The well trod path, for more than one reason. A familiar negotiation past the ever changing/moving obstacle course of ‘essential works’, in the form of cones, plastic fences, metal signs, temporary lights etc…mounds of snow and ice encrusted earth, excavated from the heavy residue of the capital’s bedrock. A recollection of a medieval (rural) myth about the quagmire on Salisbury Plain becoming so vast that intrepid travellers would skirt around its perilous contents by up to a mile from the epicentre. From ancient aversion to contemporary compression.