In my closing paragraph I mentioned
I had a crazy idea about going for a
second walk yesterday. I thought that even
if I did it might be no more than through
the park to Ladywell and back again. That
would be less than 1.5 miles. Well, I did
go out, and I started out heading towards
Ladywell, but I soon realised I was
finding the walk fairly easy going.
From that time I kept pushing my
range further and further until I began to
feel that I had gone as far as I dared
(never forgetting I had to go home from
wherever I went to). I started heading
towards Hilly Fields as a sort of test of
my endurance. I have to admit it it did
feel hard going as I climbed up towards
Hilly Fields.
One thing on my "to do list" was to
investigate a path I had seen on a map
that lead through Hilly Fields Wood, and
came out near the stone circle. I seem to
think that I had not spotted that path
before, but when I got there it was very
obvious, although where it actually lead
to would not have been obvious, and
perhaps I hd dismissed it in the past
because I didn't think it went anywhere.
It was mostly sunny while I was
out, but by 2pm when I started, the sun
was already very low in the sky, and
getting lower. There were only a few
places where there was a clear path to the
sun, with no houses and trees in the way.
In those places, and I think going up
towards Hilly Fields was one such place
where I could actually feel the warmth of
the sun on my back.
One of the first interesting things
I saw on my walk was a loco standing in
Ladywell station. I could see it
from the "curly wurly" bridge over the
railway in the park. Unfortunately I had
sunglasses on, and not long distance
glasses, and the best view I got was
through the camera viewfinder at full
zoom. I would investigate further a bit
later.
The lighting fixture over the top
made me think this picture had been
painted on an old advertising site. It
appears to be signed by "Set Pistols", and
it does have a sort of punky feel to it.
It is just beyond the side of The Ladywell
Tavern.
This weird looking thing seems to
be a variant of a cycle powered rickshaw.
I don't think I have ever seen anything
like it before, although I have seen very
few cycle powered rickshaws of any times.
I know they do, or did, appear a lot in
the tourist areas of central London, but I
have spent very little time up there for
ages (and not at all since before the
summer).
This is the path that leads up to
Hilly Fields Wood. It is a moderately
steep path, and in places it gets steeper
still inside the wood. You'll note that I
have already climbed quite a bit of a hill
to get this far. From this point I am
looking down on the roofs of the houses at
the bottom of the hill on the right half
of the picture. It was a similar climb to
get where those houses are !
It is a shame that the name board
at the top of the path leading to the wood
is partly obscured by wood ! I feel few
would mourn if a few twigs were cut down
to leave the name board unobstructed.
As I have moaned several time
before, the trouble with Shooters Hill is
that it is ringed with big mature trees,
and they block most of the views over
London. This is one of the few
unobstructed views, and while it is nice,
it is not as exciting as a view over
central London. What looks to be just a
small hill a bit to the right of the
centre of the picture, is Shooters Hill,
and that is pretty damn high in reality.
The difference between "street art"
and graffiti is very obvious here. Whoever
painted painted these on the side of a
staircase running down from the road
bridge over the railway by Ladywell
station, was obviously a talented artist.
I speculate that staircase may have been
built during the second world war. There
is still a fade sign pointing to it as the
route to a public air raid shelter built
under the road bridge.
This customer information screen on
Ladywell station is not really the truth.
The 27th December is when service starts,
but it will be rail replacement buses
until the 29th or 30th.....although, when
I read it again I think they mean on the
Southeastern network as a whole, but admit
that there will be no trains on the Hayes
line at that time.
As I started on my homeward leg I
detoured down both platform of Ladywell
station. If I had thought about it, in
particular with regard from where the sun
was in the sky, I only needed to go down
the up platform to take a snap of the
sunny side of this class 66 diesel loco,
66777, named Annette. Behind it were a
long rake of wagons carrying fresh
ballast. The diesel was not running, and
there appeared to be no one in the cab. I
can imagine it will have been covered by
graffiti by this morning. It is obviously
there for the engineering work that
presumably starts tomorrow for three of so
days.
Until yesterday afternoon, I had
always thought that my and Angela's
favourite pub was called The Jolly Farmer
s
(plural), but upon examining all I could
see from the outside it is just one single
Farmer ! The sign regarding facemasks
really annoyed me !
I was starting to feel tired when I
went past the Jolly Farmer, but I thought
I would push myself a little more, and so
I crossed the main road, and went through
Lewisham Park as well. From there I went
past "Cummin' Up" - a Caribbean restaurant
and takeaway that always opens on Xmas day
to provide free food and company to those
who need it. This year was the first time
I had actually seen it in operation. There
were a scattering of people outside who
were taking advantage of a very generous
offer.
I was quite surprised that I wasn't
a lot more tired after a 3.2 mile walk,
particularly one involving walking up to
Hilly Fields (although not quite to the
very top - but still high enough !).
Rounding it up to the nearest 10th of a
mile, I had walked 7.6 miles yesterday,
and been out of the house for 3 hours
(curiously enough it was almost exactly 3
hours by some fluke). I could have had
dinner when I got home, and maybe I should
have, but I decided to stick with a
(roughly) 6pm dinner.
I did have a snack though, and it
was quite a bog one. I used rice crackers
to scoop up some fairly spicy humus with
jalapeño peppers, and more rice crackers
with what I thought was liver sausage when
I bought it. It turned out to be a bit
like spam. It was one of those imported
food that only have a limited amount of
English on the labelling, and to make
matters worse, it was in too small print
for me to read in the shop. It was quite
nice - a bit smoother than spam, and it
did have a bit of pepper or other spice in
it.
I passed some of the time editing
photos, and then it was dinner time, and I
could have part 2 of my large Indian
takeaway bought the previous night. I had
a lamb bhuna, a plain basmatti rice, and a
sag aloo side dish (although it seemed
quite big for a side dish). It was very
nice, but I fear it may have resulted in
some mild heartburn.
After all the exercise and fresh
air I assumed I assumed I would sleep like
a log last night. I couldn't have been
more wrong. I was in bed ready to get to
sleep before 9pm, and nothing happened ! I
may have managed 30 minutes or something
of sleep before midnight, but it all seems
so vague. As far as I was concerned I was
having a battle between feeling too hot
and too cold - depending on which bits of
me I left outside the duvet. It seemed I
just couldn't get a good balance that left
me feeing comfortable.
As well as the battle with the
temperature there was that mild heartburn.
It wasn't actually painful, but it was
still there, and every burp tasted of
curry. It is as such times as this that
the pillow and mattress grows lumps that
weren't there the previous night. I also
found my knees were uncomfortable in
certain positions, and that reduced the
possible positions I could sleep in. On
top of that, my right big toe decided to
ache in a way I have never felt before. In
a curious sort of way it was suddenly
there, and some time later it wasn't. The
final thing was that all the thrashing
about got me chest aching.
At about 2am I took a couple of
antacid tablets, and 30 minutes after that
I took a couple of Ibuprofen. I also
turned the light on, and read a few more
chapters from the book I am reading.
Sometime before 5am I finally fell asleep
enough to start dreaming. The one bit of
dream I can vaguelly recall explored a
theme that seemed very alien to me. I
seemed to be with a Japanese pop group of
four, and only one spoke English. I have
no idea what my function was supposed to
be. Possibly I was guide because they were
going to visit the head of their record
company somewhere in London. One bit
seemed to be about trying to hurry them
off a train before the doors closed.
I woke up at around 7am, almost as
usual, but I felt terrible. I doubt I
managed more than 3 hours sleep all night.
Yesterday I had been wondering if I would
feel like going out on another early
morning walk, but I most definitely didn't
this morning. I doubt I will go out at all
today. I think I intend to be very lazy,
and have lots of siestas or something. To
add to my troubles I found my blood
glucose had gone up again. It was
8.5mmol/l - not terrible, but undesirable.
I guess I snacked a bit too hard
yesterday. Today I should have been more
careful, but I have already eaten a large
packet of kebab flavoured crisps. It was a
stupid thing to to do, but I was burdened
by tiredness, and that enhances
depression, and I just wanted something
nice (and easy to eat with no
preparation). It might have been worth it,
but like most flavoured crisps, the
flavour has little to do with the words on
the packet. They did have a mild spicy
sort of taste, but it wasn't very
exciting.
Well, that is about all there is to
say, and once I have uploaded it I can lay
on my bed, read or sleep until dinner time
if I want. For dinner I can look forward
to Indian takeaway part 3 !
1
