A strange thing happened. A few weeks after encountering the almost comatose woman near where I live, I encountered another almost comatose woman. I went to have a look at the New River park near Islington. I saw a young woman looking at one of the information boards. She was leaning over it and slumping on top of it. At one point it looked as if she had gone to sleep.
I went over to her and asked if she was OK. I said she could come and sit next to me on a park bench and we could talk. She said that her name was Zoe. I learned that she took drugs and lived nearby with other people but was not happy where she lived. She offered me a cigarette.
She does have sex with men for money but there was nowhere that we could go to. There was no point in me taking her phone number because she lives in a different part of London to where I live. She said that she was there to meet a friend in a different part of the park and asked me if I wanted to walk with her. I thought this might not be such a good idea so I said no. I didn't know if she was going to meet a man or a woman.
As I was walking away I noticed a woman who looked as if she might be waiting for a punter. I didn't go and talk to her. It makes me wonder is New River park is a place where street girls go to pick up men.
Last week I was walking along Charing Cross Road in central London and I saw a woman I wrote about in a previous post. She had told me her name was Langdon but I don't know if that is her real name. I went up to her and said hello. I was expecting her to not to want to talk to me, as happened the last time I spoke to her.
Instead she was quiet friendly. She asked me where I was going and I said I was going over the road to the Subway fast food place. I asked her if she wanted to come with me. She said yes. I asked her if she wanted anything to eat but she just had a soft drink and I had a coffee.
She seemed to be better dressed than before and looked OK. She didn't want to speak much. She spent a lot of time staring out of the open door, presumably looking at the passing people. I watched her face and sometimes it seemed as if she had remembered something or was thinking deeply about something. I asked her if she needed anything from the shop but she said she did not.
She wanted to know where I was going that afternoon. I asked her if she knew that there was a lovely park near here called Phoenix Gardens. She did not know it and was willing to go with me. When we got there I showed her the sculpture of the horse's head in the foliage and the banana tree. She wouldn't sit down and she put up her umbrella even though it was neither rainy or very sunny.
I asked her if she had been here before and she said no she had not. I asked her if she would like to see the pond. She said she had already seen it but I said there is a much bigger pond over there. We went to see it and I pointed out the shoal of tiny fish. I sat on a bench and she stood there a long time just looking at things.
She wanted to know my address and phone number and she copied them down carefully. Then she went back to looking at the pond, just standing there. After a while I said to her "Would you like to give me your address?" This was a mistake as she looked a bit embarrassed and then said that she was going. Perhaps she did not want me to know that she lived in a hostel. There is a hostel at the northern end of Greek Street, where I have seen her twice.
I am glad that I introduced her to Phoenix Gardens. I hope that she goes there often from now on. Much better than walking the streets. I felt that I had done my good deed for the day. I thought about telling the people working in the gardens about her so that they can look out for her. Perhaps I will see her the next time I go to Phoenix Gardens.
It may surprise you to learn that I like the countryside. I often walk ten miles across open countryside. Sometimes I encounter horses. I like to try and get them to come up to me. Sometimes I think that they will come to me but then something happens and they go away. I get the same feeling from some of the women that I meet in different circumstances.
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