[SW7 4DN] A week in South Kensington
They put me high up as if my spirits needed an extra lift. Eleven floors, some 40-odd meters, and a view over south-eastern London. I can make out all four chimney stacks of the old Battersea power plant. The sky is a crisp blue, this distinct cold hue of fall afternoons, a premonition of the ominous winter.
It's not my first time in this part of London. As a matter it's been exactly a year since I first discovered what even the most cautious observer would dub Franceville. The clean, wide avenues, lined with tall four-storey-high white houses, make way for many a Frenchman: students going to the nearby lycee, or perhaps diplomats jogging to the neighboring consulate.
South Kensington seems to be cut off the rest of the world, not unlike a remote island in a vast ocean with sole link to the outer world the underground. It takes but two stations to reach the outskirts of this monde à part and return to Tottenham Court, Victoria, or the banks of the lazy Thames.
It is now night. I'm afraid my cellphone can't quite grasp the essence of the darkness. I've still given it a shot - pun aside.
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