Our train pulls in and we climb sun-cracked pavements from King's Cross. The streets are deserted - has everyone fled Easter? Greasy papers and oozing effluent strew the path before our wheeled and tourist suitcase. The hotel awaits.
A walk in the golden evening warmth - glimpses of St Paul's and we pass across a rushing bridge of people. So many faces, each one a unique creation.
Shards of light greet us on the far side as we pass quietly through a glade of trees, soft-barked and Oriental. A shadowy triage of crossing shadow.
We pause for a moment in the stillness of a tethered bicycle, lashed to the railings of another London Good Friday.
Returning across the bridge and a boat passes beneath. There are hands waving, a bow-wave, passing in time down river. But which boat should we choose to travel?
A night of rest and dawn arrives in stealth, its soft golden glow sheathing the side of distant buildings.
And so to market - cloud cuckoo-land and fluttering period dresses. Where are their owners now? Dead and cloying to still earth, or alive in soft fabric, soaring on the breeze ...
We press deeper into the market. There seems no meaning now, only strange mocking-bird repetition.
Perhaps there is more that lies beneath ...
... some hidden treasure?
We must pass on. And so to a place still at war - the memory of dark shadows across the sky, sat in a corrugated shed as we listen to planes pass overhead and wait for the bomb to fall.
Perhaps we may even catch a fleeting glance of our own reflection in the mirror, as we pass across time.
For in truth, all is but a poor reflection in the glassy windows of Easter London.
