What I Learnt This Week

I can run for an hour without stopping. (Haggerston Park, the flowering wood has survived the frost and the scent was heavy on the air)

Dental treatment is not paid for by the same system as glasses (only wish I’d found out sooner I can get help even though I’m working: I’ve been putting up with pain while trying to get an exemption form. And don’t get me onto how unfair things are for people with poor sight)

It’s a toss up which is more painful: a dental abscess or ear infection. Not sure how I managed to run so well this week actually!

Putting a plastic bag over your hand does not stop nettles stinging you. (It’s been a painful week!)

If you run long distance with worn out shoes you will end up with shin splints.

When you really need the money it will get delayed (hence lack of new shoes, gardening gloves and drugs/treatment).

Meanwhile, for my long run this week I got my ancient A-Z out and looked for unvisited green space in East London. Then headed towards Wanstead Flats. On the way it was interesting to find out that the ODA (Olympic Delivery Authority) think that plain blue hoardings will do for pedestrians along the canal, but speeding cars along the new fast roads need fancy pictures and writing. Really doesn’t make a lot of sense to put them where there’s hardly any pedestrians, as surely people in cars aren’t going to be able to read them?!?

And thanks to said ancient and now inaccurate A-Z and the brain freeze I get when running I took a wrong turn and ended up on Lea Bridge road several miles north of where I should have been… Well it got me a diversion through pleasant back streets. Where I got lost again... High Road Leytonstone seemed to be full of drunks (hmmm, so much for avoiding Finsbury Park on a Saturday!), though Harrow Green was a pleasant surprise, looking lovely with trees and borders in bloom. Then it was down past some of the ugliest housing blocks I’ve ever seen before I made it down to the Flats. It was nice to see that, unlike the football pitches on Hackney Marshes, the ones there were in noisy use (and before someone protests, I’m willing to believe the Hackney pitches get used, just I’ve never seen it). I headed north along the edge and picked up what was marked on the map as a horse ride. You could make out the remains of an avenue of trees, and one solitary set of hoof prints, but it was basically a footpath. As I went on it plunged into woods.

I crossed a road and headed on into Wanstead Park, past one lovely natural looking pond and then some with artificial banks. According to a notice board Wanstead Park is officially part of Epping Forest, and I really felt I was on some kind of border when saw a teenager with a pitbull type AND a Labrador. The park is what remains of the gardens of a stately home. Besides the many concrete-edged ponds there’s avenues of trees and old buildings, though the house itself is gone. And overgrown woods with impenetrable brambles and deadfalls all over the place. Wonderful.

On the way back I was a little worried about negotiating all the new roads where I’d got lost before with evening closing in. But it turned out that on the correct route it wasn’t so ‘remote’ and pedestrian unfriendly as I’d dreaded. There were a fair few folks about too, walking back from Leytonstone to Hackney and seemingly not unpleasantly drunk. 18 miles in all for me, slow, but still more than I’d intended and not bad with all the stops to look at maps! Like I said before though, I now have shin splints… hope the money turns up for shoes and my legs recover in time for me to enter the half I’m supposed to be doing in 2 weeks!

Oh yes… what’s on locally… The London Word Festival is on in various East End venues. See http://www.londonwordfestival.com for details.