Trev is the great lunchtime walker, and I walk with him on Tuesday's and Wednesdays, his working days. We start out from our clinic on the edge of Leicester along a pavementless road. It feels such an irony to me as our building is so risk-averse that coat hooks have been removed (risk of hanging) and windows open but an inch (fear of jumping), despite all being on the ground floor. This road is the main route for pushchair pushing parents, past an ambulance station were blue lighted, sirens blazing ambulances provide not an ounce of reassurance that it is not 'us' who is their intended next patient, holding some preminision of our imminent demise. The road, in all it's awfulness, is a great source of blackberries in September. It also borders a horse field, managered by gypsies, but owned by the terrible David Wilson, of David Wilson Homes. He is the person who got his London barristers to ensure that the visiters to the new National Trsut building, Stoneycroft, arrive in a minibus from a car park 1/4 of a mile away. The fields around our clinic all belong to him, and soon all countyside will be obliterated under brick. While we have green, we walk.
The route crosses the horse field. The fences look as if the horses would only need to sneeze for them to fall down. A family of rats scuttle brazenly in front of us. The fields are full of crows and magpies. Some sit on the backs of the horse, pecking off insects, reminiscent of a view of wildebeest on the African savanna. The horses are supplied with water from a fire hydrant, which I am sure is wrong, and sometimes it is left to gush water into a moat the horse owner has created, presumably to keep gypsies out.
The first buildings we come to are a collection of old farm buildings, the glenfield farm. This used to be a farm attached to the large hospital nearby which provided work for long term inpatients with learning disabilities. The farm closed when the wards were emptied, and is now a curious compound of very small houses surrounded by the churned up horse fields. The population of horses seems to change on a very regular basis. There is a mystery about what they are for. I once spoke with the gypsy about what he would do when the property developers move in. He told me he had a very good barrister and he would fight of the right to continue using the land. It's wrong to think of gypsies as poor.
Our route either does a 'Trev', down an avenue of trees and skirting through Glenfield Hospital, or it does a 'Gurjit' as I call it, after an old colleague and friend who always preferred the route around the edge of a housing estate. The 'Trev' passes the secret garden, an old walled and overgrown garden. A banner on the wall urges us to join the working party to save the secret garden. With Trev we're usually talking about his latest trip round the world. He was a wonderfully organised wife and my mission is to tell him how fortunate he is to have her.
The 'Gurjit' passes a dormitary estate for local doctors. A lot of them are Indian and I notice wonderful names such as Asha Niwas, or Shanti Niwas, (Grace House and Peace House). The views from the path around their homes are lovely, going straight up to Bradgate Park. The noise from the sunken western bypass is less beautiful. One day when all cars are electric it will be more graceful and peaceful, but by then David Wilson may have turned the whole of Leicestershire into one massive housing estate.
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