Shank's Pony

It's got to the stage where I'm in danger of only seeing my flat, the tube station and the theatre. So this morning I took a little walk to Eppendorfer Baum, which I've passed on the tube on the way here from Barmbek.

The route takes you along a wonderful, wide, tree-lined avenue which was once pretty impressive and rather expensive, judging by the grand houses on either side. I say "once" because the elevated section of the underground goes right down the middle of it.

I guess it says something about the egalitarian nature of planning here that you are at just as much risk of having your environment knackered by public transport if you're rich as if you're poor. Can't imagine an elevated railway on Bishop's Avenue, can you?

Anyway, Eppendorfer Baum is very bustling and busy and crammed with shops. There's a great bookshop, in which I felt like a proper ignorant tourist - the sort that cannot even attempt a text in the native language. The staff were not what I was expecting, though. Charming, friendly middle-aged ladies. Compare that with your typical Waterstone's employee (frustrated authors exacting revenge on an uncaring world by being snide to the book-buying public) and I know where I'd rather browse.