Yesterday I went on a long east London walk with some friends from the Deptford Cinema crew (DC is the coolest community cinema and I’m volunteering there since 2 years). We started at Haggerston and walked along the canal to Stratford.
It was another very sunny but quite chilly early spring day and it felt great to do something together with a group of people. It’s so strange after a year of lockdowns, social distancing and not seeing anyone to meet up and just hang out. It felt amazing though I have to say.
I love those London walks. There’s so much to discover, so much variety and different life styles you can encounter. In Hackney for instance there are many people living on boats. Most of the boats are very unique and the people put huge effort into making them look nice. I wonder how it is to live on a boat. Probably nice when it’s warm but quite tiring when it’s cold?! To look after it must also be very demanding. Anyways, I enjoyed to see them and also appreciated the many solar panels on them.
On the canal there is a path that’s quite narrow at times. Lot’s of people and their friends had the same idea as us. I was amazed by the amount of faces we encountered. It’s one of those facts about London that I didn’t miss at all during the last year – so many people in this city.
The path is also a cycle path and I sensed some passive aggression from cyclist being angry at the pedestrians. Every 50 metres there was a very decisive PING coming from a cycle bell that screamed JUMP! NOW! I think it’s the sound of the bell. A lot of them actually apologised for wanting to pass. There should be more gentle cycle bell sounds or just warm sounding drones coming out of loudspeakers to announce the coming arrival of a cycle.
All in all a perfect Sunday.
Until next week,
Vinnie