For the want of some rusty nails....

This summer I got Wild Dyer by Abigail Booth.

I have a cream over-shirt I would like to tie-dye.

I've been collecting onion skins in a paper carrier bag as I cook.

I am on the look out in charity shops for a large pan (to be used only for the dying)

I also need rusty nails. I found I already had one. Then on Friday, cycling to the Walthamstow Wetlands, I found one, very rusty, nail on the cycle path in Orient Way. Doubled my cache!

Rosemary theft

Someone has taken a lot of the rosemary from my front garden - not even neatly cutting it, just roughly twisting and pulling it off. Presumably somewhere there is a wreath with a lot of my rosemary in it.

A neighbour did knock on my door once as he wanted some rosemary for a meal he was making for a visiting friend. I was happy to give him permission to take some whenever he needed it for his cooking.

This is the third theft from my garden - a plant was dug up many years ago just before Mother's Day, and a load of leaf mould was taken a few years ago.

I would never grow vegetables in my front garden!

Plane tree bark = wonderful fire-lighters

Because of the dry summer the plane trees dropped most of their bark. I could have filled my sitting room with black bin bags full of the bark. However, I only collected two carrier bags full.

Despite the problems I would have had storing it, I wish I had collected more. It makes such marvellous fire-lighters, whether starting the fire or when I've left the fire too long and it's mainly red ash and needs firing up again.

Christmas already for some people but still so mild!

This week I saw a decorated Christmas tree on a table in a front room in my street. And then on Friday another one on a desk in the offices behind work. And Santas and lights in the window of a house in the High Road. Usually the early birds round here start on the last full weekend of November - so mid-November is early!

I am still getting a small handful of autumn raspberries twice a week. The white Cosmos is in full flower. The rosemary in the front garden is in flower.

Some nights this week, even through in all evening I didn't have any heating.

Building community with ukeleles

At our team away day last week we did the usual team away day things but finished with a fun session when someone came in to teach us to play the ukulele.

We've decided to have ukulele sessions on Tuesday lunchtimes. Four from our team, plus Leslie from another team who has a baritone uke, had a first go on Tuesday.

I got my ukulele from Argos today and hope to get to Hobgoblin tomorrow to get a tuner.

A colleague, normally working near Birmingham, says at his local pub 10 years ago some people who had acquired ukuleles got together to learn how to play them. Sessions twice a month over a few years they got really good. Now twice a year they have a big event at the pub and the place is packed.

I am hoping that once I get to a basic standard (which might take some time!) I can find a local group.

Autumn leaves and wish for a delay before the first frost

The leaves of the Boston ivy usually turn red at the end of August - they are still green. The leaves of the mulberry have dropped.

I scattered some seeds just before the hot water but didn't water them. Some have now germinated. I have several small sunflowers which might flower if he frosts hold off, but they are unlikely to have the time to set seed..

Sunday 12 August

• First rain Tuesday evening, a lot of showers between then and now, and rain most of the day Thursday. Temperature has gone down quite a bit in the house and I am sitting typing this in a jumper.
• Out by torchlight late Thursday evening after snails and saw 5 frogs. They don't seem to jump from being caught in the torch beam just if I approach too near.
• Today I found hidden in the tomato foliage 4 cucumbers. Picked the 3 largest and had the largest of those with tomatoes from the garden and some olives this evening.
• The rain appears to have badly affected insects. Yesterday saw no bees, just 2 cabbage white butterflies. I did see two bees on the lavender outside the garden centre by the Hertford Union canal cycling back from Victoria Park. I also saw one bee in my garden on the verbena this morning.
• Where I sowed sunflower seeds ages ago I now have a 15 cm seedling. If it survives the weather, snails, etc will it flower? The sunflowers in a front garden a few doors down are 2 metres plus tall and in full bloom.

Sunday 5 August

• We had some rain last weekend. Even though it wasn't a lot, still gratefully received!
• I've started getting figs - from the new fig tree that has 2 crops a year. Still nothing from the older fig tree. There are no figs on that one for this year, just masses that will be half grown and will need to be picked off and discarded before winter.
• I have had 3 courgettes recently that almost became marrows!
• First runner beans on Monday, and first French beans yesterday.
• Plenty of tomatoes. They don't taste of tomato but lovely and sweet.
• Have collected two bag-fulls of plane bark. Presumably because of the hot, dry weather, the local plane trees have shed most of their bark. Will use this as kindling.
• Chimney sweep/stove maintenance guy due to come on Thursday, but problem with his clutch. Now coming September.
• Wednesday morning on the way to the bus stop, I passed a car with a snail on the roof! 
• Also found a goldfinch feather on the pavement.
• Yesterday morning bike ride. I picked blackberries for crumble, then cycled back to pick up (using trowels!) two lots of horse shit (there were another 3 lots I could have got if I had had room). (Blackberries on one pannier, horse shit in the other!)
• I cycled through both sections of the Walthamstow wetlands, cycled back through one and then pushed my bike along one of the walkers-only paths which brought me back to the path near the gate I enter by.
• To B&Q yesterday and got verbena and rudbeckia (both had insect friendly signs on) and dahlia (the plant in the pot beside the one I chose had a bee feeding on it). I have flowers dotted round the garden but felt the need to get some more for the insects.

Sunday 22 July

• Piers and Charmaine next door have tomatoes in pots - several ripe. I have one tomato just beginning to change from green. 
• Cycled out to Leyton Marshes yesterday and picked blackberries for a crumble.
• When kayaking today I rescued a moth from the water. Very distinctive. It looks like a Jersey Tiger Moth. My Observer's Book of Larger Moths (reprinted 1978 so pretty old) says more or less confined to Devon and emerges in August! Searching the internet unsuccessfully to find somewhere where I could post a question about moths, I did find a site saying that they have recently been in parts of London.
• Cut off the flowers of my lavender. Bush looks much neater but bit splayed out in the middle.
• Cut more branches off my sage. Looks quite compact now and very healthy. Think it is doing well for a bush now over 20 years old.
• Wisteria is having a second flush of flowers - with many more flowers than usual. I have seen bees feeding from it - first time seen this!

Monday 16 July

• Another big fire locally. This time on Wanstead Flats which is part of Epping Forest. Two hundred and twenty five fire fighters and 40 fire engines needed to tackle a grass fire engulfing an area the size of 100 cricket pitches. The smoke could be seen for miles. I didn't notice it even though I was in the garden for the early part of the evening (the garden is the opposite side of the house to Wanstead).
• To Kew on Thursday and had a picnic underneath a tree. The wildflower beds around The Hive had no more and quite probably less bees than my garden that made me feel a bit better about my efforts. There have been cabbage whites and gatekeepers in the garden all week, and often a comma. The marjoram and tarragon(?) have often had a dozen or more insects on - last seen several years ago. I am very pleased about that.
• I've had someone to measure up for some shelves in the out-side lavatory. He used a lot of second hand wood. If that works out I have several other wooden items I would like him to make.
• First rain for ages - light rain though went on for a while on Friday evening, but very little difference to the garden.
• Skype meeting at work where we were in summery tops and the person skyping in from Wales was in a hooded fleece - it was bucketing it down with rain where she was!
• A new cycle workshop has opened near me - www.cycleway.co.uk. I popped in on Saturday to get a replacement screw for the chain guard and also for the spokes holding on the mud guard to the hub of the front wheel. The latter had only fallen out on my bike ride that morning. They supplied and fitting both screws, bolts and washers for £5.
• Got home from Kayaking Sunday afternoon to find a large slug inside my spray deck. As the only grass I had sat on, which was when I was getting back into the Navigation from the weir was dry and brown. It must have got inside the boat while it was in the shed and then moved on to my spray deck while I was paddling.
• My second gooseberry crumble. The gooseberries early this year and are starting to drop off the bush.

Sunday 8 July

It's been nearly a month since I last posted. It would have been one week less, but last week I spilt some kombuchi on my laptop messing up my left mouse click. I got a mouse yesterday to plug in and it's worked! Laptop usable again.

• Seen an Ofo bike by the Lea Navigation covered in river weed - it's obviously been in for a dip. I have also seen one without its front wheel, and another chained to a lamp post with the front wheel off and chained to the bike as if it was someone's personal bike.
• Kayaking on 11 June passing a swan's nest. For adult Canada geese and 4 half-sized goslings trying to pass but cob swan not liking it. Two of the adult geese were approaching nest to draw off the cob while the other two adult geese swam past with the goslings.
• Rescued bumble bee caught up in old web in conservatory. If it had been flying around I would probably not have succeeded in getting it out!
• Logs have been delivered and stacked. Better quality than previous two years.
• I've been having plenty of soft fruit with my breakfast - raspberries, gooseberries, blackcurrants, red currants, loganberries and yesterday my first blackberries.
• There was a big warehouse fire on Saturday 23 June, on Orient Way just south of the Leabridge Road, huge plumes of smoke my friend could see from Plumstead. Orient Way closed so detour on my bike ride Saturday and to kayaking Sunday when smoke no longer plumes, but still there above the warehouse. Monday morning I was watering in the garden and I have never seen the swifts so low. One flew about 10 ft over the garden. Clear blue sky but presumably pollution from the fire and brought the insects down and the swifts had to follow.
• I cycled to Wick Wood but walked down the middle path. Did start in my bare feet, but realised my attention would be solely (pun not intended!) on the soles of my feet so put my sandals back on.
• The French marigolds haven't worked so well on the greenfly on the conservatory this year, my indoor cucumber covered in them. Have had two cucumbers from that plant, and one from the outside cucumbers. Also some courgettes but small - they are growing slowly (due to lack of rain - though I am watering them?)
• Found little bumblebee in wildlife waterbowl. Got it out still alive but not moving. So gave it some sugar and water on a spoon and left it for a little while - and it was gone when I got back.
• No scum on the elderflower champagne but decided to open a bottle. Luckily I took it into the kitchen rather than bringing a glass into the dining room and it gave bang and spewed foam when I opened it.
• Some dead fish floating on the Lea Navigation today. Hope this hot, dry spell doesn't end in a storm. When that happened a couple of years ago, the resulting pollution on the Navigation killed lots of fish.

Tuesday 5 June

• Plenty of rain last week! Nearly two inches in the buckets after the thunderstorm on Tuesday afternoon. The newly planted out tomatoes, cucumbers and courgettes survived the battering!
• On my bike ride on the bank holiday Monday I collected elderflowers and the elderflower champagne is now bottled up.
• My bird of paradise plant, so pot bound the earth is 15 cm above the top of the pot, has two flowers this year. They last a lovely long time.
• All but one (one of the new, small bulbs) of my Amaryllis flowering this year - two already over and flower stalks removed, some others still in bud. The Amaryllis that hasn't flowered for years now has a flower bud - but one of the last to produce one. I was very puzzled why such a big bulb wasn't producing flowers, and still don't understand why it hasn't flowered for years.
• Friday evening a fox lay against the eastern fence in the evening sun all evening. I didn't need to go out so I didn't disturb it.
• I have started going out after dark as one of the courgettes was showing signs of snail/slug damage. And I successfully caught the culprit and found some snails on the other courgettes. I don't see how they are negotiating the slug collars.
• At the weekend I put in the slug collars where the French beans and runner beans are to go but only put out the beans that had actually germinated. The rest will follow as and when. They have survived their first night - always worry I've trapped a slug inside!
• On Saturday cycling through the Walthamstow wetlands I passed a family of greylag geese. One of the goslings (though nearly as big as its parents now) was sprawled on the path and just watched me as I cycled past it.
• I went to a vintage fair in Wanstead and was then looking for another fair but going down the wrong road. I was glad I went though as I found a female stag beetle on the pavement heading for the road, so picked it up and put it under some twigs in a garden.
• Rescued a small log of cherry while kayaking on Sunday which I brought home for the wood store. I have also ordered a log delivery for my next day off.
• There were instructions in magazine Simple Things for.botanical gins including rosemary and bay leaf gin. Two rosemary sprigs and 3 bay leaves in 70ml of gin, start tasting after 3 days and bottle when taste is right. The rosemary and bay leaves in the gin look very attractive in the clear glass - pity that will go when I bottle it. The suggestion for drinking it it for adding ginger ale. Seems a waste making a flavoured gin and hiding it with another taste. 

Sunday 27 May

• I've decanted the fig whisky - I will now wait another 9 months before drinking. I put it in one of the fancy bottles I have. Found 2 plastic stoppers that fit various sized bottle necks  and one of those worked fine. Would be useful to have some more of theses stoppers but can't remember where I got them!
• I've put a few 3-cornered leek in a pot to see if I can control them that way. I don't use huge amounts so a pot full will probably be about right for me.
• To Cornwall to stay with my mother for last weekend. She had potted up 4 mints - Moroccan, eau de cologne, chocolate and basil for me. Got them safely home by tube and train. My ordinary mint that I have had for years doesn't appear to have survived the winter. I like Pimms but don't like all the extras, but I do add a bit of mint.
• This week swifts above garden (though seen them earlier elsewhere), Have only seen 2, so hope one of each sex!
• Got home mid afternoon yesterday to find north facing conservatory really hot and raisin tomatoes collapsed. one still very sick today when I put out cucumbers (except one which will stay in the conservatory), courgettes and tomatoes.
• First wild strawberry - from a plant self-sown in a pot.where I have a little oak tree seedling.

Monday 7 May

• One of the sad things about being an adult is how much of one's time is spent thinking about getting stuff dry! So this weekend has been a good one. I was working Friday evening so had the morning off and got the duvet and the sleeping bag I have open under my fleecy under-blanket to the laundrette and then dry on the rotary dryer. Saturday normal weekly wash and also dried on the rotary dryer. Yesterday, I did the coverlet and the fleecy under-blanker. Today I have 4 jumpers drying outside.
• Until the last 10 minutes when one person came with his washing, I was the only one in the laundrette. Once the current owners give up then I am sure it will become something else which will cause problems - but for me only once a year.
• Twice this week I came home and took a cup of herb tea and book outside in the garden and sat for a while. 
• Two hour ride on my bike on Saturday. Out of the house 8.45 but the tow path already busy with walkers, joggers and cyclists. Down to Victoria Park - both east and west bits. - then a detour round Wick Wood (lots of cow parsley/sweet Cecily with side of the path on the north).
• Rhubarb crumble again today.
• Found French marigolds in shop around the corner so got them and potted them into pots for deterring greenfly in the conservatory. Also got basil from the supermarket which I put in a bigger pot for the conservatory.
• I pulled up 3-corned leek yesterday. I've recently read, and my friend in Cardiff I was staying with last weekend confirmed, that it was very invasive. The patch was definitely spreading and there are clumps of it elsewhere in the garden. Still bulbs of it in the earth, but I am ready fot it to take a few years to get rid of.
• Wisteria is looking lovely along the fence. 
• Several butterflies in the garden today, but only seen 2 bees.

Another "small" garden my garden would be lost in!

The May issue of The Simple Things has an article about a "small garden in Kent: proof that you don't need masses of space to have a productive patch."

It is a 150 foot plot - so well over twice as long as mine. Mine is a thin garden, presumably this garden is wider as if it was a long ribbon of a garden it would, I think, be mentioned. So the house is obviously wider and probably detached.

The only guide to real small gardens I've come across is "Big Gardens in Small Spaces" by Martyn Cox which I got when I visited his garden when it was open here in Waltham Forest - and it is less than half the size of mine.

Monday 23 April

• On Sunday 15 April to Leytonstone Green Drinks at the Walnut Tree. Only Maureen and Rosemarie there, both of whom I know. (I tried an elderflower cider, which was rather odd tasting!).
• Everything has now got very green. One outdoor pot plant with a dead-looking plant sprouted several inches new growth overnight!
• A few of my amaryllis showing green leaves, so potted up all 11, and also 2 begonias.
• I am not very good at sawing, but yesterday slowly worked my way through a large log rescued from the Lea, so made two that will fit in stove.
• National Trust magazine came in compostible wrapper. Read about this after I had put it in kitchen pedal bin, but able to rescue it and put it in the compost bucket. Hope it breaks down faster than the lavatory paper wrappers!
• Got a scabious from Tesco. Supposed to be perennial, but this is third with no sign of the ones from the previous 2 years having survived.
• My friend Beate had some logs to be sawn up for woodburner but has had to leave them as they have stag beetle larva.
• Yesterday cycling to help out at canoe club at sprint races when Lesley cycling to yoga in Jubilee Park caught up with me and said, "I thought it was you. No one else I know cycles so loaded up!"
• Saw lots of butterflies yesterday. Two days running a pair of great tits were looking for insects on the wisteria, the bay and the buckthorn.
• Garden has a lot of honesty in flower, forget-me-nots and primulas. 
• Daffodils over so now watering with fertiliser to encourage flowering next year.

Sunday 15 April

• I've just had a delivery of a little mulberry bush - only a few inches high. It's for a pot and should be fruiting next year. I've always fancied a mulberry - but in my imagination it has been a tree in the middle of a huge lawn! I've potted it up into a bigger pot and put it in position.
• Yesterday I also put out the Babington leek (you don't pull it you cut it, and it spreads), the welsh onions, and a birthday card which has seeds in the papers (no idea what flowers they will burn out to be.
• I've moved a compost bin, getting 3-4 buckets worth of compost for the tomato/courgette bed in the process.
• My first picking of rhubarb today. Nice juicy stalks. Because of cold and/or dry springs I haven't had good rhubarb for years. I made a crumble.
• My cranial osteopath thinks the twinges in my knee are a touch of arthritis. She has given me an exercise and I've been looking in my herb books. Deciding to try celery, ginger, lavender and rose to help it (not all in the same application!)

Sunday 1 April

• Today with friends who live in Plumstead. In the afternoon went to Lesnes Abbey Woods for a walk with their two dogs. Wild daffodils and wood anemones out.
• Cycle ride Good Friday and yesterday along the old River Lea south of Leabridge Road alongside the Hackney Marsh football fields. Water high and flowing strongly. Gravel island just below outflow of flood relief tunnel small on Friday and completely submerged yesterday.
• Started moving pots away from conservatory yesterday but was interrupted by rain.
• Have ordered drawf mulberry (small enough for a pot and fruits first year) from The Organic Gardening catalogue. 
• Also ordered 3 tomato plants where the fruit will dry on the plan and can be stored in jars of olive oil. Have always fancied drying tomatoes but, without an aga, that means hours in the oven, albeit on a low heat.
• Got the May edition of Country Living magazine which had a supplement "Big ideas for small gardens". The gardens featured in the magazine are always huge so no inspiration for me and my small garden at all. So I was very pleased until I opened up the booklet to find a picture of a large garden! I've emailed to complain, carefully being polite! 
• Got an organic lettuce in Tesco's yesterday. Took it out of plastic wrapper to find a load of greenfly!

Sunday 25 March

• More snow last weekend - but still not the stuff you can make snow balls out of, so unable to make the snow birds I've been saving feathers for for over 2 years!
• Someone on Freegle wanted an old laptop so gave him mine. Have found some butane canisters which will go on Freegle  Thursday and hopefully be picked over the weekend. All this space created, even though not much, is thankfully received!
• Made bread Friday evening - first time I've made bread for over a year.
• Decanted sloe vodka - very syrupy which is surprising as it is only sloes and vodka - no sugar. I now leave it for 2 years.
• Ride through the Walthamstow Wetlands on Saturday. Low cloud but actually dry and quite mild. Wetlands not much changed from last month but geese very noisy. Rare finch must still be there as lots of people with equipment trained on a hedge just south of the engine house again.
• Frog spawn in pond. Lot of it but it is black. Is this healthy?
• Also several (3?) dead frogs near pond. Cats? Foxes?
• Moved one compost back to nearer the fence. Might be able to move one more, but will have to wait til after foxgloves flowered for others. Not much compost - all went back into the moved bin.
• Compostible toilet paper "plastic" isn't compostable in domestic circumstances. What I used to put in the compost bin is still there very visible. Mine now goes in the rubbish bin.
• Some bits of wood out of skips and sawed up most of it.

Sunday 11 March

• Mild week and I have had two sessions in the garden cutting dried flower stalks from plants. Also cut down the autumn raspberries.
• The corner shop in the High Road has closed down and they have piled the shelving from the "shed" where they stored the veg on the pavement. Rescued some clean wood though a lot had screws in it. Have started sawing it up,
• Frogs in pond but moving too fast to see what they are up to - but found a mating pair against a raised bed edge so can guess!
• Went for my cycle ride Saturday morning, but wasn't able to get into the Wetlands as planned as Coppermill Lane gate was closed.
• Lea still very oily and absolutely disgusting below Princess of Wales pub. A women on one of the houseboats said a swan sanctuary had rescued 35 swans and there had been a lot of dead moorhens, etc, as they can't keep warm with oily feathers.
• Wednesday evening to Hornbeam Centre for local Greenpeace event to see film Demain in which the filmmakers visited cities and communities working on inspiring projects relating to energy, food, education, finance and democracy. Frightening people with ecological disaster won't work - inspiring them with viable, positive alternatives will - if we can get the message out there!

Sunday 4 March

• The recent snow showed the benefits of living in the city if you wanted to get to work. I had no trouble getting in and home again, though colleagues who lived out of London had problems - trains being cancelled due to the weather forecast!
• The snow was dry so didn't make snowballs, which meant I couldn't use my saved feathers and acorns to make snow birds.
• I have two casserole dishes I use as wildlife water bowls. During cold weather, each morning I bring one into the conservatory to thaw and take the other out. Thursday and Friday morning there was still ice on the one left in over night.
• I try to keep a corner of the pond free from ice to release the gases. Thursday and Friday morning it was too thick to break. The thaw started over Friday night so Saturday afternoon I went out to see if was thin enough to make a hole. With difficulty I managed it. Then I saw a frog swimming under the ice so worked hard to removed a slab of ice and put in a forked stick in such a way I though it could use it to get out if it wanted - but it was still there in the pond today. The books say frogs don't hibernate at the bottom of ponds but I have suspected they do in my pond and this seems to prove it!
• Saw a crow building a nest this morning.

Green and country in the city 11 February

• Light dusting of snow on Wednesday morning. The tops of cars looked like the tops of Victoria Sponges. Texted a friend who lives in Chingford not far from the edge of Epping Forest to see if he had snow but he was full of a bad cold and obviously thinking of nothing else!
• Heavy frost on Thursday morning and wildlife water bowl frozen. Had to bring it in and run the hot tap on it to melt the ice. Had the day off, and later in  a charity shop found a casserole dish. Not too nice for use as a wildlife water bowl and with an edge little birds can perch on. I did have 2 casserole dishes last winter, but one cracked in half!
• Thursday sunny so cycle ride through the Walthamstow wetlands - not much changed from last month.
• Saw 4 redwings on the bushes outside the bus garage at Leyton Green on Saturday.
• Decanted the Christmas pudding liqueur. Now to leave for 9 months (not in recipe, but experience tells me a wait makes far better flavoured liqueurs) so it will be ready for Christmas.
• Have sorted through most of my fabric. Got rid of a black bin of stuff that was just taking up space. Pity this has to go in bin rather than recycling. Also decided tiny cupboard can go - no where to put it, can't think of what I will put in it. Would have got it to the PDSA shop yesterday, but raining and I didn't have carrier bag big enough for it except a couple far too large.
• Last month supposed to have pruned fig while it was dormant - my fig is never dormant. This month prune currants but how to I tell how old the shoots are (I'm to get rid of 4-year old shoots)?

Green and Country in the City 21 January

• I've been making kombucha which is a drink using a scoby which is a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast. Just started my 3rd lot. Supposed to be good for digestion but waiting for benefits to appear!
• Have found a funnel which has a colander arrangement in the bottom which will help with decanting sloe gin, etc.
• Still unable to prune fig tree - supposed to do it in January when it is dormant. Mine is never dormant!
• Last week couple of mornings when so gloomy street lights were on when I left house to catch bus.
• Problems with getting curtain rod for thermal curtain for front door - I plan to so a separate post on this.
• On the grass on the edge of the sports ground there is a row of crocus. The yellow ones are up and in flower. There was one primrose in flower in my garden.
• So windy Tuesday night I could hear wind through double glazing which doesn't happen often. Slept OK until last hour or so when just lay snuggled up listening to wind. I had no damage but friend in Sudbury in Suffolk lost a chimney pot. Also damage (caused by pot falling) to her solar panels.
• My mother is having her evening primrose pulled up as birds have stripped seeds. I haven't noticed birds on mine and think all seeds still there but need a closer look to check. Last year had gold finches in ash tree that then overhung my garden twice. Would love to have them eating my evening primrose seeds!

Green and country in the city 7 January

• Monday I heard a great tit calling from a tree in the road in front of the house
• Tuesday beautiful pink sky - and heavy rain later. So it was an accurate shepherds' warning.
• Wednesday there were a lot of Christmas trees discarded on the pavements. Very windy too (storm Eleanor)
• Rain Thursday morning made it so dark the street lamps were on when I left the house to catch the bus.
• To Walthamstow Wetlands for this first time since they opened on Saturday (see separate blog post).
• On the fence of the car park at the end of Coppermill Lane was a banner advertising guided walks in the Lea Valley - and the picture was of my neighbours, Piers and Charmaine!
• Weather forecast for wind today (Sunday). Luckily incorrect as I was in an open canoe paddling so someone could make recordings of the sound of the paddling. Wind spoils the recording and I can't control an open canoe in wind!

Walthamstow Wetlands

Yesterday I cycled through the Walthamstow Wetlands for the first time since they opened. It was a lovely day for it with blue sky - and a heavy frost.

I arrived at the entrance in Coppermill Lane at 9.20 and then had to cycle up and down the lane as the wetlands weren't opening until 9.30.

There is only one route for cycles, there and back on the same path. That was still interesting and enjoyable, but next time I plan to wear wellies so I can push the bike on some walkers' only paths and vary the route a bit.

Cycling north I noticed several moorhens and only one coot - the opposite of what I see on the Lee Navigation. Then right at the top - the north of High Maynard Reservoir - there were about 40 coots. Lots of tufted ducks which I don't see on the Navigation.

At the top of the southern section, by the engine house, which is the visitor centre and café, it was very strange to be cycling through the car park along side the old river lea - when I am usually paddling along the river and seeing people in the car park!

There is not clear signage here, so I had to go into the engine house and ask how I got to the north section.

I am looking forward to seeing the wetlands change through the seasons.