Down by the riverside...

Wrapped up, zipped up, defying the damp air, we strolled along the windswept river; past  slowly decaying structures of wood and metal.

Rungless ladders emerged through rippled river mud; barely clinging to the rotted pillars that once held them aloft, sighing with defeat at the marches of tide and time.

A shopping trolley; abandoned, seaweed strewn, forlornly faced the ebbing tide;as from aloft seagulls wheeled in the wind, shrieking their mournful cries to anyone who would listen.

 Past walls tagged with the scribbles of angry youth;

 slow moving snails meandered through puddles 

left from the downpours of the night; oblivious to the footfall of the morning joggers, 

and our boot shod feet.

Through caged in pathways, litter strewn, smelling of dog dirt and defeat; we looked out through the bars at curved pipes snaking below creaking walkways, carrying who knows what to goodness knows where .... and on to the holds of quiet rusting ships anchored mid stream.

At last we turned for home, over metal ringed steps and on down the asphalt paths  leading back to where we began. Stopping just once to rescue a pair of snails perilously close to becoming a smeared mess beneath a jogger's shoe and carefully placing them on a wall, to live another day.