London at 5:00 on Saturday mornings seems like a more contented place. Long lazy shadows stretch out across the empty streets and the stores are all still sleeping: their eyelid shutters down and their chairs all nicely tucked in. The bus doors yawn to let a lone pair of feet step inside, and the pigeons sit all plump and puffed out on window ledges: even the crumbs haven’t arrived yet. The tubes zip along like athletes in their prime, unweighed down by the oversized, fidgety human meals they usually lug along inside their bellies. You can hear every clunk and squeak the train makes along its way: the little noises aren’t muffled by newspaper pages turning or the tinny sound of music in countless white earphones. Even the two people you pass on the street give you a knowing smile as you walk by, like you’re sharing a secret: that sometimes the best time to be out is after the nights and the beers and the high heels and the leering looks and the chandeliers and the sushi trains and the pub peanuts and the rambling conversations and the sprigs of mint in mojitos and the yellow lights on black taxis and the swaying queues and the kebab shops are all over.
