I walked the canal to Camden, following stagnant water rather than dirty sidestreets, trudging sunbaked pavement by pondwater through hayfever clouds. As I sat with a beer under the willow tree at The Ice Wharf, I felt like one of those adults I would watch as a child sitting with my dad in pubs, someone who chatted into his phone to unseen best friends about grownup things, wearing the remains of a Friday suit and drinking beer, a cigarette in hand. My dad once said if he could live one year of his life over again, it would be 26.