Looking down this road that I'll soon say "I used to call home."

The last time I saw her she had vomited on her own chest while we were locked in a convenience store during a riot. She was sitting on the floor slumped against a row of refrigerators. Next to her was a tall table with tall chairs, around which some men sat and ate, looking out the shop's locked doors at the charging police, the loud and spontaneous fireworks, the chanting demonstrators. Her friends gathered and pulled her to the bathroom to clean her up.

The store clerk stood in front of the locked doors, facing a man holding a four-pack of beer who wanted to leave the shop. They exchanged words I couldn't understand and eventually, he left. And somehow I did as well. I stood on the shop's small porch looking out at the square which the street met at it's nearest end. There was a modest fire – the black bloc throwing into it whatever they could find. A slow moving tank came from another street which met the square, surrounded heavily armed officers in full riot gear. From the far side of the block I was standing on, a small group of muscular men in their mid-twenties charged down the pavement chanting football songs, looking for a fight. And they found it at the square, where police were waiting for them, batons in hand. I turned to the locked shop doors behind me. I knocked. The clerk shook his head "no."

I didn't want to leave the street – I wanted to see my sick friend. To my amazement, a man at one of the tall tables rose in my defense and spoke to the clerk in German. The clerk's disposition changed. I negotiated, smiling. I was let back in.

Shortly after, we walked out again. I had found my friend, the square had been mostly cleared and the fire put out. She walked away without saying goodbye, stumbling and nearly falling, being held up by another of her friends. Quickly they moved out of sight, leaving me to walk the streets with whoever was left.

But when I think of England in the winter I will always think of the long, single road leading to her village quay from my campus flat. It's the smell of trees and cold air; the sound of loud busses passing dangerously close to my right nearly knocking me off my bike; the layers of clothes making unseasonable sweat and stopping at the co-op; a miniscule ferry in a medium-sized river and the bottle of wine, half-drank pot of coffee and window pane i looked past to see it. When I think of England in the winter...