a few months back i gave myself the task of going somewhere based on 20+ year old memories. as a kid i would visit my grandaunt & uncle who lived in london. i think the last time i was there was when i was about 12 or so. i had vague recollections of the area; a bridge, a park, another smaller park with a fence, the house had a wonderous garden to the front and to the back – but i cant remember seeing any photos of the house or area since i had last been there so my mind might have been misremembering it all.

i took the tube to the stop, i got off and walked for a few minutes not recognising anything – i was still a little unsure as to if i got off at the right stop (there are three tube stations with ‘hounslow’ in the name). after a few minutes i get to a pedestrian street and my brain remembers it. i walk down the street recognising nothing, but knowing that soon i’d have to turn right and take a shortcut through an alleyway. that thought pushed me down a random alley way. the next thing i knew was that i’d have to find a park, which i got to a few minutes later. looking around i didn’t see anything that rang a bell for a few minutes, then i saw a fenced off path way that i went to. i walked down the path and into a area with some hedgerows and then i saw a bridge – then i knew for sure i was on the right way. i got to the bridge and as i did a plane rumbled nearby, it was taking off from heathrow. i stood on the bridge and looked at the conveyor belt of planes flying over me. i remembered as a kiddo standing on that bridge looking at the lines of planes coming in to land at heathrow – their lights making them so easy to spot. i kept going and passed through some streets before finding the streets where my relations lived (and where i too lived for a bit just after being born). my brain says there was a garden to the front, but i cant actually remember any – but regardless there is now just concrete paving and a strange feeling about all the work put into a garden for years only to see it concreted over for convenience. the house looked a little bit emptier and like it was just 2d. i rang my mother to tell her where i was. i kept walking, seeing things like the second smaller park – even smaller than i remembered, the house nearby where we stayed once whilst visiting for a wedding.

i left, walking slowly back to the tube station.