If you're counting, and I am, today it's eighteen months since the Prime Minister advised us to stop all unnecessary travel. It's been the most atypical eighteen months of my life, and because I've been counting I have some idea how atypical.
I continue to count the number of times I visit each London borough, with each day I set foot in a borough counting as 1. The maximum possible total in eighteen months is 548.
In normal times I'd expect my home borough of Tower Hamlets to be in the 500s, neighbouring Newham to be in the 200s, busy Westminster to be in the 100s and all the other boroughs to be somewhere between the 20s and the 80s. But the last eighteen months have very much not been normal times.
Tower Hamlets scores an almost-maximum of 545 because I've only spent four nights away. The other huge numbers are the boroughs comprising the Olympic Park, which I have walked up and down a ridiculous number of times since 16th March 2020. Next comes the City of London, way lower down, followed by the other boroughs it's easiest to walk to. What's extraordinary is that I've only been to ten boroughs more than three times... not because Boris told me not to but because I continue to stick close to home. I really should be trying harder.
I should be ashamed at only having been to Wandsworth, Haringey and Bexley once, in each case only marginally. I should be even more ashamed that there are 13 London boroughs I haven't been to at all in the last year and a half, including one that's less than seven miles from home. As for leaving the capital I've only done that seven times, and only once for more than a day trip. It's plain wrong that I've been to East Sussex more than Ealing and Lincolnshire more than Lewisham.
In my defence I have managed to continue blogging while focusing on the coloured bits of the map, because tons goes on in East and Central London, but I really do need to get back on some public transport again. The next six months had better not be atypical too, and hopefully that'll all be down to my mindset rather than the Prime Minister telling me what not to do.
