Shopping Cart Valhalla...
...Where trolleys go to die...
There is a quiet corner of Greenwich where I always bow my head for a moment in silent thought, surrounded by a small colony of tragic trolleys, used and abused, then finally cruelly abandoned by their callous masters when they are of no further use.
It is, of course, the little cut-through between Tunnel Avenue and the always-enjoyable footbridge across the A102(M)which finally brings you out next to the Odeon.
It's a funny, wide little alley, which takes you between two houses and the little strip of no-man's land next to the road. There are some nice-ish shrubs (which were obviously planted once) and the surface is good. But it does puzzle me why these shopping trolleys are abandoned here, and not further in. I mean - people have already done the hard work pushing them up the curly-wurly slope and over the bridge (I love that bridge - you can see so much from the top - from tantalising glimpses of The Observatory up the hill - and never quite in the place you expect to find it, to the naughty, satisfying smugness you can enjoy looking down at the stationary traffic queuing to get into the tunnel) so why not finish the job and just take the trolley home?
I have a couple of theories - if anyone lives in Tunnel Avenue and can tell me what really goes on, I'd be delighted to have another Greenwich Mystery solved.
My first thought is that the trolleys are used in some kind of extreme sport by the local kids - sitting in the cart and whizzing down the slope in some sort of helter-skelter-on-wheels type activity - scary but all too plausible.
My second idea is that these are people in Tunnel Avenue's personal trolleys - a bit like the free bicycle in Amsterdam that people use and leave around the city. I like to think that people take one back with them whenever they go shopping (I do occasionally when I'm feeling VERY generous) but who can tell?
Sometimes, one of the trolleys has hoisted itself up and over the chainlink fence to the little strip of wildland, presumably so it can die in peace. No one has ever seen how they do it...
There is a quiet corner of Greenwich where I always bow my head for a moment in silent thought, surrounded by a small colony of tragic trolleys, used and abused, then finally cruelly abandoned by their callous masters when they are of no further use.
It is, of course, the little cut-through between Tunnel Avenue and the always-enjoyable footbridge across the A102(M)which finally brings you out next to the Odeon.
It's a funny, wide little alley, which takes you between two houses and the little strip of no-man's land next to the road. There are some nice-ish shrubs (which were obviously planted once) and the surface is good. But it does puzzle me why these shopping trolleys are abandoned here, and not further in. I mean - people have already done the hard work pushing them up the curly-wurly slope and over the bridge (I love that bridge - you can see so much from the top - from tantalising glimpses of The Observatory up the hill - and never quite in the place you expect to find it, to the naughty, satisfying smugness you can enjoy looking down at the stationary traffic queuing to get into the tunnel) so why not finish the job and just take the trolley home?
I have a couple of theories - if anyone lives in Tunnel Avenue and can tell me what really goes on, I'd be delighted to have another Greenwich Mystery solved.
My first thought is that the trolleys are used in some kind of extreme sport by the local kids - sitting in the cart and whizzing down the slope in some sort of helter-skelter-on-wheels type activity - scary but all too plausible.
My second idea is that these are people in Tunnel Avenue's personal trolleys - a bit like the free bicycle in Amsterdam that people use and leave around the city. I like to think that people take one back with them whenever they go shopping (I do occasionally when I'm feeling VERY generous) but who can tell?
Sometimes, one of the trolleys has hoisted itself up and over the chainlink fence to the little strip of wildland, presumably so it can die in peace. No one has ever seen how they do it...
Labels: Weird Greenwich
posted by The Greenwich Phantom at
08:37
3 Comments:
Heh. I recently read a book called Verdigris Deep (children's book, fairly recently published) which had some theories about the minds of shopping trollies....
is it as simple as that's the furthest you can get before the brakes lock? for instants, if you park outside Argos you cannot get an Asda trolley to your car, it stops dead before the entrance to that part of the car park. It's supposed to stop people stealing them and unsightly dumping them.....
i live in tunnel ave and have watched people take their shopping home in a trolley and then take the empty trolley back and leave it in that area below the footbridge as you describe (not over the bridge and back to the shop). I've also seen young people use them as you describe - it does look scarey, and kind of fun.
i've also seen trolleys on pulleys hoisting themselves up and over... the less said about that the better
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