please empty your brain below
Just to say, the flowering tree is almost certainly cherry plum not hawthorn. It's much too early for hawthorn even in these climate changing days, but they look extremely similar when the flowers are first out.

Tony Woolf | 27.02.21 - 8:03 a.m. | #

The starting point here was the location of an early home for Clapton Orient.
I’d love to say they moved on to greater things but that would be patently untrue.

John DLC | 27.02.21 - 8:41 a.m. | #

I used to cycle to work along the Lea Navigation tow path from Ponders End to work at Tottenham Hale and the way the route would switch in an instant from concrete and industry to unspoilt wilderness was fascinating. I always intended one day when cycling for leisure purposes to go on beyond Tottenham but regrettably I never did although I did ride north up beyond Enfield Lock into Hertfordshire on numerous occasions which was just as interesting.

Phil | 27.02.21 - 9:58 a.m. | #

I bet that tree is a Blackthorn.

Joho | Homepage | 27.02.21 - 10:01 a.m. | #

Have you come across a phone app called 'Go Jauntly' before? It's full of these 'citizen walks' but they're photo based, as opposed to audio.

dg writes: Come across it, used it, blogged it, uninstalled it.

R2 | 27.02.21 - 11:38 a.m. | #

Aha! There's always a blog ;D

It's got a lot better since then, a recent update allows you to navigate from point A to point B based on a more 'interesting' but less direct walk. But I'm not sure how they define interesting.

R2 | 27.02.21 - 11:52 a.m. | #

This revived a memory of an audio walk I did years ago in Whitechapel. A guick google reveals it was called The missing voice (Case study B) by Janet Cardiff, recorded in 1999. It's now available as an audio file; it used to be on a CD that you borrowed, along with a walkman, from Whitechapel library. I remember it being an odd but involving experience, as it's fictional but taking place in the streets you're walking down. I must try it again to see how much has changed since those days. The Library may have gone, but Whitechapel gallery is still there.

Gap | 27.02.21 - 2:36 p.m. | #

Thanks R2 & DG for the 'Go Jauntly' mention, I’ve just had a look at it. When I zoom in close to my bit of Islington it names individual trees in many local streets & parks. Useful!

dg writes: also available here.

Toni | 27.02.21 - 3:19 p.m. | #

"The underpass beneath the Lea Bridge Road was flooded though both bores"

I've noticed that, despite no rain for a week, the groundwater level is quite high everywhere. Normally the Hogs Pit in Carshalton Park empties a few days at most after the latest rainfall. I went yesterday and could still see springwater flowing *into* it. Likewise the ornamental canal that is periodically a source of the Wandle.

I know you've dismissed "shallow mindfulness", but a lot of that reads as mindfulness done the right way to me. The long-term awareness that's intended to keep your keel straight, as opposed to the closed-eye, body-focused stuff that's really just to help the anxious calm down a bit before moving on to a more awareness-based practice.

(Sorry to pontificate, it really helped me a few years back)

Chz | 28.02.21 - 1:33 p.m. | #

Another mention for Sutton! Maybe one day it will lose its DG Most Boring award.

Peter | 28.02.21 - 6:50 p.m. | #











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