Stodůlky

I'm a little apprehensive about coming here. Outlying suburbs make me nervous, having grown up in one. But the suburb also makes me feel a little optimistic. It's St Nicholas tonight and since this is a residential area, I should catch some of the local festivities.

When I arrive, I find a flat broad shopping centre crowned with corrugated iron. The brightest thing all around is the supermarket. Stacks of rosy meat glisten in the butcher's window. There's a herna bar at each end. Neither look enticing. There's litter and graffiti. It sort of reminds me of places near where I grew up, more than any other locality in Prague, though I don't feel any more comfortable.

People have already started to gather at the busted benches. It makes it feel a lot later than it really is. Perhaps, they've been here since the end of work and the night suddenly crept up on them. The only remarkable thing is that I'm travelling in a clockwise direction. Not that I have much choice. Had a followed my natural inclination I would've simply passed more benches.

I find an underpass but by now all my bravery has leaked out of me. I decide to cross the station to other side where, dimly lit half built apartment blocks glow like like cold giant lanterns. The project is called the British Quarter. It isn't for Prague's expats. The name is on Czech which means that the being 'British' is a selling point.

In fact one of the shops on the other side advertised that it had children's goods from England and I've often seen shops advertising that they have furniture or clothes from there. Not so long ago, the Union Jack was something of a fashion item. Maybe, it's the colonial and republican in me, but I find this a little strange, especially the perception of the Union Jack as trendy. For me, soccer louts and skin heads adorn themselves with crosses of St. Andrew, St. George and St. Patrick. Funnily enough, the northern suburbs of Perth are something of a British enclave, so this development only reinforces the similarities between my old stomping grounds and here.

The mounds of dirt and canon sized pipes also take me back to my childhood, the imagined part, when unguarded building material became a castle, a ship, a space ship or an enemy base we had to infiltrate. In the dark, they look like a horror film set. I continue briskly on. Some of the people coming the other way, give me strange looks. When I get to the end of the path I see why. There's no entrance to the station and they weren't commuters but people walking at the site. My hyperactive imagination is having field day here, and every thing it's coming up with is bloody and gruesome, so I head back to the shopping centre.

A hiking path leads from here to Řeporyje and then on to Černošice. G. and I almost hiked to Řeporyje. We were walking through a very nice valley on the outskirts of Prague and this town was where we should've taken a train from. Fortunately, we managed to catch a train from a much closer station. I had no idea the valley was in this part of the city. I have no idea where Černošice is or what I would find there.

Some teenagers in devil horns have gathered on the benches. A St. Nicolas comes out of one of the paneláks. As I pass the teenagers, one of them ask if I'm meant to be a spy on account of my long winter coat and cap. I don't answer. What am I meant to say? 'Nejsem špion'?

Privately I'm a little flattered. Of all my insecure male fantasy occupations, spy was the top. I think I destroyed a small rain forest doing the various activities from the Spy Craft book. And at least people are now interacting.