Adventures with Moon Face and Saucepan Man

It's getting cold these days at around midnight. Not that frosty cold that attacks your bones, but that first glimpse of what's to come. Hats and scarf soon. The idiot look.

Unusual, but it seems rush hour in Tooting is around this time, at least on a Saturday night. Cars lined up both ways with some pushing in from side roads and getting dodgy looks from the passing police with better things to do.

At the bus stop with nine minutes to wait a crowd was gathering, opposite the taxi rank and kebab shop, and a few steps along from the happy looking hidden house of tooting Bec. Two dozen people waiting for the bus.

The taxi driver did his usual three point turn in his white Toyota. He could make the turn in one move but he always plays the safety card, even with traffic coming at him from both directions, by shifting backwards and forwards as fast as he can.

Then there are the drunks, a couple tonight. One pulled faces at herself; another seemed to be having trouble keeping his head still. With six minutes left to wait he decided to dash across the road to buy veg. Sometimes the urge takes you and you have no choice but to go with it. So courgettes it would be for this brave warrior of the night.

But I’ll always find some kind of adventure on the way back to Streatham. I don’t even care if they aren’t really adventurous. But they are anyway. They keep the magic alive, even when I know the magic comes from elsewhere and that this stuff could probably be left alone.

But it was a good day. The Peter Pan park, conker hunting, conker smashing, and rowing the length of the Serpentine, even if each stroke took us slightly to the left. Either way we always get back to Tooting Bec.