I remember the first time I saw the E&C shopping mall. It was many years ago, winter time, raining like hell. I only just recently moved to the UK and I was living in East London. That evening, I was cycling all the way down to Deptford. I met a guy I liked and I wanted to go and see him. And so, under the rain and with a terrible bike, I crossed Tower Bridge and then arrived at the E&C roundabout, with a phone out of battery. The shopping mall was there, with a bizarre little pink elephant which I observed for as long as it took me to find my way to Deptford. Probably 4 or 5 rounds of the roundabout and many kind people who gave me directions.

Little I knew that in less than two years, that guy and myself would have moved a few hundred metres from that shopping mall! Our relationship and our family grew up around that place: we met new friends with whom we went dancing salsa from time to time, we had the best fruit drinks in town, we spent long saturdays in one of the bar which we nicknamed “the youtube bar” and we went with our friends' kids playing children activities in the mall.

It represented a firm point where you could always have a laugh or ask a question and be sure someone would be there to answer it. It was my Elephant.