Our second saunter sans purpose during more inclement conditions.
Button up your overcoat, pluck a wilted flower from a garden and stick it in your buttonhole, shake the dust from your finest brolly as you unfurl it, and prepare to sally forth on a chill winter’s day in London. The second Grand Flâneur Winter Walk takes place at midday on Sunday 29th November.
Our starting point will be, as it was this Summer for the sixth Grand Flâneur Walk, the Courtyard Wine Cellars in Covent Garden. But instead of our well-pressed trousers being hemmed in below-stairs, we shall meet at street level, on the main Piazza itself, where our generous hosts will provide tempting libations to set us upon our way.
The purpose of flânerie, as have discovered on seven previous occasions, is not to seek, not to direct oneself, but merely to wander where the whim of the group dictates. Although a flâneur is traditionally a solitary creature, when embedded into a many-headed hydra such as is formed by our hundred-plus boulevardiers, it quickly develops a will of its own.
On previous Grand Flans we have meandered as far south as Lambeth, as far east as Blackfriars and as far north as Camden. Occasionally a group of flâneurs will fall back from the herd, putting themselves at risk of mingling with the multitudes of ordinarily dressed people, but thankfully they always manage to find their way back to the group, through the sheer force of flânerie.
In order to get the meandering multitudes into the mood for the long flan ahead, a stirring tract is always read before setting off. This year the stage will be taken by Robert Walser, little-known Swiss-German author of the early twentieth century, whose short story The Walk marks the fellow out as a true flâneur:
“I found myself, as I walked into the open, bright and cheerful street, in a romantically adventurous state of mind, which pleased me profoundly. The morning world spread out before my eyes appeared as beautiful to me as if I saw it for the first time. Everything I saw made upon me a delightful impression of friendliness, of goodliness, and of youth. All sorrow, all pain and all grave thoughts were as vanished, although I vividly sensed a certain seriousness, a tone, still before me and behind me.”
The rules of flânerie are that there are no rules, except to arrive in one’s finest habiliments with an open mind. There is no destination set in advance; until the first step is taken, we have absolutely no idea which direction we shall be heading in, and thankfully no idea of the wonders we shall encounter along the way. All are welcome to join, and all are welcome to leave at any point during the walk. We can virtually guarantee that, once you have been embraced by your fellow flâneurs and flâneuses, you will have no inclination to depart.
