Shakedown Cruise, 25 May 2021

This time, it was ten months between trips!  So another shakedown cruise is called for, to make sure the motor home knows what it is doing and whether the batteries will hold a charge before embarking on a longer break next month.  Which will still have to be in the UK, alas.  

So the Swan Whisperer went skating this morning and I began to pack, and when he came back and had had some coffee, we loaded the car and set off to Sussex, where we had lunch and then he brought the van around and we loaded that up.  Then my niece came round with her younger son, who we had not yet met.

We set off at about 5:00 pm and headed for our first overnight stop, near Gatwick Airport.  In normal times, I expect the skies would be hideous with plane noises, but there seem to be very few planes this evening - only one departure scheduled and about 3 arrivals.  So it is peaceful.  We are up by the sanitary block, which the Swan Whisperer says is very nice - and I have just heard the first and perhaps only plane of the evening - and we have spent most of the time trying to make the television work.  With singular lack of success!  Oh well, there is always Catchup, but I do wonder why our aerial doesn't work (we suspected the roof aerial didn't, but thought the portable one would). 

Dulwich Park, revisited

 The Swan Whisperer said he was going for a walk, but when I asked where he was going, it was too far for me.  And I wanted a walk, so we went to Dulwich Park.  It was not a long walk, but very pretty.  

 We walked round the lake, admiring goslings

and trees

and then we finished with a drink in the café, while watching the end of the Giro on my phone (not video, but live coverage nevertheless).

Morning walk, 28 April

 

It is a long time since I went on a walk before breakfast - not as comfortable as it might have been, as I was wearing my very lightweight summer trainers for the first time, and although they don't rub, my feet and legs were not comfortable.  However, I went, which was the main thing (and then shopped at Lidl on the way back - I am within £2.50 of getting my £2.00 coupon for this month, so must go again before Saturday).  

It is spring!

The School Run

After 14 months I was finally able to go and pick up the boys again.  Correction, just Boy Two, as The Boy is old enough now to take himself to and from school - in fact, he caught up with us on the way back and walked the rest of the way with us.  I don't propose to put up a map, but this will be my Monday walk this term!  Not next Monday, of course, as that is Bank Holiday, and I hope we will be able to go away in the motor home before too long.  But most Mondays.  

There is more to it than shows, of course - I have to get to the bus stop where the walk starts, which involves going into Brixton, taking the Victoria Line to Walthamstow and trying vainly to remember which bus I needed to get to the relevant stop!  So over 6K steps today, which is pleasing.  

An unexpected walk!

Actually, not as unexpected as all that!  I was preaching at a church which, we discovered the hard way last time, is in the congestion charge zone!   So we went by bus, and went a stop too far so had to walk back.  The bus stops in Brixton are playing sillybuggers at the moment due to resurfacing works somewhere, and as I didn't want to go on down to Brixton Hill, I got off at the police station, and then walked down to what's left of the farmers' market, and wandered round that, rather tempted by some oxtail and some Barnsley chops (but enough for at least four people, so I didn't), and then thought maybe some sausage meat, but couldn't think, offhand, what to use it for, so again didn't.  

And then I walked to the bus stop in Acre Lane, as the one by the Tube station is closed, and caught a bus up to Solon Road, as per, and then another walk round Lidl because there were one or two things I wanted.  And so home, and delighted to find I'd done more than enough steps for today (but not so pleased that Health has "updated" itself and now has a ghastly background for your step count, although you can also upload your own background which is what I did! 

 

Coffee and a walk!

 

The Swan Whisperer's youngest brother is in town and for the first time in forever, it is legal for both of us to meet him.  So he came down on the bus to Brixton and the Swan Whisperer met him and we had coffee sitting outside Piece of Cake, the café literally just across the road from us (very useful when I realised I'd forgotten to put my hearing aids in, so dashed back to do that!).  It feels like forever - I think the last time I had a drink sitting outside a café was last summer!  One day we might even be able to have a drink sitting inside a café, but I'll not hold my breath!  

The men decided they wanted to walk on Clapham Common, so I said that if they didn't mind walking at my pace for a bit, I would come with them as far as Sainsbury's (this was a mistake as they didn't have any British asparagus so I had to buy Mexican, but as I'm putting it in my summer rice salad - which will probably be made with quinoa - it won't matter too much).   We went down King's Avenue a bit - not, as the map suggests, to Screwfix, but to look at the London Power Tunnels site on the corner of King's Avenue and Acre Lane.  And then across the road and up Bedford Road a bit, and wiggle across the estate to the back entrance of Sainsbury's, at which point I parted from the men, and I went into Sainsbury's.  I do get frustrated with that one - it has a much better range of stock than the one on Tulse Hill, but you have to check in the Scan'n'Shop and it almost invariably logs you out the first time so you have to try twice.  Whereas at the Tulse Hill one - and others I've been to - you just open the app, and it logs you straight into Scan'n'shop.

After my shopping, I decided that walking back would be unwise, so I got the bus, which was probably very lazy, but it feels that I've had the right amount of exercise for today!

A walk in the park

 

This was the tracked part of today's walk, but it was longer than that, as you will see.  The Swan Whisperer and The Boy have gone off on a hike somewhere, to include the Parkland Walk and  perhaps a little more of the London Loop, so I arranged to meet the Daughter and Boy Too at Green Park Station.  This made me go on the Tube - had we met at Victoria, as originally planned, I'd probably have bottled it and gone on the bus.  I've been using buses all along, but have been on no other form of public transport since February 2020!

Anyway, I had to walk into Brixton, as I had mistimed the buses and it was quicker to walk than to wait.  Tube duly mastered, helped by Shostakovich on the headphones and the new Jodi Taylor on the Kindle, we met at scheduled.  We walked down through Green Park, pausing outside Buckingham Palace to pay our respects (and being amused by the sea of press vans - why, when the funeral will be at Windsor and there is simply nothing to see at Buckingham Palace except the Union flag flying at half-mast?), and then into St James' Park.  Boy Too had been longing to see the pelicans, and we were not disappointed! 

There were plenty of other birds, too, and we walked the length of the lake identifying them.  And so into Horse Guards, and then we walked along Whitehall, turned the corner into Victoria Street and walked up until we came to a Pret a Manger, where we chose our various lunch options.  I don't know whether it's because of the pandemic, but they don't have the range of sandwiches and cakes they used.  What they do have is delicious, though, but not a wide choice.  

I had a high protein salad, which was smoked salmon, hard-boiled eggs, avocado, spinach and edamame, and very good it was too.  And a grape and elderflower drink, which was lush.  The Daughter had an egg mayonnaise sandwich and crisps, and an apple drink, and Boy Too had a half-baguette with ham and gherkins, a rather solemn (or "worthy" said the daughter) cookie and an iced tea.  We took them  back across the road to the little park in Victoria Street to eat them (that's the wiggly bit on the map!), and sat in the sun until the sky clouded over rather ominously and it got a bit cold.  Whereupon we decided to call it a walk, and walked up Victoria Street where the Daughter and Boy Too went to get the Tube home and I decided to get a No 2 bus.  And then there was a 35, so I got that, deciding I couldn't be bothered to look in Tesco's to see if they had any British asparagus (Lidl didn't - I did have a quick look in there; asparagus, yes, but not yet British), and so home. And look - this doesn't happen often: