Pedal Me down, Christmas in a bubble, the Long Walk Home

Being someone living alone in the current climate has one advantage. You are allowed a support bubble. And my mate Thibault is the obvious choice for this being my best mate, but slightly less obvious in that he lives as far south of the River as I live north of it. A long way. 

Pedal Me

Anyway, long story short, he kindly invited me over to spend Christmas with him and his wife. Which meant transport issues. Of course public transport is still running but the general advice is try not to use it. And visiting Thibault normally means a collection of buses, tubes and trains, just aggravating the risks. And then there is Uber but that is still being in a confined space with someone. So Thibault suggested Pedal Me, which is basically Uber by bicycle.

So I gave it a go and it was brilliant. About the same cost as Uber and taking into account traffic maybe no more time consuming. Essentially you have a little bench protruding out in front of the handlebars to sit on, and you are surrounded by a small box to protect you (and leave luggage on). They can take two people at a time and 150 kilos, so me at 65 kilos and with a low centre of gravity was a cinch.

Now you are on an ebike (not solely relying on your driver's pedal power) and of course its green credentials are a selling point. But ignoring that, it is just a very pleasant way to travel. Its quiet, you are pleasingly (rather than scarily) low down, and you can chat to your driver, who is a disembodied voice behind you. And in addition to general conversation, you get a warning if you are about to do a sharp left, as the feeling can be a bit disconcerting when the bike swings around. But it is just good fun being in the middle of the traffic - a different viewpoint.  https://pedalme.co.uk/our-service/ if you want to try them out. (And no this isn't sponsored content!!!)

The journey was about 90 minutes, which the guy said was the longest journey he had done with a passenger. I had, possibly foolishly, eschewed his offer of a poncho. I wasn't really too cold until we had crossed the River. But when we finally arrived, I was  so stiff that on getting up I just slowly toppled over! It took a few seconds to get the old legs working again.

Christmas with no Christmas in it

Christmas itself was a bit of a change for me. I am used to doing family Christmases with people who do all the Christmas traditions - presents, turkey, church. It was quite pleasant to do an entirely grown up Christmas with none of the paraphernalia. Clarissa apologized that the only Christmas decoration they had was a candle. But I pointed out that my house has never had so much as a sprig of tinsel in 20 years. Nearest I have to any decorations is a slightly festive looking flower display.

Christmas lunch, after champagne elevenses, was delicious but utterly non traditional. Salmon and tuna sashimi to start 

followed by slow cooked pork belly, a sea bass stir fry and an aubergine dish

and some very high quality wines, probably wasted on me! It was all quite delightful. And no party games. Bliss. Christmas without any Christmas in it is perfect! But of course the best part was the company. I mean settling down to eat and chat with my best friends is obviously going to be nice, but spending a day with people after all this time is just so amazing.  I am perfectly ok with being on my own. I know this situation is temporary; one just has to get on with it. But my friends probably have no idea just how much spending Christmas with them raised my spirits. Ditto the phone call I had with my mate Andy the night before. Just the actual human contact. I am sure they think they know how nice it is for me, but that isn't the same as feeling it.

It did also make me reflect on how much the simple pleasures in life are the best. Just food, drink and conversation. I would swap any leisure activity for that. All the Christmas preparations that people put themselves through are quite unnecessary in terms of reward for effort. One affectionate silly joke beats a hundred baubles.

Also, it is lovely spending time with a couple of newly weds. It is just nice to see people obviously in love. I mean as a third party one feels awkward spending time with folk who are obviously all over each other. But just seeing the casual signs of mutual affection, the little passing caresses, is just sweet. I don't mean that in a patronising way in case that is what it sounds like. It is just the satisfaction of seeing contentment in those you care about.

Eltham

Following lunch we went on a six mile looped walk up to Eltham cemetery - passing some modern developments - clearly this is a part of London where people are moving in. Albeit not the finest of architecture. "Like Sim City" said Clarissa. It felt to me like someone spent too much time playing with Lego as a kid.

Now you might think Eltham cemetery an unlikely destination for a post lunch walk, but it is actually well worth the trip. It is one of those spooky Victorian Gothic cemeteries that you would shoot a Hammer House of Horror film in. It was particularly atmospheric, in a non spooky way, in the late afternoon sun.

The cemetery is also up on a hillside, so the other reason to go is for the views across the City and Canary Wharf.

On the way back we went through a beautiful little arts & crafts "village" - an incongruous housing estate in South London, more suited to a home counties village, but very welcome compared to the Lego boxes.

With perfect timing the sun was just setting as we got back to the flat.

The long walk home

I returned home on Boxing Day, and this time decided I would walk it. According to Citymapper this was a 14.5 mile trek which should take me just over 5 hours. So I made my fond farewells, declined a hearty breakfast that was offered and set off on my way. Now the walk through South London was very pleasant - not many folk about, grey day but not cold, and there is a lot of interesting architecture even in places like Lewisham that have a poor reputation. I could have taken a lot more photos, but given the length of my journey I felt I ought to crack on. But I took a few...

Typical of a number of quite grand Edwardian public buildings in this area - Deptford Library

And Deptford Town Hall

The architecture got more interesting still the closer I got to the City

Southwark Cathedral

I got a bit of a second wind crossing London Bridge

I couldn't stop myself making a little diversion into Leadenhall Market, looking very Christmassy, but almost deserted apart from a handful of people like myself photographing its desertedness.

The Geffrye Museum, now being dumbed down to call it the "Museum of the Home."

By the time I got to Dalston I was decidedly flagging. And my phone ran out of charge. Luckily I had another as back up to go to Google Maps, although I pretty much knew my route home from here. And I was passed by a number of buses any of which I could have got on, but almost out of bloody mindedness I decided I would plough on just to prove to myself I could do it.

This did take me to Newington Green and I couldn't help but take a few more photos of the ridiculous new monument to Mary Wolstencraft. Honestly the feminists who wanted the memorial must feel incredibly stupid as all it has done is heaped ridicule upon themselves with this silver blob and the tiny, tiny naked woman perched on the top.

And made wonderfully more ridiculous by someone giving her a little Santa cape.

 And yes I did make it home. Just. Very slow progress towards the end. My feet were killing me. And my legs made it pretty clear that if I ever tried to do anything like that  again they would quit, for good. Taking out my feet with them in solidarity. As a friend commented, that was more than a half marathon, adequately explaining why I don't do half marathons. What that did tell me is that my walking range is probably up to 10 miles. Pedal Me might be getting some more custom....