Reservoir ridge is a viewpoint overlooking the Rave Hole.
Behind a bench runs a mesh fence, spattered in white graffiti, which protects the reservoir.
Metres away a pylon rises from the scrub, cables slung low. You can hear it hum as you sit and gaze across the train tracks and the marshlands to the urban ridge of Upper Clapton, Mount Pleasant and Stamford Hill.
It’s a prime spot, reservoir ridge. Raised up on this steep grass verge you can survey all who walk the path below, like a Roman Emperor at a gladiator fight.
Every marsh archetype takes a break here…
* Hasidic Jew with the high black socks and the shiny shoes and the neat children like something out of an old photograph dancing around him
* Bearded old white man, stick in hand, fat mutt at his feet; stoner teens in a giggling conspiracy
* Turkish men talking loudly and angrily about everyday things
* Walking nerds in anoraks, supping from flasks
* Resting cyclists with their Lycra bulges
* Sleeping tramps
* Necking couples
* Me with my middle class hair and iPod.
