More Skyline

I am up early and use the morning to visit my taylor, who opens at 5AM every day of the week, excluding Sunday.  He's the real McCoy, having moved to London from Cyprus in 1949. His posture terrible and he hobbles around his shop solo while his colleagues arrive at 8:30AM.  He has several measurements draped over his shoulder and despite his advanced age, there's a twinkle in the eye. He speaks a little yiddish which he uses with me thanks to my last name. We joke about the times and who is working what. He says: "The English are mostly content. They don't want everything. Those who do, can never have enough."  He also makes me the best coffee I have had in Britain - measured into a tin cup and boiled over a bunson burner and served, with grounds, into an espresso shot glass. I ask him about London after the War: "It was the same as today. Everybody just getting on. There was nobody complaining."  


From the taylors I walk up Primrose Hill to capture the London morning, pictured. Spread beneath is Primrose Park lit by street lamps then the zoo and Regents Park.  The BT Tower visible and the London Eye to the right.  Another dude takes images and we talk a bit about the light and this time of morning.  The clubbers walk home from wherever and the girls fall out of there skimpy, worn dresses and smeared black eyeline and purses dangling from shoulder or held to hand. They are exposed for the cold. The boys just look like boys - stripy sweaters, skinny jeans and perfectly jumbled hair.  Our lives could not be farther apart and I wonder about 20.  How exciting to be coupled youth, finishing a night of dancing and the day ahead to sleep.