Sat 1: The prolonged New Year cacophony outside my window could have been averted had local firestarters taken the Mayor's lead and switched to coloured drones instead. Sun 2: I have already learned that people don't especially want to see what your Wordle score is.
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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Mon 3: This is as late as the New Year bank holiday can fall, but it'll be over 100 days until we get another. We then get five bank holidays in the space of less than 50 days. Tue 4: Bugger, not again. Wed 5: I may never get the hang of electric cooking. One splash of water under the pan and it burns, but you can't easily wipe it off because the cloth burns too. Life was so much easier with gas when I could turn down the heat before it bubbled over and easily mop it up if it did. Thu 6: I may use this delightful shot of discarded trees and a bin overflowing with dogpoo bags for my next Christmas card.
Fri 7: I've now packed away my cuddly snowman, cheeky elf, stuffed penguin and embroidered tree, but my 'winter lights' will stay trailed along my hallway until the clocks go forward. Sat 8: If you walk past a ParkRun at 8.50am and keep going, you first pass participants walking towards the start point, then those cutting it fine jogging towards the start point, then latecomers running desperately to reach the start point, then nobody. Sun 9: Thanks to the 1921 census we've managed to uncover the Willesden house in which my grandmother was working as a domestic servant and identify the Marylebone optician which employed my grandfather as an apprentice lens edger. Mon 10: This morning my local Tesco was out of hot cross buns and semi-skimmed milk, as well as desperately low on potatoes and crisps. (I should have bought more sultanas because the price went up 10% the next time I visited) Tue 11: Walk past the right health centre at the right time and someone'll thrust a box of 20 lateral flow tests into your hand. I doubt I'll get to the end of the packet. Wed 12: Here's another of the photos from today's walk that never made it onto the blog, only onto Flickr and Twitter. It shows the vacated Iron Mountain warehouse on Bow Creek which was previously Poplar Tram Depot and is about to become 530flats. Within a few years the view won't look anywhere near as good as this.
Thu 13: My BBC Sounds recommendations for January include The Train at Platform 4 (a Punt & Dennis comedy set aboard a fictional North East franchise), Past Forward (a social dig into a centenary of BBC archives) and Aberfan Tip No 7 (a forensic analysis of an avoidable catastrophe and its aftermath). Fri 14: Stayed in all day because pollution levels outside were supposed to be dangerously high. Living near the A12 I have to assume they're dangerously high anyway, so I was taking no chances. Sat 15: An absolute treasure I watched on iPlayer:Meet You At The Hippos, in which actor Mark Bonnar explores street sculpture and public art in Scottish new towns (some of which was commissioned by his dad). Hurrah for BBC Scotland. Sun 16: Putting a cultural vandal like Nadine Dorries in charge of broadcasting, and hence the funding of the BBC, pisses me off just as much as Operation Red Meat hoped it would. Mon 17: The Skypool in Nine Elms looked to be steaming hot and entirely empty of residents, who I assume are paying way over the odds in service charges for this seasonal white elephant. Tue 18: Finally spotted a green numberplate stripe with a national identifier (although because it says GB instead of UK it isn't valid overseas).
Wed 19: In the Royal Docks I was approached by a lost GLA employee making her first visit to the newly opened City Hall. Thankfully I was able to confirm the identity of the building in front of her and point out where the entrance was... and off she skateboarded. Thu 20: Somehow bodged the temperature of my bath, which was just about warm enough to clamber into but didn't improve after submerging so I had to exit after half as long as usual. Fri 21: My first-footer this year forgot to bring a piece of coal, but at least they were dark-haired. While visiting they also bashed on the wall to see how thin it was, and I sincerely hope my neighbours were out because I've spent 20 years deliberately not doing that. Sat 22: Walking round Limehouse Basin I was surprised to see a man in the cabin of his boat watching porn on a laptop, seemingly oblivious that the plump thrusting woman he was enjoying was plainly visible to anyone walking along the dockside. Sun 23: A new exit has opened at Old Street station where one of the subways no longer is.
Mon 24: Today I finished off my last mince pie, which means it must be just under eight months until my next one. Tue 25: A statutory notice blu-tacked to the front door of City Hall confirms that most committee meetings will continue to be held elsewhere until the last week of February. Wed 26: Climbed my first hill of the year, if 30m in Springfield Park, Upper Clapton, counts as a hill. Thu 27: On today's visit to the library I finally found Richard Osman's first novel on the shelf (but I'm not holding my breath for finding the second). Fri 28: I've decided to count my Popmaster scores this year, and can confirm that my average so far is 20½ (with a low of 9 and a high of 36). Sat 29: It's all go behind Mile End station at eight in the morning. Two young lads, still fizzing after last night, stopped me and asked the way to the local pub. They then changed their minds and asked for directions to the local cemetery and headed there instead, beers in hand. Sun 30: I had a go at the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch but nothing visited during the hour, not even my intermittent magpie. Admittedly the rules say you're supposed to "watch from your balcony", not watch the balcony, but it was a bit cold for that. Mon 31: There was a time this month when I thought the Prime Minister would have gone by now, but on he rolls.
