The Autumnal Street

I woke up at 8:30 this morning to the sound of the workshops downstairs, the noise of drills and saws. A strangely muted sound. After a shower I needed to get some electric and gas for the meters. This necessitated a walk to Portland Road as I needed use of a cash machine first.
I am fascinated by the streets between here and Portland Road, secret little roads, a narrow swathe of suburban backwaters. At night, the orange of the street lights turn the houses and unobtrusive trees into the setting for some half remembered childhood dream, or perhaps some half-remembered town to visit some obscure aunt and uncle. This morning, in the cool October drizzle, there was something about these streets -and one street in particular- that seemed to define a certain part of autumn, almost like a sigil. I'm not sure what it was; the anonymous houses, the battered trees losing leaves, and those that remain now coloured in shades of fever, or maybe the sky, grey, unimpeachable and heavy with drizzle.
I walked back along the narrow autumnan geography of those streets between Portland Road and here. I would like to sleep now, if I could, drift into those half remembered dreams I mentioned before, but I must leave for work in twenty minutes. I'll get back here at about 8:00pm. It seems an age away.
I'll think of that autumnal street, waiting across town.
I might go out of my way and walk back along it tonight when I return home.