Walk: Jubilee Greenway

As the man said in Life of Brian.. "I'm alive! I'm alive!!" You could apply much the same sentiment to me today. Geez, I haven't been out in four days, apart from an abortive attempt to go to the office on Thursday, which didn't last long nor achieve much but make me feel woozy. I did manage to get to Tesco to get the shopping in, and I managed to check the gas meter, but that was the extent of it. This was an awful bout of 'flu.

And once you're past the stage where you need to sleep all the time, but not yet at the stage where you can go gadding about, it's frightfully boring. At least Amazon Prime was good enough to stream the entire first season of Transparent for free yesterday, so I hunkered down and watched that. And very good it was too.

Today, however, I felt a bit more substance to my being. So I investigated this thing called Winter Wanders - guided walks through London. Darned if a single information link was working on that site though - the only informative link I could find was the link to the TFL walks page. So, so much for the guided walks - I used the TFL information to pick my own. Of course, that always has the advantage that you can meander off course as you wish, shorten the walk as you like, linger wherever you want.

The closest to me is the Jubilee Greenway, so I determined to do that. Not the whole thing of course - the first section, Buckingham Palace to Little Venice. I've seen both before, but not gone through Hyde Park - apart from attending Winter Wonderland there: so I'd see something new. Mind you, I got sufficiently distracted by other things that it was evening by the time I was setting out; but I persevered.

I took the Tube to Victoria and tramped along to Buckingham Palace,10 minutes away. Loadsa tourists, as usual - Italians on the Tube wondering whether it went to Victoria, tourists making their awkward way up and down Underground staircases with enormous suitcases, and a guy with an even more enormous suitcase, waiting with me just down from Buckingham Palace to cross the road. After a minute, he decided he'd take a chance and ask directions - and it turned out he was looking for the infamous Victoria Coach Station. Infamously hard to find. Now, the only time I was there before, I had the devil of a time finding it.. but at least I knew he was at this moment headed the wrong way! He looked at me very dubiously when I said that - apparently he'd been sent in several different directions already. But I insisted that he retrace his steps to the train station and find a map there. The guy even had a maps app on his phone! Lordy, you'd think he might learn how to use it..

I had no such problems finding the palace. It's hard to miss from there. Not so many tourists around in the evening - it was dusk by now. I didn't linger there, and carried on into Green Park. A brief consultation of the directions I'd printed out informed me that I was to carry on along the edge of the park to Hyde Park Corner. Well and good, I did that. Although it was dark, it was quite pleasant really, a cool breeze blowing and the path slightly removed from the busy roadway. As I neared Hyde Park Corner, I found myself surrounded by war memorials of various kinds. I have no particular interest myself, but they do make an impressive collection - I hardly noticed before, always rushing through there en route to somewhere else.

I passed through the impressive entrance to Hyde Park, and surveyed my options. The rough plan was to head along by the Serpentine - I didn't think I'd get much further. Then I had to tie my shoelaces.. and as I was bending down, I got so dizzy that I knew I'd have to call it a night. I'd just passed Hyde Park Corner Station, so I made my way hastily back there and caught the extremely crowded Piccadilly Line. I had to stand, and since I was still feeling woozy, changed for the District Line at South Kensington, in the hope of getting a seat. The stairs there nearly did for me, but thankfully the second train on the platform was mine, and I did get a seat. And lived to tell the tale!

I'm ok if I'm sitting down. I just need to be careful when I'm out. Back to work tomorrow.. I'll probably be ok for that. Tomorrow is the last night of a series of four short plays about umbrellas - Night of the Umbrella is showing at the Lion and Unicorn. Very much depends how I feel tomorrow though. For the next three days, I need to head to Cineworld to use those Tesco vouchers. Should be able to manage films, if I can make it to the cinema! I've had a look at what's on, and the winners are, as of now - in terms of IMDB ratings - Baby (an Indian espionage thriller), Kingsman: the Secret Service (comedy - previewing Thursday) and Ex Machina (SciFi). Irritatingly, these vouchers exclude my local Cineworld (so I won't be buying them again!) and so I have to head to Cineworld Hammersmith and Cineworld Wandsworth to use them..