tidelines

At one end, the refurbished rail station - bright and glinting in the sun; tourists milling through its recovered arches. At the other end - the canal, choked with litter, hooded youths slumped on what is left of the park benches optimistically placed by the council. In between, an ebb and flow of two worlds. The bookies replaced by a craft and tea shop. A trendy moustachioed barber where the cash and carry used to be. But in the other direction too -  smokers outside the old pub, hunched against the cold. A broken window, a sheet of newspaper tumbling across the pavement. Yet the tide of gentrification is encroaching gradually but unerringly, swallowing everything in the frothy foam of an overpriced flat-white.