At the start of 2020 I decided to count the number of times I visited each London borough.
• Technically I counted the number of days I visited each borough.
• If I set foot in a borough on a particular day, that counted as 1.
• Standing on a station platform or riding through on a bus didn't count.
This is very much not the end result I was expecting.
Enf
4
Harr
3
Barn
6
Hari
6
WFor
154
Hill
4
Eal
6
Bren
5
Cam
16
Isl
17
Hack
173
Redb
13
Hav
3
Hou
5
H&F
5
K&C
4
West
23
City
36
Tow
366
New
253
B&D
3
Rich
4
Wan
7
Lam
11
Sou
15
Lew
7
Grn
9
Bex
3
King
3
Mer
5
Cro
3
Bro
5
Sut
4
You can tell I live in Tower Hamlets because that scored the maximum possible total of 366 days. I'd never normally hit the maximum because I'd spend several nights away (especially at Christmas), but not in 2020.
Newham came a very strong second, partly because that's where Stratford is but mainly because I live less than 200m from the boundary. Getting there is easy, even in lockdown. I've been to Newham on 69% of days this year.
Next come Hackney and Waltham Forest, way way ahead of the other boroughs. This is because my daily exercise under lockdown generally involved walking to the top of the Olympic Park and back, which ticked off both, and it's a route I've continued to walk (and extend) ever since. Were life normal I'd visit these boroughs about once a week, but this year it's been more like three.
Westminster was in third place before lockdown began, it being where much of London's important stuff is. But I've only been three times since, because it's quite a hike, which has allowed the City of London to overtake. That's rather nearer, so since August I've been schlepping there once a week.
The only other boroughs I've been to since March are those with totals in double figures - all of which are within walking distance. Most are in central London, the sole Outer exception being Redbridge (which I can trek to in an hour). These are still ridiculously low totals though - in a normal year Camden would've probably hit fifty.
What's unusual are the outer London totals. If you'd been doing this survey there'd have been a lot of 0s, 1s and 2s, because it's surprisingly hard to go to Havering, Kingston and Harrow accidentally. But I managed at least three visits apiece in two and a half months flat because that's the kind of London-scouring blogger I am. Even in 2020, Sutton got a fair crack.
As for counties outside London, this year's tally is but thin gruel.
Twice: Essex, Kent Once: Beds, Bucks, Herts, Suffolk, Norfolk, Lincs, East Sussex, Surrey, Wilts, Devon, Cornwall Never: everywhere else
I am already itching to go back to Slough and Surbiton, not to mention Pinner and Penge, because almost anywhere can be a tourist attraction after a year of restricted travel.
And I've been counting other things too...
2020
TfL Journeys
Walked daily
Average weight
Jan
143
5½ miles
12st 11
Feb
113
6 miles
12st 11
Mar
41
4 miles
12st 9
Apr
0
3½ miles
12st 6
May
0
5½ miles
12st 4
Jun
0
7 miles
12st 3
Jul
0
7½ miles
12st 2
Aug
2
7½ miles
12st 0
Sep
1
9 miles
11st 12
Oct
0
7½ miles
11st 12
Nov
0
9 miles
11st 11
Dec
0
9½ miles
11st 10
I'm counting TfL journeys because they can be easily (and objectively) tracked. TfL tot up all your Oyster journey segments in a convenient weekly database, ostensibly so you can keep track of how much they cost. Every change of mode means starting another row, so for example a trip from Bow Road to Richmond Park would count as tube(1)+rail(2)+bus(3), plus another 3 journeys back again. At the start of the year I was averaging 4 'TfL journeys' a day. Since March I've only taken three in total, all on the tube and no further than King's Cross. If TfL are in severe financial difficulties, sorry, I'm an example of why.
Which means I've been walking a lot more. The second column shows my average daily distance, month by month. Treat January and February as normal, i.e. about six-miles-worth. April was my rambling lowpoint because I didn't walk far and spent a lot of days indoors. But by the summer I was up to seven miles and since September it's been more like nine (four miles out and four back). The average dipped in October because it rained a lot. But that's still a heck of a lot more walking than I expected to be doing this year... by my calculations 2500 miles in total (the equivalent of walking to Baghdad).
The last column shows how my weight has changed during this extraordinary year. It had been consistent up until mid-March and then went into unexpected freefall, dropping by half a stone in a couple of months. It's dropped another half stone since. The most obvious reason should be 'increased exercise', but the table actually shows the complete opposite with the pounds falling off just as I stopped going out. My best guess is that mid-March is when I started eating less to avoid going to the supermarket too often, in which case lockdown has been an unexpectedly effective diet. Indeed I've gone from a BMI of 26 to a BMI of 24, which is exemplary, and now all I have to do is make sure that any resumption of normality doesn't cause me to put it all back on again.
This won't have been your 2020 experience, so forgive me for indulging you with mine, but I hope it demonstrates the power of keeping tabs on personal data. Maybe pick something to count yourself in 2021, and hopefully watch it improve as the year goes by.
