Cars, vans, delivery trucks, taxis and red double-decker buses crawl through rush-hour traffic. Bicycles, scooters and motorbikes weave around them. The weather is fine again after a rainy weekend, but it is clear that summer is over. The sun is lower, the light softer. The sun shines but there is a chill in the air. People wear cardigans and jackets. The street is crowded with all manner of people: men in suits and overalls and hard hats, women in heels and sneakers and work dresses and jeans, women veiled, women in saris, black skin, white skin, everything in between skin, people talking English, Polish, French, Spanish, Hindi, Czech and Arabic, people pushing babies in buggies and dragging toddlers, crowding bus stops and disappearing underground to the Tube, with takeout cups and briefcases and dogs of all shapes and sizes, dachshunds and collies and spaniels and terriers, on leads, on chains, on pieces of string. Squirrels scoot along trees. Pigeons flap. Cats skulk.
