There's a thief about....

A couple of weeks ago some beastie came along onto my 4th floor balcony and ate the roots of my basil, oregano and coriander. Whatever it was, it displayed no interest whatsoever in the foliage, just the roots. And yesterday, what did I see but a squirrel hanging around outside! I really should have taken more notice of the street signs they put up in the street below a couple of years ago, they were actually quite prophetic:


If I ever get hold of him, he'll have no idea where to look for his nuts!

And while I'm thinking about the signs that were put up for the Deptford 2007 exhibition, there's another few that seem to have foreseen post-Boris London.

Bye-bye bendy bus...
Playing Franny's cycling knight in shining armour and riding off in pursuit...


















Designs and photo: (c) Sue Lawes & Lionel Openshaw : www.se8signs.co.uk

Ha'penny Hatch gets a service

After a lazy stroll into the kitchen for the morning pot of tea this morning, I looked out of the window and saw the footbridge had been lifted. I've never seen it up since they built it. In the time it took me to find my camera and open the front door it had been lowered again - surprisingly quickly, though finding anything in here is never a quick job. Anyhow, I managed to grab this image.Seconds later it was almost back to normal:


And just a couple of seconds later, after a posse of hi-vizened engineers wandered up and had a leisurely peek about the place, everything returned to normal again. Even the guy who, at a guess, isn't allowed to practise his drums indoors made an afternoon reappearance, serenading pedestrians with his snare drum paradiddles.

Spider flight?

I know it's a bad photo but I'm hoping that it'll still be there tomorrow when I've had time to figure out how to focus my camera manually - this will mean RTFM!!

Meanwhile, it's that time of year when spiders become hyperactive. This one appears to have been very busy inventing the gossamer propeller right outside my front door. It's pretty effective for catching flies - but will it fly?

Update: Nah, the bottom part of the web was missing yesterday morning. The spider was still there, finishing off one of those fake-wasp drone thingies. Today, there are only a couple of strands. My spider has either taken off for newer pastures or been plucked off its web by a passing bird with a big appetite.

Disappearing industries

A while ago my dad was looking to replace his typewriter and found that they'd almost disappeared from the market. I think it would be even harder to replace a typewriter ribbon, and many people wouldn't even know what carbon paper was or what it was used for. Here, on the National Cycle Route 21, on an industrial estate by Lower Sydenham Station, is a factory whose fate was sealed by computers and printers.

Though the Columbia Ribbon & Carbon Manufacturing Co Ltd no longer seems to exist, the building is still in use - lights on, the odd door open from time to time - perhaps as warehouse storage, but the frontage, which displays a degree of assured confidence that makes it stand out from the rest of the light industrial units surrounding it, has prevailed. So far. Maybe it is under some kind of preservation order. Or perhaps the present occupiers are an industrial version of the hermit crab - happy to occupy the shell of a now dead animal.And, while talking about industrial buildings that stand out, just off the NCR21 there's also this one. It's on Ladywell Bridge, just by wartime the ''shelter for 700'' sign (see earlier blog - ''Shelter'')
This building also seems a million miles away from any similar enterprise - it simply stands out on its own.

London Skyride

...or should I call it The Mayor of London's Skyride? No, I'll call it London Skyride because none of the other Skyrides feel the need to name it after their mayor. Anyhow, it happened today. I rolled up at Cutty Sark Gardens expecting there to be a handful of bikes - but you'd need pretty big hands for this lot:



And this was early, bikes were still arriving from all directions. Just after 11am we set off for London, (accompanied) children going immediately after the leader and the rest of us followed in what was possibly the most chaotic ride up to town - and definitely the slowest - that I've ever experienced. Here's a view of the monster crocodile just on our way down Creek Road


Just up the road, where Church Street joins Creek Road there was already one taxi driver at the front of the queue, swearing and handwaving and rolling menacingly forwards at one of the marshalls, fulfilling the traditional role expected of a London cabbie - and, of course, by almost everyone who's cycled in London . I don't suppose he'd ever seen that many taxi-fare dodgers in his life before. It was facinating to watch the different reactions of motorists, though most of the smiles and waves of encouragement did come from cars on the other side of the road.

Several hundred car horns later - isn't it illegal to sound horns on a Sunday? - we eventually stop-started-crawled our way to Tower Bridge and over to the Skyride eastern access point near Tower Hill.

A lass on a podium to the left of the picture above was announcing over a PA that they'd been expecting 50,000 but believed that they already had 60,000. I've no idea how you can estimate the number with any degree of accuracy - I had certainly never seen so many bikes in one place before. Even without lights, there were enough to create their own traffic jams.

Here's a tribute to Sponge-Boris No-Pants:

I guess I'm being a little unkind...it really does makes a change to see London dominated by bikes without fear of traffic - well without fear of the usual traffic, anyway. Trafalgar Square seemed pretty spacious:

Though that's most likely because the route onto the Mall was so busy:

Strangely, the atmosphere wasn't particularly carnivalesque, more about lots and lots of people enjoying a gentle ride through a busier yet quieter London on a lovely warm Autumn day. Though there's always some clown who feels the need to go just that bit further, that little bit higher...this man, innocent though he looks, almost took me out on a sharp bend with his rear wheels. And he didn't even notice!

And of course some people just have to push the envelope, or in some cases, envelop the push bike: below are some BSOs (Bicycle-Shaped Objects)....




















And if you've ever had to cycle into a headwind, you'll know the immensity of the force you're fighting against. This young lad has reconceived the Raleigh Chopper (c. 1975) by using a headwind to generate the power needed to ride into a headwind. Pure genius!

Almost finally here's St Pedal's Cathedral, simply because it is Sunday after all...


And, do you know what? Many cyclists are what I've seen called ''sociable loners'' - and I think I'm one of them. On the way out, the lass on the podium had revised her estimate upwards to 75,000 and I think I cycled past/round/with/had to evade most of them. It was quite a relief to get onto the Lower Road back to Deptford where you can ride more smoothly, without too many lights or people holding you up, doing silly things in the road, without upsetting tetchy cabbies. Because in the end, I want to cycle peacefully and safely with everyone, be they in a car or on a bike, without feeling in danger. So yes, there have to be more cyclists on the road simply to make drivers more cycle-aware. And you're not going to achieve that by segregating two-wheelers from the four-or-more-wheelers.

Still, it was a lovely day out, and doing it one day a year isn't going to ruin your life - unless you're a taxi driver with anger management problems. In which case, get your heart MOT'd at the first opportunity.

Deptford X is coming

I've been noticing a few odd sights appearing recently around Deptford: people are getting ready for Deptford X. This slice of yellow appeared over the last couple of days in Creekside. I wouldn't advise parking on it though.





And along the ha'penny hatch I noticed this yesterday. I'd never actually really thought about how all those plants have names, though I do remember loving the sound of ''rose bay willow herb'' when I was on a primary school nature study trip back in the 60s. This would be a Creekside Centre-led project - there's a man in there who can tell a dragon-tailed spindlewort from and old maiden's tooth. Nice to have some educational graffiti....






And there's a strange vehicle recently appeared in the grounds of the Steven Laurence centre in Brookmill Road. It's in honour of Ken Saro-Wiwa. I don't know for sure that it's actually linked to Deptford X but it certainly seems to have arrived at the same time.

Curious flying objects

Yesterday afternoon a blue tit managed to find its way through a 2-inch opening in my living room window. Once inside it panicked and made repeated attempts to fly through the glass, much like your average insect. In between attempts to escape, it perched on the bookshelves and froze completely. I opened the window as wide as it would go and fetched my camera. Here you can see it getting to grips with Samuel Beckett's collected shorter plays.

Immediately afterwards, it made a successful sortie, emitted a big tweet of relief once outside, and disappeared for good. I was surprised that once it had got itself trapped inside it couldn't find its own way out through the same way it got in - blue tits are normally quite intelligent, inquisitive birds. But panic can make otherwise clever people do stupid things, so why not birds as well?

It was only much later that I realised that it was the anniversary of 9/11. It strikes me as extremely odd that the only time I've ever known a bird to stumble into my flat just happens to have occurred on such a day. As though, in some undercurrent of a world we barely apprehend, 9/11 really is Flying Into Buildings day.