Towards the A10 I rode the 106 bus, my nose pressed to the window. My eyes, hungry, like an after school child’s. Past the men; tall, with their Torah filled hats, entering houses where candles shine from windows into the night like hiccups of laughter. Turn left and take right. Stop outside the white goods shop "SellFridges". Onto Stoke Newington High Street, that vein of activity pulsing through the borough of Hackney. There is the Turkish Members’ Club where the men sit at Formica tables, watch television and step outside for words and cigarettes.

I go further, past Café Z, the Bagel House and the grocers that sells salty breakfast cheese. Here is Dalston, the west Indian community and the irrefutable pride and certainty of nationality. Home to the Rio, endless £1+ shops and the dirtiest KFC toilets since Bangkok.

It’s like being a tourist all of the time. You are a visitor and you have to unravel the secrets by being curious and watchful and earning the clues about the people who live about you. On my street, people walk past like chess pieces in the late stages of a game.

My lover told me that eventually we would unwrap this street like a lucky dip and take its dirt and colours into our mouths like cold smooth marbles. We lie, playing twister without the board and say over and over how lucky we are. To have a home, to live in a place of intrigue, to want to live and explore. To have each another.

We are playing on our checkerboard. She as dark as I am fair. And both of us just young things on this street, throwing our lot in together and hoping. Just naively, joyfully hoping for happy surprises only.