Do join me on the aimless ramble I took yesterday.
I took a snapshot every mile.
1 mile
This is Mile End Park, specifically the Arts Pavilion, a millennial gallery buried inside a crescent mound. A gently-sloping footpath curves over the top with a separate cycle track slightly lower down. The trick is to stick to the right one so as not to get run over/bump into the joggers (delete as applicable). From the ramparts a fine view can be had of the pool where birds aren't swimming, the bridge where no dogs are being walked and the lawns where nobody is picknicking. A moorhen pecks the grass beside a lone traffic cone. One of the trees on the central island has orangier branches than the others. The pavilion's subterranean gallery hasn't been used for art for the best part of the year but has instead been requisitioned as a Tower Hamlets covid test centre. Two stewards wait patiently out front in official Test and Trace hi-vis, but all they have to deal with at present is a truck from a company delivering water cooler solutions.
2 miles
This is the Regent's Canal, specifically the footbridge at the Bonner Gate into Victoria Park. I generally try not to walk along towpaths these days because they're under-wide and over-trafficked, but a wet Wednesday morning in February is as safe a time as any. What's awkward is when a bike or jogger comes your way because the grass to either side of the towpath is a muddy quagmire at present, so dodging out of their way invariably results in messy footwear. Some of these grooved swervemarks may take months to recover. The park provides an alternative route hereabouts, especially for those tackling the lakeside circuit, which definitely helps. Narrowboats are moored two abreast in this premier overwintering location, their inhabitants occasionally belching woodsmoke. Up on the bridge a man in sporty leggings performs an exercise manoeuvre which involves twisting, bending and simultaneously touching his thigh and the sky. From this point on, assume it's raining.
3 miles
This is London Fields, specifically the southern tip looking down towards Broadway Market. A steady flow of Hackneyfolk passes between the two, because what use is a walk round a large greenspace without a steaming cup in hand? One of the more bijou food stores has a small cart out front displaying oysters and lemons, beside which a face-shielded assistant is taking the payment of a contactless payee. Another is selling cheese toasties with bacon for £8.50, but without apparent success. Across the street an unmarked white van is delivering a large bovine ribcage to the artisanal "whole-carcass butchery", manhandled by the gloveless driver as he unhooks it and passes it down. Back on the Fields the mud is worse than ever, stretching a couple of metres either side of the path and further at junctions. Dogs and toddlers stick faithfully to the dry. The council have hung a sign saying "If the park looks full, please come back another time or go to another park" but that won't be necessary today.
4 miles
This is De Beauvoir Square, specifically pronounced Debbeaver should you ever need to pass for a local. Anyone driving one busy street away would never know it was here, the radiant focus of a more-spacious-than-necessary 1830s estate. Three sides are bounded by top notch villas and the fourth by postwar flats estate agents must get considerably less excited about. The local wine shop knows to place a chalkboard here to drum up custom. In the centre is a much-loved garden square, or rather garden circle once you've stripped away the outer ring of grass. On a weekday morning it's the ideal place to push a toddler round the perimeter while you make office calls, or gather for a natter with the other mothers by the climbing frames. Pride of place goes to the extensive rose garden, its bushes already pruned in preparation for a resplendent summer display (and fully catalogued in a diagram on the side of the gardener's hut).
5 miles
This is the Rhodes Estate, specifically Carlisle Walk, just off Dalston Lane near Dalston Junction. The area was entirely redeveloped in the 1960s, more successfully than the Snake Blocks on the adjacent Holly Street estate, forming a maze of lowrise blocks and walkways at a human scale. Fenced-off grass appears where you might expect parking spaces because cars are generally off-limits, and the whole place has a genuine looked-after vibe. The presence of a Green Party activist is evident across the estate thanks to hand painted signs exhorting residents to stand up for the planet and celebrate diversity. My favourite is the note added to the wall underneath a "Do Not Climb" notice, which retorts "Unless you are a Passionfruit." Alas the perpetrator moved away from the community in December to become a doctor in Shetland, and a number of his old signs are now stacked up by the recycling bins at number 8.
6 miles
This is Darnley Road in Hackney, specifically the terraced run off Mare Street opposite the Urswick School. That's one of the educational establishments totally rebuilt when Labour governments had cash to splash on such things, and now resembles a timber box with citrus highlights. Opposite is Shore Gardens, today an unremarkable parklet but 200 years ago the site of Loddidges nursery selling imported orchids, camellias, azaleas and other then-rare plants. But I suspect what most local residents have on their minds are Hackney's new 180 litre refuse bins, freshly delivered with a green tag attached confirming that non-recyclable rubbish will be collected fortnightly from March. The front gardens of some houses converted into flats are now rammed to bursting point with black bins, brown bins and lockable blue caddies, although I understand the old bins will be taken away... to be recycled.
7 miles
This is Victoria Park again, specifically the cut-through path round the back of White Lodge at its northern tip. I'm not sure who the flowers are for, nobody left a card, and although it's the anniversary of the park's most notorious recent murder that wasn't here. Again the grass is a threadbare mess, the combined result of excess lockdown footfall and excess winter precipitation. Fallen twigs are scattered all over the place. Those circuiting the perimeter include a recumbent cyclist, several damp joggers and a father pointing out parakeets to his young daughter. They may be responsible for the pile of birdseed left on top of a nearby litter bin. The sound of giggling can be heard inside one of London Bridge's former alcoves, relocated here in the 1860s. I've lost count of the number of times I've walked here since last March, but sometimes a familiar park is the gateway to somewhere less familiar beyond as well as a necessary recurrence afterwards.
