As evenings draw in and shoulders hunch with them, it becomes easy to forget the early summer evenings' pleasure of strolling past the stalls at the lower end of Walthamstow High Street. I find instead my senses assailed by the flashing lights, high pitched whines and beeping of the street cleaning crews; their raucous banter and cheerful sweeping of discarded boxes now menacing in the approaching darkness. As light fails, the feigned shy curiosity of passers by tutting at the waste of the market traders, gives way with the shadows to open rubbish picking and scavenging by our marginal local poor. The picked over piles outside the Oxfam shop spew across the pavement towards the benches that our alcoholics seek company upon. Office workers tread warily past the abandoned fruit and rotten vegetables which couldn't be hidden in the tubs the stall holders had set out, at this, the cheaper St James's Street end of the High Street. They wouldn't be walking up to Walthamstow Central. Few are setting out on a journey to meet friends along this road by this time of night. Where would they be going to, except to Sainsbury's? What welcoming restaurants are offering their hospitality in this so very unfashionable part of the borough.

There are pubs , of course. Chequers and The Cock, which sits on the corner opposite the post office and Argos. It is not an inviting place. The few cafes, Rio and Azrou have taken their tables in. There is also the Windmill. One or two others do exist, though God knows how. It must be a day-time, market thing.

The main life of this end of the High Street lies in the shops in the evening, those that open late. There is, of course, Sainsbury's newly refurbished into a warehouse with a greater expanse of off-white tiles on its expanded floor and, a sign of progress, less choice than before. Opposite Oxfam, there is the Turkish shop with its welcoming displays of Gaziantep produce and young male shelf-stackers guarding them, who disappear from the front at the sight of the police.

So what is there about this few hundred meters of High Street that I find so familiar, so vibrant, so inviting when I am away. What is so special about this strip of land in North East London at this, or indeed, any time of year? Why do I chose to call this place home? Woolworths could be anywhere, as could the pound shops, the charity shops - Oxfam vies with Crest and Help the Aged for my attentions. I never use the hair salons and Vietnamese nail bars which make up most of the newer looking businesses, the baltic shop, the sub-prime mortgage and low rent agencies or the internet cafes. I'm not sitting here waiting excitedly for the Olympics. Nor does Manze's Pie and Eel shop tempt me much across its threshold into its sour smelling toilet-tiled interior. Its certainly not our St. James's St. library, now an empty shell on Coppermill Lane, though it could be the people who loved it.

What is it about this place that makes it feel like home? This is the question I shall seek an answer to in the coming weeks, in the coming blogs. Because I promise you, there is much more to this place than meets the eye. It also has quite a history.

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