Wed 1: I spent New Year at home for a change watching the cheesy fireworks on TV. I can confirm that Big Ben bonged 15 seconds late on my television, such is digital delay, so millions of people celebrated the arrival of 2025 belatedly. Thu 2: When in Croxley I like to walk past our old house to see what's changed, and the bathroom window's new and I hate their gold door number and we never kept the bins out the front and blimey the silver birch in the back garden is massive now.
Fri 3: Creme Eggs are 85p this year and a box of five costs £3.50. Ten years ago, when they downsized a box from six eggs to five, the prices were 60p and £2.85. Sat 4: Three things I failed to tell you about Lancing: a) The Wash & Go launderette is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, b) Joe Pannell won the byelection in Widewater ward for the Conservatives c) The upper streets in North Lancing are only served by a bus on Tuesdays and Fridays, once in each direction. Sun 5: My flat never suffers from condensation, except it did this morning when all the windows unexpectedly steamed up. I realised it wasn't something I'd done when I saw condensation on multiple other windows along Bow Road and also on glass panels at Stratford station - a highly unusual reaction to an exceptionally rapid rise in temperature as a warm front passed over. Mon 6: Here's a stupid sign in North Greenwich beside the new footbridge near the entrance to the Silvertown Tunnel. I think I know what they're trying to say, but what is a bicycle if not a mobility aid?
Tue 7: Matt Somerville's animated tube and bus maps have been taken offline after TfL's branding team suddenly got unduly heavyhanded after 15 years and forced his hosting provider to take them down. Widespread outrage will eventually lead to TfL apologising for the way that their “online brand protection agency” handled the affair and all the maps will go back up again, hurrah. Wed 8: Today I am 60 days away from being 60, and sometimes I wish I wasn't the kind of person who noticed this kind of thing. Thu 9: Thank you for your 76 suggestions for London squares I could visit this year. I've already blogged about a few of them but have made a list of the others for future perusal. We have Helena to thanks for my recent trip to Mortgramit Square, for example, thanks! Fri 10: Daffodils are back at the supermarket again. In good news a bunch still costs £1. In bad news a bunch only contains 8 stalks this year, whereas it used to be at least a dozen. In good news this bunch'll stay in bloom for over two weeks whereas they normally start fading after one. Sat 11: Had lemon curd on my toast today for the first time in years, and I think I should probably have it a lot more often. Sun 12: While on walkabout in Stamford Hill I noticed that pretty much all the girls were wearing identical shiny black jackets with a fluffy-edged hood, and I wondered if that was a Hasidic Jewish community thing, ditto the identical pink scooters a heck of a lot of them were riding.
Mon 13: An email arrived, can we use your photograph of Crich Tram Museum in our upcoming publication of the Heritage Shell Guide for Derbyshire? Obviously I said yes, how excellent to continue in the footsteps of Betjeman and Piper, so I'm going to be page 134. The new Yorkshire volumes look gorgeous. Tue 14: My Rail Sale purchases totalled £50.30 and for that I will be making three exciting journeys, one to the Sussex coast (already blogged), one to two farflung towns I've never been to (in February) and one to a farflung town I've only ever seen from a train (in March). It'd better not rain. Wed 15: I used to have four uncles and today the last of them passed away, not unexpectedly. I'm glad we saw him before the decline and I'm glad he got his celebratory card from the queen and I'm glad to still have two aunties, but it feels like a generational shift. Thu 16: I should not have worn that shirt in public, I thought I'd thrown it away. Fri 17: An online whipround facility called Collection Pot is advertising on tube escalators. I guess these days it is quite difficult for work colleagues to chip in actual banknotes when someone leaves, but I wouldn't describe a 1.9% commission fee + 20p per contribution as "as close to free as possible". Sat 18: Why go to a theme park when you can ride up the escalator at St John's Wood station into an increasingly ferocious downdraught, then battle the gale across the ticket hall. If you've never experienced it on a cold day the buffeting windchill is astonishing.
Sun 19: This attractive ramped staircase is the main entrance to Ealing, Hammersmith & West London College, and I nearly included it in my post 'Five things I noticed this weekend' but I didn't think it merited 100 words. Still gorgeous though. Mon 20: Trump's inauguration ran late so he wasn't quite sworn in by noon which means his Presidency is going to be two minutes short of four years long. It was the only upside I could find, sorry (and that's assuming we all survive until 2029). Tue 21: You can see Wandsworth Road station from the end of the platform at Clapham High Street, and one day I will write a post called Stations You Can See From The Previous Station. Wed 22: Ooh, the standing charge on my electricity bill was reduced on 1st January. Oh, it's only gone down from 44.000p per day to 43.997p per day, a saving of 1p per year. I feel like they're basically taking the piss. Thu 23: All four escalators at Cutty Sark DLR continue to be out of action following a long-term maintenance fiasco, so entry is now round the corner from M&S and down the emergency stairs, which aren't the stairs I always thought were the emergency stairs. Avoid avoid avoid. Fri 24: The Traitors final peaked fizzingly early with the loss of non-Welsh Charlotte, after which all the tension was lost because we already knew which side was going to win, and I suspect the producers were very disappointed that their Seer fiddling ended in a damp squib.
Sat 25: I finally got round to visiting the A2021 in Eastbourne, confirming it really wasn't worth blogging about, unlike the A2022, A2023, B2024 and A2025. Sun 26: It's unnerving seeing a walkthrough video of the house of a departed relative on an estate agent's website. I'm remembering all the happy times spent there, and they're thinking detached extended no onward chain. Mon 27: Some ad-infested digital channel is repeating 90s TV soap Eldorado, so I watched the first two episodes again and remembered how miserably plotless the series had been. No wonder it didn't last a year, there were no characters to care about. Tue 28: The Orbit in the Olympic Park is reopening under new management on Valentine's Day and a trip to the observation deck is only £7 according to their website. That's cheaper than I've gone up before, I thought. Then I read the smallprint and there's a £5 booking fee (five pounds! for what exactly?) so I won't be doing that again. To slide down will cost you £19 (i.e. £14+£5). Wed 29: My last three were East Dulwich, South Bermondsey and Queens Road Peckham.
Thu 30: This morning I walked across what may one day be Heathrow's third runway but is currently part of the village of Harmondsworth. The thundering alignment potentially crosses Hatch Lane between Candover Close and the end of the farm track, 1035m north of the existing runway, with a row of semis to one side and a deliberately empty field on the other. Everything south of The Crown pub gets wiped away while the village green and historic buildings survive. Enjoy the birdsong while you can, which may be five years or may of course be forever. Fri 31: Today I'm finishing off my last mince pie, bought from the reduced shelf after Christmas. Admittedly the best before date was 11 January and it is indeed past its best, but it's only eight months before I can stock up again.
Finally, let's see how my annual counts are going...
• Number of London boroughs visited: all 33 (at least twice each)
• Number of London bus routes ridden: 110 (20%)
• Number of Z1-3 stations used: all 350-odd (100%)
• Number of Z4-6 stations used: 0
