4 West Ham to North Woolwich

Saturday May 30, 2009:

I stand in front of the so-called super-loo outside West Ham station and growl. It’s eaten my companion’s ten pence and remains resolutely shut to all-comers. I’m dying for a pee! Grumbling, I trail after my companion onto the Greenway, where abandoning all thoughts of modesty I retreat to the middle of a small meadowed verge to relieve myself.

It is an absolutely glorious day! The sun shines, the sky is clear bar a few little wispy clouds. There is a lovely cooling breeze and we have the world to ourselves, or so it seems. Hurrah for the F.A. Cup final!

On the banks of the walk, someone has planted a range of native plants and grasses. Strips of flower-strewn meadows are flanked, first on one side and then on both by tangling profusions of pink and white dog roses, lifting their frail petals to the sun. This is absolutely their time of the year!

I breathe deeply. Behind the faint sour sewerage aroma dances the rosy leafy sweet top-notes of the meadow flowers. Above us, at decent intervals from each other, blackbirds are belting out their glorious song. My grumpiness forgotten, I bow and smile at the golden cascades of song as we stride purposely forth.

We pass terrace houses, a grotty looking estate, and more houses. We’re quite high up for a while but when the houses on one side level with us, they are small and a little down at heal. Despite the singing blackbirds, the cheerful dog roses, the dancing meadow strips with their nodding tender wild flowers, the softness of the air, I feel the struggle of communities trying to make ends meet. we’re walking through the heart of the poor East End. Here, poverty and disadvantage sit side by side with hopeful regeneration via the Olympic development not far away. Small but heart lifting gestures of greening such as that of the Northern Output Sewerage Effluent (or NOSE) pipe upon which we walk stretch thin green fingers amongst the shabby dwellings with their insubstantial little gardens and grim balconies. I wonder if their inhabitants ever walk this green line.


I’m tired, so we sit down, our backs against a rusty barred fence and listen to the birds. The “Woodpigeons, tits and wrens compete with the ubiquitous noisy blackbirds. I stroke the soft grasses, gather up the tenderest most velvety of them to make a small bouquet to tuck behind my left ear (where all such tributes sit best!). We are alone, bar a curious jogger whose swift glance, my companion informs me, holds curiosity. No doubt, she wonders what on earth we want to sit down on top of a sewer pipe for. I imagine we are sitting in a meadow far away from East London, and am happy.

In time, we move. My companion spies a peacock butterfly rising from the sweet meadow. We pass more houses, more dog-roses and some small industrial sites. Since West Ham, we’ve crossed about five roads which intersect the Greenway. We turn off now down a ramp festooned with cultivated and wild flowers into a small housing estate.

Here, the houses show individuality, a legacy of the Right to buy opportunities of Thatcher’s Britain. Young Asian men pass us, talking loudly on their mobiles. We turn towards the roaring A13 over which we have now to pass to reach the next finger of green.

The metal bridge trembles beneath our feet as we walk quickly across it. On the other side, we pass the sign to Beckton Alps (a dry-ski complex) and turn down a road beside some houses towards Beckton District Park. At the opening, stands a lone young police officer guarding a stretch of black and yellow “Scene of Crime” tape.

“Is there a dead body behind there?” asks my companion pruriently.
“I’m afraid I can’t comment”, the police officer replies dryly. We walk on leaving her to guard her frail barrier against the curious and ghoulish.

Circling a lake in futile search of a cup of tea, we encounter the Beckton District Park toilets, which are a disgrace to behold! Not for the first time I’m glad not to be able to see, if the smell is anything to go by. Trying not to breathe, we scurry outside quickly.

Under the benevolent noonday sun, we settle ourselves on a bench by the lake. The chocolate we share is the consistency of blue-tac . Nevertheless, it is delicious and just what is needed. As we rest, Canada Geese importune us aggressively. Clearly, human sitting on bench means dinner! I honk back at them and quack cheerfully at the ducks dabbling about in the lake beyond.

Wood pigeons swoop and raise their wings scirring the air insistently. Amongst them, my companion tells me, a smaller completely white pigeon with pink markings about the eyes hops about. An albino pigeon perhaps, or more likely a little white dove! Ah, I think and coo at it softly.

We walk on. The park is long and narrow and soon bisected by a road. Beyond this, it is wilder. Small stands of trees shade the path, tangled undergrowth at their ankles. Now on either side lie stretches of meadow, dotted with wild flowers. In the middle of a sunny patch sits a young woman and her black and white dog, both peacefully basking in the sun. For a moment, I contemplate joining her but am drawn on by my companion’s cry of delight as she spies the first of a number of tethered horses.

The smell of them dances to us on the breeze, warm, heavy and brown, pungent, yet sweet. The horses are tethered and patiently stand in sun or shade quietly observing the day, their empty feed buckets lying toppled and abandoned at their feet.

“Hello” I say to a docile mare who allows me to stroke her velvety nose. She breathes back at me and lets me pet her. We stand together in the dappled shade and commune.

Insects buzz about busily, the humming city disappears beyond the sighing trees and the whispering grass. Soft horse breath on my arm, like the tenderest of kisses, brings a smile to my face and I remember Epona the horse goddess. Caught in a moment of lazy peacefulness that comes when standing with horses at rest, I blow through loose lips and the horse blows back.

But we have to move on. I feel the horses following us with their eyes as we walk through a stand of scrubby trees and across another road. Here , the parkas reverted to municipal order.

Beyond the children’s playground, another horse stands and whinnies; for she has spied someone she knows. An old man tells us the horse is called April and she is his. We stand stroking the horse and tell him of our walk. He tells us of the joys of “RedRovering ” in his youth and then shambles off, horse in tow to watch the football.

We walk on. I fantasise allowed about man and horse settling down together in front of the telly. I imagine them with steaming cups (or in the case of the horse, a bowl) of tea, companionably enjoying the match.

New Beckton Park, fringed by houses is almost deserted. It is neat and pleasant. Here the Ring deviates from the book. But there are helpful signs so we negotiate our way round a closed gate on the edge of a small estate and turn onto the main road. We skirt the East London University campus and head towards the river.

The road is busy. We cross two fingers of water or “reaches”, and follow the signs leading us between uninspiring blocks of flats with forbidding balconies. On a wall, a small sign tells us that to find “Michelle’s beauty” turn left. For good measure, Michelle has obligingly left her phone number. We speculate about what services she could be offering and to whom and walk on.

At last we come to the river, beyond a concrete wall. The water stretches out emptily, shimmering silver in the bright sunlight. We flop down onto an uncomfortable metal bench and feast briefly on cheesy oatcakes and nuts and raisons.

The river walk and its environs are deserted. Over in far away Woolwich, an ice-cream van’s chimes peal out tantalisingly. Dead leaves scuttle down the road in front of us like bashful toddlers running an egg and spoon race. I imagine them as they skitter past, some fast, some trailing behind, a group followed by a poor straggler, alone and desolate, red faced and tearful. Just when I think the race has ended, another leave skips by, desperately trying to catch up. Idiotically, I want to reach out a finger and edge it forward, to lighten its load in some way.

“It’s a bit like one of those Sci-Fi films where bustling busy London has been emptied of humanity and only we and the scuttling leaves are left.” I say to my companion. “Except, we’re glad to have the city to ourselves,” I add, picking a cashew nut out of the little container in my hand and popping it into my mouth.

“We’ve probably got quite a bit more to do,” says my companion as she scoops the last nuts out of the pot. WE climb to our feet and head west.

We are in the land of the gated community. We walk along the river, heading towards North Woolwich and the Woolwich Ferry. ON another unforgiving hard metal bench, someone lies sunbathing, on one or two balconies, other figures, as still as statues watch the dancing river. Some rather pleasant African music saunters out from an open window. For a moment, I think I can hear a clear tenor voice singing along. The wind shifts and the sounds melt into the city rumble.


We find an unlocked gate and walk through. A boat slipway gives direct access to the water’s edge. Two mallards waddle in front of us as we carefully negotiate the rough concrete. They launch themselves into the river with a flurry of feathers and a fair bit of flapping. I think how nice it would be to do the same.

The silvery water begins to tremble agitatedly as a huge barge approaches. The lapping is drown by the growling roar of its engine. We step back from the river edge to avoid the barge’s tumbling wake and the threat of wet feet.

The Earnest Bevin ferry cleaves the water as it heads across the river. Behind it the water tumbles noisily. We walk past a broken down pier and my companion comments on it’s similarity with the West Pier in Brighton.

We turn into a riverside park. The city’s not deserted. The park is dotted about with groups of adults and children picnicking in the sunshine. A mother calls a toddler to order; across the grass, another child wails and is soothed in a language which is not English. We walk on, tired now for our journey is almost at its end.

The DLR is not working. WE climb aboard a replacement rail service and rock our way through the East End to Canary Warf and home. My feet are sore and my arms feel suspiciously warm. I have caught the sun – how nice that sounds! My arms are sunburnt just in the place where I would have hugged the sun!

I think about the gloriously singing blackbirds, the companionable horses, the warmth of the day and the soft breeze and the gentle sound of the river lapping against the hard concrete bank. What a city of contrasts, swathes of concrete interspersed with fingers of green. The peace is embraced by the hubbub and the hubbub is framed by the green.

“When I get home, I say to my companion as we climb stiffly from the bus, “I’m going to sit in the garden with my feet in a bowl of warm warder and drink a nice cup of Lady Gray tea. ”.

3 Hackney Wick to West Ham

Saturday April 11, 2009:



You know, it is the devil’s own job getting back to Hackney wick, where we left off the big London hug last time. Engineering works have closed off most of East London. WE wind our way round the backstreets of Hackney in a rail replacement bus whose driver is thrown by a sudden and unexpected diversion around about the Eastway. So we clamber off hoping that the canal is not far away.

The green Capital Ring signs talk of diversion and helpfully point two ways at once! For the first of several times this day, my companion wishes aloud for an A to Z. The locals seem bemused when we ask directions to the canal; some even shake their heads in mild bewilderment at the thought of anyone wanting willingly to go there! Do they know something we don’t?

“I think it’s that way,” I say, jerking my thumb leftwards towards what turns out to be the Trowbridge Estate. We set off gamely, following my somewhat dubious sense of direction. Behind us, a blackbird is singing in a grimy ornamental cherry.

A man stands next to a brace of calmly feeding horses – all eight hooves firmly planted on the pavement, their noses in buckets. One neighs as we approach. At last, we’d found someone who knew where we were trying to get to and who only mildly regards it as an odd thing to do. The horse man directs us back the way we have come!

“Oh well, “I say ‘Polly-Anna-ishly’, “at least it’s not raining, and we met two pavement grazing horses.” A sudden gust of wind blows a gout of dampness into our faces as we cross the canal bridge beneath the arch of the blackbird’s song. A family of cheerful walkers reassures us that we are indeed about to step onto the canal tow path but confuses us further by declaring that they have just walked from Victoria Park!

“We came past here last time” my companion says disappointedly, “I wish I’d bought some chocolate!” We trudge on past the Olympic site hoardings. Bare of their decorations, they stare back blankly at the quiet canal and the two women walking stoically along.

“We’re passing the place where we came off last time” says my companion, as the most disgusting stench of rotting waste assails us. I gasp and coughed, and we hurry on.

Ahead of us, the canal bubbles. From amongst its gurgling, a swaying guitar blues struts, followed closely by the sweet, dusty smell of wood smoke. A large narrow boat, the “Queen Vic” sits moored in the middle of the canal; the music and wood smoke are coming from her.

“What would it be like to be invited in there?” I mused to my companion. We fall to discussing the tea they would serve us, the low cushions we would sit upon cross-legged and bare-footed as they offer us joints (which I would of course politely refuse) or home-baked cookies laced with a little something it was best not to know about. It sounds to me very much like a narrow boat one might find in Old Amsterdam and the blues, the joint, the cookie, the tea and the low cushions would all be in keeping with the style of the place. Alas, no one beckons us aboard and we walk on leaving the queen Vic in a haze of woods smoke and lazy afternoon blues.


Past the lock, we turn left onto the Greenway – a concrete covered sewer leading down to the Beckton Treatment works and which skirts the Olympic stadium. The canal shoots off to our right, and the River Lee snakes into a series of bow backed channels and small pools stretching towards the Thames.

On our left, the bare ribs of the Olympic stadium rises from a tangle of cranes with a clutter of temporary structures round the base. An artist sits sketching the view, patiently polite to passers by peering over his shoulder. ON the right, a wasteland of piles of materials and building supplies stretches as far as the eye can see. Dotted about the place, stand trios of security guards whilst in the distance, a huge concrete mixer rumbles persistently.

Here, the greenway crosses the Docklands Light Railway. The railway tunnel below is unexpectedly quite clean and we soon returned to the greenway, to sink damply onto a wet seat beneath a rather fetching metal sign.

Resting a while, we eat fruit bars (in lieu of chocolate,) and listen to the clear silver arching song of two wrens. In front, new apartment blocks rise up amongst the pointing fingers of the construction cranes. WE move on.

Now the A11 crosses the Greenway and we make a slight detour to cross it. Returning to the path, we walk under the arching songs of the blackbirds. It is as though they herald our coming with their triumphant call. I am happy.

Lisenced by my blindness, I imagine I am walking along a quiet country road. I picture the blackbirds sitting in a high hedge, his song soaring through the clear sweet air. The verge is festooned with a riot of wild spring flowers. There is nothing to do but to admire the smells and sounds of the spring.

In reality, as my companion informs me, the bow back rivulets have formed small lakes beyond the scrub, behind them; a fringe of industry can be seen. There is however apparently, a rather smart Victorian water treatment centre with an elegant domed copula and the occasional house.

WE move on. By the side of the path is a stand of young birches, their leaves the tenderest and lightest of greens, their branches frail and lacy. Through them one of the bow backed rivulet’s has fashioned itself into a shimmering pond upon which two swans glide silently and elegantly. For a moment, my country fantasy is with me.

But it is time to return to real urban life. Due to our circumnavigation of East Hackney, we don’t have time to get to Beckton. WE leave the Greenway at West Ham station and head for home and the long yearned for chocolate.

2 Stoke Newington to Hackney Wick

Sunday March 29, 2009:


AS we march purposefully round the back of Stroud Green on our way to the bus station at Finsbury Park, the spring sun peaks over the rooftops and says “morning!” The streets are deserted, the clock change keeping walkers in their beds. So much the better for us. Our walk this day will be peaceful then.

Amazingly, the 106 bus is busy so early on a Sunday morning. Smartly dressed folks on their way to church perhaps? Unusually now for London, the bus doesn’t talk. We scuttle off at Stanford Hill (we think), not certain - on account of the silent bus - if this is the right stop.

It’s so peaceful to walk the suburban streets today. We have the city to ourselves, hardly anyone is about. The houses sit quietly, as though in contemplation of the coming day behind their cheerful front gardens.

The trees lining the pavements are frothed with the sensual softness of cherry blossom, a magnolia glossy and glorious hangs abundantly over one neat wall. The air perfumed with the blossom’s gentle sweetness, tangles with the dusty smell of car exhaust and morning coffee. I breathe deeply and walk on down Casanova Road.

Spring field Park, when we cross over its threshold is a green oasis of peace and quacking ducks. Daffodils dance in the spring wind, cigarette smoke sachets through the air behind a black clad Hasidic man out for a morning constitutional smoke. WE retreat to the café for a welcome cup of tea and a pee break.

Fred Estair sings effortlessly in the background as we sip our drinks, other patrons chat softly as my companion describes the view of the ducks from the big windows. But our walk has hardly started and it is time to move on.

The park slopes down to the canal. AS we walk along the paths, now gradually filling with children, dogs and their guardians, I hear a blackbird sing persistently in a tree over to our right. I stop to listen and feel my heart lift with the joy of living, just to hear his triumphant liquid call as it rises above the “poc-poc-poc” of wacked tennisballs and the shrieks of happy children..

Down the steps and through a gate we move, past the marina with it’s variety of colourful narrow-boats onto the Lee Navigation canal where we cross to walk on the east side. To our right, a range of down-at-heal balconyless flats line the waterway, to our left the wider green of the Walthamstow Marshes spreads out to the light industrial landscape to the north. Here, the canal flows smoothly on our right, a drainage ditch choked with thick green duckweed moves sluggishly to our left. Across the marshes, the greenness is darkened with a random scattering of boggy pools into which the occasional wetland bird swoops. Stark electrnicty pilons quarter the sky, and I imagine the dark shape of waterfowl siluetted against the pale sky as they roost, kings of all they survey.

The sun shines on. The wind brings us the canal in damp wafts, laced with diesel fumes. The tow path is occasionally peopled with walkers, alone or in small groups but on the whole it is quiet.

Into that quietness, the most extraordinary arpeggio of silver trilling parts the air. In a small thorn bush, a wren sits singing his heart out. We stop and I stand spellbound as the brave song makes my heart dance. My spirit bows to his spirit and we walk on obediently crossing over a bridge where the canal meets the River Lea.

I need another pee! My companion knows of a place a bit further on where I might dive unseen behind a bush. WE walk under the Lea bridge Road bridge and there is a pub – the Prince of Wales - , open and obliging on the toilet front. No need to bare my bottom to an unknown bush! Relieved and lightened, I follow my companion back over the canal to the eastern path again.

And now we make a detour to the former Middlesex Filter Beds to visit the ‘Ackney ‘enge. Islanded by the roaring River Lea and the more sedate Lee Navigation Canal, sits a peaceful and modest nature reserve. The filter beds are gone; in their place lie their abandoned outline. In the middle of this is a perfect circle of granite stones with a centrepiece of two angled carved stones. Lichen and the hard London rain have started to soften their edges; the structure of the filter bed has left intriguing perfectly carved holes and cuts where once pipes had channelled the water. I greet each stone with my inquisitive hands and rest a while on the centre stones and wonder it this has become someone’s makeshift alter. I imagine urban celebrants, hoodied and trainered, working the space and the spirits.

We walk on round the island. Hard by the rushing river, not three feet from the path sits a magnificent cormorant, his wings spread out in the sun, his white beak preening purposefully as he tidies himself up after a swim. I remember Kirin Island in the Enid Blyton Famous Five books and how very different this island is, yet we share the same birds! WE walk on, nodding pleasantly and quacking at the frolicking ducks by the eddying waters near the frothing weir. Finally we leave the island, turning back onto the Eastern canal path.

Just as the path gets rougher, a lone thorn tree stands already in flower, its leaves new and tender looking. Experimentally, I pop a leaf into my mouth and taste the familiar flavour of the bread and cheese tree. I pluck a soft blossom and chew that thoughtfully. The rosy almond taste explodes against my tongue and I breathe happily raising my face to the still beaming sun. Such a taste of spring fills my whole body even though I suspect I am eating from the blackthorn rather than the hawthorn tree. I wonder fleetingly if it is poisonous and then dismiss the thought.

We walk along the eastern canal path, with dozens of Hackney football piches stretching out to our left and the old Lesney matchbox toy factory over the canal on the right. My knee begins to grumble persistently. I limp on, smiling into the still shining sun. Now we walk by tall hoardings enclosing the Olympic site. Every so often their blank facades are punctuated by small windows through which the building works can be seen.

Under a road ridge and a little further on we come to the ramp leading away from the water. The streets are dirty and deserted. Empty light industrial buildings stare blankly back at us as we pick our way across scattered little tumbling in the breeze.

The North London Line takes us back to Highbury and Islington where we can catch a bus back to Finsbury Park. We sit on the crowded train eating apples and oatcakes, glad at last to rest, if only for a few minutes. The train is full; the streets across which it passes are busy with Hackney residents going about their Sunday afternoon business. My left knee is twanging unpleasantly and I rub it trying to soothe the pain. I resolve to buy cabbage on the way home to make a poultice to ease the inflammation.

Finsbury Park to Stoke Newington

Saturday January 3, 2009:

It couldn’t have been a more perfect day to begin our project of walking the Capital Ring. A brilliant winter sun gleamed low from a clear winter blue sky. The frosty mud crackled beneath our boots, the air cold and fresh buffed our quickly warming cheeks. Bar the occasional panting jogger, not a soul was about.

We climbed the newly fixed stairs running between 97 and 99 Florence Road and which lead up to the Parkland walk, London’s longest nature reserve. Above the houses, we walk between bare graceful ashes and oaks, fringed by tangled thorn and brier on a rutted path in which muddy puddles have frozen.

We share Finsbury Park with the geese. Only their hooting and the rumble of the Cambridge train disturb the stillness of the winter morning. The roar of Green Lanes is a temporary assault upon our peace before receding as we turn into the New River walk.

Edging past a tree and skirting a tumble of discarded cans , we step carefully along the canal bank. Gazing at us incuriously sit three coots. Beyond them, the frozen canal has captured a football, ice-bound and still. The backs of dishevelled flats on our right and slightly down at heal industrial units on our left flank the ribbon of green, edging the half frozen sluggish canal. This is the New river, which once brought fresh drinking water to teeming London a hundred years ago.

Squeezing through a kissing gate, we dodge the insanity of seven sisters Road before finding our way back to the quiet canal. The traffic recedes behind the scruffy blocks of flats of the Woodbury Down estate and we walk on.

I talk of a meeting with a pair of swans and their signets last summer. They had sat by the footpath watching us. My companions that day had been nervous, remembering that a cross swan could break a man’s leg with one flap of their wing. I had sung to the swans as we approached them, a gentle song about the beauty of the silent swan. Calmed, my companions walked by, the swans watching our progress, still and unruffled.

And there on the canal bank are some swans. Surely these are the same? Six almost grown signets, still grey and fluffy and their dame, white and magnificent. And not far beyond them the other parent watches to see that his brood is safe. As we walk past, they honk and snort as though to say, “Oh look, another human on a morning walk – boring!”.

Across another road flanked by two more kissing gates, we move onto the path leading to the West reservoir. The Canal runs between us and it, and provides a barrier beyond which flocks of merrily quacking ducks loiter in untidy groups. Further away, three long legged white birds which are not herons and are unknown to my companion hang out like gossiping neighbours on a street corner. Out on the water, a white bird belts along like a speed-boat and beyond it, geese honk like poorly oiled metal gates.

The second reservoir is entirely another matter. It is neat and tidy. The bird life here is less in evidence. We move quickly now, for I have begun to regret the large cup of early morning tea and need fairly swiftly to find a toilet. Alas, the reservoir centre is closed, but relief is found in the Climbing Centre opposite, a former Victorian water tower built like a castle, complete with different shaped turrets and crenulations in the butch Scottish style.

A short walk down Green Lanes brings us to Clissold Park. There is a very fetching little cottage on the left just inside the gate. We wonder if it is a private residence or something to do with the park. We speculate on what it would be like to live in it and have the whole park as a back garden.

Soon we hear the distinctive sound of water going somewhere in a hurry. Could this be the new River with a new lease of life? We head towards a tumbling water feature and a frozen lake. Here, ducks skate happily on the ice then scoot into the churning water. A babble of honking, snorts, quacks and hoots competes with the white noise of the fountain.

We walk on, bent on finding a refreshing cuppa and maybe a nice cake too. Someone is standing on the grass nearby doing something energetically marshal arty. Deer lye down in a fenced off area, dogs and their owner’s dash about amongst toddling wayward children and their admonishing parents. The sun lures us to sit outside the café and bask whilst munching on home-made shortbread.

Time to move on. We pass someone else doing a noisier and jerky form of marshal art, watched by his cohorts. WE walk between two churches and out onto Stoke Newington Church Street. Turning left, we march up the obstacle strewn pavements, past posh cafes, book stores, a double-bass shop and someone setting out bric-a-brac on the pavement to sell.

To our left, the steps of Abney Park Cemetery lure us away from the bustle of a Stoke Newington Saturday into the peace and quiet of this nature reserve in the heart of the bustling city. Cracked and fallen headstones, ornate obelisks and tombs jumble together. Ivy rampages about in competition with the immovable carved Victorian wreaths.

On a breath of wind the pungence of wood smoke greets us. A log lies smoking and smouldering. Last year’s blackberries hang dried and unpicked, tangled with the dark hedges of the vigorous holly.

As though the greenery and the tombs willed it, the world beyond the walls of this place cannot be heard. Time moves on and so do we, moving out of the gates and back to the world.

Stoke Newington High Street is the end of this days walk. The 106 bus bears us back to Finsbury Park. Tired but exhilarated, I sink gladly into my chair beside the gas fire to snooze contentedly over the afternoon play.

Saturday January 3, 2009:

Intention

I love that time between Christmas and New Year. It’s a welcome pause, a time to reflect and to be before the world turns and we are vaulted into the everyday reality of another year. This is the time when I invite myself to withdraw behind thickly closed curtains, to curl up on the sofa with that book I meant to read for months, to occupy my fingers with slightly bobbly knitting lest they stray to the computer and temp me into checking my emails.

It’s a time to sigh deeply and nod off by the gas fire listening to the afternoon play on the radio, to wake again feeling slightly peckish and remember there are still Dunn’s mince pies in the fridge and Lady Gray tea to be brewed in that tea for one teapot.

Tea and mince pie in hand, thinking fleetingly of crumpets I settle down to savour the sweetness of the fruit and the citrus freshness of the tea. All is well in the world … oh if only time could stand still.

But this is the perfect time to go for a walk! When everyone else is cocooned indoors, the green and interesting places of the city are deserted. Only a hard core jogger or dog walker is to be met with, the fair weather walkers are nowhere to be seen and the nutter talking loudly on a mobile phone is somewhere else, possibly on a train! Alone and content one can walk peaceably admiring the winter stillness. Here, one can imagine that this is some secret country grove far away from the rumbling city and not a piece of green reclaimed from suburbia.

Walking the green spaces of London, one is never far away from a warming cuppa and a piece of cake or a flush toilet. What more could one want?

So on a day between the glitter of Christmas and the fizz of New Year, my companion and I walked the parkland Walk to Highgate and back. We met few people. Occasionally a bird would chirrup. The trees watched us pass as we picked our way through queen’s Wood. The more ordered paths of Highgate Wood invited us to perambulate, like two Victorian ladies taking thee air. We sat and enjoyed the peace on a bench dedicated to the memory of my dear friend Tina Grigg. We rested beneath the beech tree she loved, and admired the quiet stillness of the woods.

Via reviving tea and cakes in the Highgate Wood café, we bent our steps along a disconnected bit of the Parkland Walk to Alexander Palace Park. And as we walked, we talked of walks and decided that this year, we would do the Capital ring.

Ever one for doing something with purpose, I went home and meditated upon the idea. 78 miles of green walks linked by pleasant streets sounded like something even I could manage. An impossibility by myself (for I am blind); to walk with a companion who loves to walk and enjoys describing what she sees, what could be more congenial?

Over chocolate coconut macaroons and mint tea, I thought about my intention for this enterprise. The Capital Ring is the thread through the bead that is London, or perhaps to keep with the cake symbolism the jam through the doughnut. I would walk the Capital ring as an act of homage to this city, my own personal walking embrace for the place of my birth and domicile. I serve London in public life; why not quietly honour its magnificence by walking its green spaces?

So my intention in walking the capital ring is to honour and give thanks for this wonderful, diverse and vital city that is London – if you like, a walking embrace!