goths obviously don't get this far North, maybe it's the law that we can't pass beyond Chalk Farm.  The tiling of Hampstead preserves  its original name.


From Hampstead, one stop down to Belsize Park; a station I know well. 

One of the first friends I made in London, Nick, back in the late 80's, had a cushy little sideline house-sitting here, in one of the mansions that even twenty years ago was in the £5mill bracket.  It had a room that was put aside especially for Yehudi Menuhin to use as a practice room when he stayed over in town...it was the first time I'd been in a house that had original art on the walls instead of the usual Athena posters or art prints from museum shops.  Even the kid of the house had the real thing; he had a piece of Herge's Tin Tin over the mantelpiece in his room.  We were just grateful for central heating and comfy sofas  to sprawl on for the weekend, and the fact we could make merry with the very well-stocked freezer. 




One more stop and we're at Chalk Farm for Stables Market.  Just outside the station there's a Banksie on the wall.

Travelling through last weekend all the poster boards had been stripped back, unintentionally making a Pollock-Braque mash-up of torn colours.  Accidental bricolage. Shabby, but then that suits the creaking system, and much nicer than being advertised at.