Getting to know a city

I have always enjoyed getting to know new cities. I loved having an A to Z in my handbag when I lived in London, and rising to the challenge of finding the easiest and quickest way of getting from one place to another using the various public transport options. When I got a car, I had a big-scale street atlas, and I'd plan routes before I set off to try and identify short cuts. I'd have the atlas open on the passenger seat, and dip into parking spots here and there, getting the next segment of the journey imprinted in my brain. I became skilful at spotting "rat runs" while driving - sitting in a traffic jam, and noticing how a stream of cars were turning down a seemingly insignificant street, following them in faith, and emerging quarter of a mile further along the busy blocked road, feeling triumphant.

On foot, too, I always enjoyed exloring back ways and by-ways, discovering little corners seemingly forgotten. I was always amazed at how, in a city of several million, you could take just one or two turns off a busy thoroughfare, and be in a near-empty street.

I suppose all this has got very much easier with phone apps and Google Maps, though I have to say I derived a lot of fun from working out in my head and through time-worn experience, what the satellites above us calculate in seconds in their efficient algorithms.

Each time I've moved during my adult life (which has been a few), I've really relished getting to know a new town or city. I like finding my way round the traffic systems, the public transport, the parking, in a way that I think probably deserves the adjective 'geeky'. I can tell you, for example, at what point the parking zone changes between where I live and the city centre, because I've looked at the parking zone map buried deep as a pdf on the council website. (In my defence, I wasn't working for the first year we were here, and had plenty of time on my hands.) I love finding the nicest parks, the funkiest shopping streets, the best coffee shops. My children tease me, because I have a rule that if we can, we should always support local coffee shops not the big chains, but to me, that has significance: I like getting to get to know the personality of a city, and you can't do that by hopping from Starbucks to Starbucks.

I do use a GPS, but I've noticed that it does mean that it takes much longer to learn your way round, and so in my early days here, I chose not to use it. I suppose my brain has learnt to understand a city by looking at a map, and then translating the bird's eye 2D view into human 3D experience. I like to hold the whole route in my mind, in chunks if necessary, and the GPS only ever reveals the next junction. It feels a precarious way of travelling.

I find it fascinating how a city shrinks as you get to know it. Familiarity makes journeys shorter both in reality, and in the way they feel. In reality, you need less time because you know how to avoid the traffic, where to park, and how far you'll have to walk. When you're new in a city, you have to allow generous margins for error. But the journeys are also shorter in how they feel. Instead of concentrating on the road, looking out for signs, focusing on the GPS instructions, you have the radio on, or you're thinking about Christmas plans.

When we first moved to the city where I now live, I found a furniture shop that had a sale on. I looked at a map, and headed off. It felt like a proper venture. I parked in a side street which was a dead end, and got very stuck, having to do a 3-point turn that became a 7- or 9- point turn. I went to the shop, found a cafe for a sit-down, and then headed home, checking first that I knew how to navigate the journey. It makes me laugh inwardly now, when I pass that furniture shop, because it's a five minute walk from my work. I think absolutely nothing of the drive to work (or the bus journey if Husband needs the car). It's fifteen to twenty minutes, door to door. I know where to park (and would never head down that tiny dead end). The cafe which was formed part of a morning's outing when I had time on my hands, has become the cafe I pop into to grab a quick sandwich at lunchtime.

The vet is another example. The first time I had a vet's appointment, I allowed plenty of extra time. I didn't know where the building was, where I would park, how long it would take to get a lively puppy on the lead and out of the car safely, and I wanted to be early for the appointment, as a model puppy-owner should be. The journey seemed quite a trek. Now, I allow about ten minutes to get to the vet, all told. It's really very near: 1.4 miles according to Google Maps and "4 min without traffic". I go straight to a street round the corner which has an uncommonly wide pavement that everyone parks on, and where there's always space. I no longer wonder if it's ok to park there and if I'll get a ticket. I just park. Or I walk - 28 minutes according to Google Maps. If you'd told me three years ago, when I was planning my first drive to the vet, that I could walk there, I would have thought you must be one of those seriously hearty city-dwellers who live in walking boots and an anorak, with a permanent backpack. But it is, indeed, only about 30 minutes, and most of it along a convenient cycle path.

The other factor, in my shrinking journey time to the vet, is that I now plan to arrive at the very last minute, or even a minute or two late, as Hector gets over-excited in the waiting room and barks incessantly. We were once asked to wait outside - oh, the humiliation. Hector gets over-excited, and I sit wondering if someone is going to bring in a snake and planning my escape route for that eventuality - the vet waiting room is not a relaxing place for us. Thus it is that what, in my head, used to be an afternoon's outing, is now a small task on the calendar, to be fitted in easily and quickly between other bits of life. My days are busier, time is more precious and has done that elastic thing that time does, but geography has done it too. The city has definitely shrunk.

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