Stray Dogs in Lewisham

So, the other day, for no particular reason other than arriving slightly earlier than normal (and being a bit curious), I decided to take a little walk around Lewisham...and promptly wished I hadn't bothered...*hoards* of fighting school children (yelling in no language I could identify) threatening to knock over scared looking commuters (running the gauntlet from the bus station to the entrance to the DLR)-

- I didn't dare get out even my telephone in the midst of that little riot, let alone my camera...scooting past I came upon a tiny little green patch, strewn with discarded Special Brew/White Lightning cans where a small pack of (obviously well fed) stray dogs were feasting on heaps of discarded "Favorite Abhorred Fried Chicken" bones, shedding greasy stools over the tarmac -

- drinking from puddles, sipping stale remnants from the cans -

- and performing opportunist sniffing raids on Al Fresco breakfast plates for more greasy abandoned morsels...

Put it this way, on a first impressions basis, Lewisham wasn't scoring terribly highly...

I felt uncomfortable, and that feeling didn't leave me (100%) for the rest of the day, which bothered me a bit...I mean, I'm quite used to London (Per se) and have certainly seen similar, if not actually worse, (I mean, I've wandered around Chinatown in New York shooting the graffiti without the smile leaving my face) -

- and I used to have the pleasure of working in pre-regeneration cash Kings Cross -

- so what was it about Lewisham? My solution? I kept on going back, saying "Good Morning" to the guy that gives out the Metro, finding the local supermarket to buy my milk (instead of popping to Tesco or Waitrose in the Wharf), exploring some of the local shops, and now I'm walking around bold as brass (and shooting, as you can see)...

So, maybe it was just that...a bad first impression... ;)