There is a small shiver of anticipation effervessing in the pit of my stomach as I begin to embark on the walk to the pub. The heady fractious smells of autumn come washing over me, teased by the wind, somewhere between a sickly aroma of overripe fruit and the tickling fuzz of wood smoke. A police car screams in the distance and a small far away cheer rises from the group of youths sitting on a wall near the playground, sniggers dissolving into the hoods that cover their hardened faces. Its the same crowd from earlier, the one on the bmx and the rest. They eye me with the vicious temptation of stagnating boredom as I walk past, breath held, their eyes catching the glow of the street lamp above them shadowing their faces like grotesque masks fixed in a snarl. A man is tending to a caged bird behind the nets of a house I pass while his wife sits on the sofa a raucous laugh silently contorting her tv illuminated face.