Greenwich Walk -- London Meal

It's a great group this; at short notice I offered to lead a walk that had been programmed to be in the Greenwich area, so that's where I aimed for.

On February 27th, ten of us met at Stratford station at 10.30 to catch the DLR via Canary Wharf to Mudchute, pointing out important historical landmarks such as where I went to school and where I lived on the way.  At the station before Mudchute I decided to get off so as to approach the walk from a slightly different angle to that which I had planned an hour or two before.  There had been a certain excitement from Val who had remembered a certain drinking establishment favoured when she had worked on the Isle of Dogs, and more excitement from Maz when she realized we would be seeing (she hoped) the animals at the city farm she remembered from when she too had worked there.  Perversely I ensured that before that we had walked a circuitous route around the Mudchute area, taking in some mud, some snowdrops and some weird ducks.  Unfortunately we encountered the cafeteria en route and a slight rebellion occurred when coffee, chocolate, and various cakes were demanded.

Eventually the walk continued - at last taking in the animals - after which we made our way to the river-front at Island Gardens.  One of the things about our group when we are out walking - as opposed for example to a Ramblers' group - is that we don't maintain the sensible rule of not walking ahead of the leader.  Thus it was that a couple of members dived into the foot-tunnel access while my intention was to show the group one of the finest views in London.  This is across the river towards the Royal Naval College buildings and beyond to the Observatory buildings on the hills of Greenwich.

View from Greenwich ObservatoryWe made our way through the foot tunnel emerging to where the Cutty Sark used to be (or where it still is, but under wraps). We had perhaps expected rain, but in fact there was some blue sky and white clouds as well as some quite grey ones.  In other words there were quite dramatic views along the Thames.  Passing between the buildings of the Royal Naval College, crossing the road and passing the National Maritime Museum, we walked the well-used path up to Greenwich Observatory, taking care not to tread on tourists.  The usual throng of visitors were there - some in the eastern hemisphere and some in the western, and some with their legs apart in both.  And there we had our second rebellion, when two of our members disappeared into the building complex.  The rest of us, perhaps not too reluctantly, eventually followed and this was followed by a gradual wandering of everybody in different directions.  Quite unreasonably at this the home of time, time seemed to have become meaningless, so it was only after some sort of reassembly that we realized that we had misplaced one of our newer members.  Now if this had been one of our long-term members perhaps I would not have been so concerned - after all most of us had each other's telephone numbers and anyway we are all adults and used to getting lost and split up.  After some heroic down-and-up-hill effort by Prue (who in reality was trying to exercise off some excess cake) we re-established contact with Tina and continued our walk across Greenwich Park.

Exiting the park by one of the corner gates we negotiated some busy roads to investigate Blackheath.  The heath got off to a pretty good start with muddy paths and gorse, but the majority of it was dire; boring  short grass with almost no shrubs or trees to add interest, only the more distant views and the fun of seeing land yachts and kite-boarders to break the monotony.  We entered the park again and inevitably made our way to the pavilion.  More tea, coffee and cakes - the latter perhaps a mistake - for after that we were soon back in Greenwich Town where we had intended to eat.  It was slightly too early for that anyway so we made a group decision to take a riverboat trip to London so as to be able to eat at a group-favoured restaurant near the Strand.

Yes, it's a great group, this; we had taken on what had intended to be a walk in the Greenwich area - led at short notice - which we had accomplished without losing anybody, and had ended up dining in London.  This isn't necessarily typical of the group, but then the group isn't necessarily typical.

Paul Ferris, 28th February 2010