Rubble

This is one of my favorite apartment buildings in West Hampstead, though it backs up to the tube tracks so it's not in a great location. Those round rooms in the turrets would be so interesting, wouldn't they?

I passed it yesterday when I got the bright idea to take Olga to Kilburn Grange Park -- site of the drone launch in the video I recently posted giving an aerial view of West Hampstead. I just wanted to go somewhere different rather than back to the cemetery. It turned into an eventful walk.

When we entered Kilburn Grange I let Olga off the leash, as usual, and threw her red Kong toy. She took off after it, and out of the corner of my eye I saw another dog rocketing toward it as well. This dog was -- how shall I describe it? -- the ugliest dog I've ever seen. It was like someone attached a mastiff head to a French bulldog body. The head was wrinkled, box-like and all out of proportion, and this meaty mongrel quickly became obsessed with Olga. He ran beside her and sniffed at her obsessively, even as Olga tried to ignore him. He was the Harvey Weinstein of dogs.

A small boy arrived with the dog, and I asked its name. "Rubble," he answered.

"And what kind of dog is Rubble?" I asked.

"A bulldog," he replied. (Like no bulldog I've ever seen, I thought.)

As we crossed the park, the boy tagged along beside me as Rubble worried Olga. The whole situation made me uncomfortable. The dog was a badly behaved freak and I didn't like the idea of talking to an unaccompanied little kid in a park. Where were his parents? British kids in general, I think, are much less paranoid about "stranger danger" than American ones are, but I am always wary of engaging with a kid for fear of being misunderstood.

Anyway, we crossed the park and Olga and I made for the exit. Leaving seemed to be the only way to get out of this situation. The boy and Rubble turned and ran back into the park together, and Olga and I busied ourselves near the park exit. For Olga, this meant barking at squirrels:

We re-entered a few minutes later when the boy and Rubble appeared to be gone. I saw a man with a black cat on a leash standing about 30 feet away. The cat was lying in the grass and the man was standing over it, and that was weird enough, but then I saw that he had bright red tattoos on his hands and face. Only when we got closer did I realize they weren't tattoos at all -- he was streaming blood, dripping down his face and both hands.

"Did that cat make you bloody?" I asked, incredulously. (Fortunately, given Olga's propensity to chase cats, I had her on her leash.)

"Yeah, it's the first time I've taken him to the park, and a dog ran up and scared him," the man said. Apparently the cat turned into a whirlwind of claws and shredded the guy's face and hands.

I had nothing to give him -- no tissues or anything -- and I didn't want to bring Olga closer to the already freaked-out cat, so I just kept walking. And then Rubble and the pesky boy showed up again and the boy told me that Rubble was, of course, the dog that caused the cat to go berserk.

I decided to remove ourselves from this situation, for real this time. As we left the park, Rubble was still running loose and a woman had arrived with a cat carrier, and she and the man were trying to ease the freaked-out cat into it. (Who takes their cat to the park on a leash, anyway?) 

Olga and I settled for a scenic walk down Kilburn High Road.

The accordion shop's facade is still there, though the shop is closed and the sign is looking more and more dilapidated.

Fayrouse ("Zeal Your Zest") also remains defunct.

Around the corner was this colorful mural, which apparently smelled good.

And with that, we made our way home via the Maygrove Peace Park and Mill Lane. I was just glad we weren't bleeding.