Last of the Summer Mud

Hello Dear Readers,

As they say here, the days are starting to draw in. Not really sure what that means, getting smaller I suppose?  At any rate the leaves are changing, mornings are crisp, and I've put a set of full fingered gloves inside of my cycling half gloves.

Last weekend I met up with some friends who I went to the Scilly Isles with at the beginning of the summer.  We went to a small creek that runs to the Thames in Greenwich, where the Cutty Sark and the Observatory is.

 Here I am standing in front of only a small part of the vast collection of detritus that has washed up to Deptford Creek over the years.  Wallets, phones, children's toys, glass, a skateboard, computers, bikes, garden equipment, shoes, china, you name it!  The most interesting thing we found was a short samuari sword, though it had rusted in its sheath so we couldn't see if it was metal or not.  The manager said a lot of it is stolen goods that get too hot and people chuck it in the river.  There was also a case of a boy who fell in far upstream after a heavy rain and was swept down almost to the Thames, but luckily a DLR driver had seen him go by and phoned in downstream so they could catch him.  How lucky!  The water wasn't nearly that high when we went, hence it was a mud walk.  Or more accuraly, poop walk since that's a lot of what we were walking in!

 Here are Chris and I geared up for the walk, hip waders and a sturdy walking stick.  Nick, who runs the place (not pictured) said the only time he's ever fallen over was when he didn't have a stick, so I clung to mine.  We walked up as far inland as we could go and saw some of the old buildings and heard about the history of the area, how there were bakeries until the last one burned down, how they used to break up old ships in there to be reused, and how the new buildings they were putting up were affecting the entire area.  We also saw evidence of this history in the creek bed by finding ceramic bits that belonged in the old ovens, long ship nails and non native plants that were clinging for dear life on the mud and moss on the brick walls of the creek bed.

 
We walked towards the Thames end as well, but the water was starting to get a bit too high and it was rough going for my little legs, almost went in once and took my friend Mark with me!  We were so lucky to have such a warm, sunny, amazing day, that's the last one we've had in a week and I'm afraid it might be the last one we see till next spring.  After the walk we went to Kate's house where she had a beautiful spread of food (vegan too!) and we ate and talked and laughed and generally had a great time. 

To top it off, when we went home we decided to go by river boat.  Unfortunately the commuter boat had a 40 minute wait, so we took the tourist boat which left in 10 min and was half price that day.  We got the rare pleasure of going under the Tower Bridge while it was up, something that the other people who were on the boat with us assured us was a pretty rare event.  The bridge was lifted because a ship with a tall mast was going through, you can just about make it out in the photo here.

As we pulled into Waterloo Big Ben was ringing out 6 pm and we hopped the train home to catch the latest Dr. Who.  Great Times!  This weekend not doing too much, but if things work out I might be going to a Brazilian club to learn to dance forro!  Catch you later!