Rabbit runs and jitties

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Last week I had a good chat with John Davies, who walked the M62 in 2007. Actually he walked a parallel path to the M62, through towns and villages as well as through the open countryside. We talked about a shared interest in the urban landscape and how it discloses the lives and interests of the people who live and move through it. John has put me onto the Mis-Guides which suggest creative ways of walking through unregarded places.

With all this in mind, I set off this morning for a walk to Leicester and back. From my home it's a very familiar five-mile journey along the A6. So I made an unfamiliar journey instead, resolving to walk not one yard along the main road. I crossed the A6 in Oadby, then headed into the heart of the 'village'. Leicester Road was once the main route of course, but not long into the era of cars and lorries it became so congested that a dual-carriageway bypass was built.

I then discovered a narrow path that led to the service road for Leicester racecourse, all deserted on a Monday morning. Another secret (to me) jitty led up into Knighton, whose neat semi-detached homes gave way to the posher streets of Clarendon Park. Even in a stagnant housing market, a large number of building projects are underway; four and five bedrooom 'exclusive' homes and lots of apartments.

The roads continued to broaden and I emerged onto Queens Road, a favourite of mine. Hindu temples, a progressive synagogues, churches aplenty and a Friends Meeting House. I popped into the Age Concern Bookshop, which included a cafe and was pleased to find Rita, whose mother's funeral I conducted about five years ago, working as a volunteer.

I crossed a blustery 'Vicky Park', then along New Walk into town itself.

On the way out of town, I crossed the railway line on the Swain Street bridge, which looks like a giant Meccano construction, then passed the Conduit Street mosque and headed into Highfields. The old terraces here are three-storey and very substantial. These led into poorer streets, then along into Evington, and the much posher Stoneygate.

This was once the edge of Leicester, whose hosiery fortunes were made by the men who built the large houses in Knighton and Manor Road, the latter reputed to be the wealthiest road in Europe before the second world war.

I was home again, twelve miles and six hours later (it was a long shopping expedition). There was much to reflect on, like the quietness of the roads, just a few hundred yards from the main route. The A6 is a well-worn groove into Leicester and it almost feels tainted by the impatience with which many drivers use it. It's a hard road to like. But the side-streets are the roads on which journeys for most people begin or end. They're roads for pottering about in, nipping along to the corner shop, or in which visits to friends are made.