Yesterday I walked to a local second-hand bookshop. After having a cast removed from a broken ankle, I’ve been gradually extending my walks again. As a lifelong walker, the loss I felt when I couldn’t walk was significant. That absence sharpened my awareness of how much walking has declined in our towns and cities, replaced by the convenience of driving. Our spaces are now largely designed to prioritise traffic flow and parking, even for very short journeys.
The walk—around an hour return—wasn’t especially pleasant. It followed a busy main road, noisy and exposed. Still, arriving at the cool, dim interior of the bookshop made the effort worthwhile. The shop sat within a small cluster of businesses: a gallery and a vintage emporium, places once sustained by foot traffic. The bookshop was running a 50% closing-down sale, and it was easy to see why. As shopping shifts online, retailers that depend on people passing their doors struggle to survive.
Yet the experience of a second-hand bookshop cannot be replicated digitally. Rows of mismatched shelves, books arranged by loose logic and happy accident—this kind of discovery doesn’t exist in franchise stores or online marketplaces. I drifted toward the children’s section. As a lifelong reader, and with a regular young visitor who loves books, I was looking for new adventures. I browsed until I selected two books for the modest total of $10.
The owner told me he would be taking the business online. I felt a quiet sadness at the loss of this physical presence. Books are objects as well as vehicles for learning and imagination. Holding them, being present with them, is an experience I’ve always valued.
One purchase, though shelved with children’s books, is now more suited to older readers: Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm, illustrated by David Hockney, with its stark depictions of death. The other was If I Was a Banana by Alexandra Tylee and Kieran Rynhart. Illustration matters deeply to me. Over a lifetime, I’ve seen how powerful images foster joy and a love of reading in emerging readers.
On this walk I passed only a handful of other people on foot, which feels typical now. On the way home, an RV dealership caught my attention. I wandered from vehicle to vehicle, imagining possibilities unlikely to be realised—but the wandering itself was what mattered.
What do we lose when we accept that our towns and cities are no longer designed for pedestrians? We lose chance encounters, unplanned discoveries, and the small curiosities that happen only at walking pace. We lose places that invite lingering, and businesses that rely on presence rather than efficiency.
Walking creates space for noticing—for drifting into bookshops, pausing at windows, imagining different futures. The walk itself, imperfect as it was, reminded me that moving through a place on foot is not just a way of getting somewhere, but a way of belonging to it.
