I’ve barely blinked since my ‘snow day‘ post a month ago and now, suddenly, it’s a warm and sunny spring day. Warm and sunny enough, in fact, to saunter down the Waterlink Way and have lunch by the banks of the little man-made stream which runs through the middle of Ladywell Fields.
Of all the cool things we’ve found in this area so far, the Waterlink Way (and specifically our section, the uninspiringly-named River Pool Linear Park) has been the biggest and most delightful surprise. During our one and only viewing of the flat we did ask the estate agent about this promising-looking patch of green on Google Maps but she was unenthusiastic and pointed us in the other direction instead. But since moving here, we’ve slowly realised that it’s basically the perfect path: Cator Park in one direction, Ladywell Fields in the other on a route which ultimately runs all the way to Greenwich. During the day it’s filled with families while at night it’s a peaceful and soothing post-work walk, well lit enough to see where you’re going but not so much to obscure all the stars. And what better than to walk between a river and a railway, with all cars and roads banished from sight and sound? Basically, it’s a little like walking-through-the-wardrobe and expect to be dragged here if you come visit.
Meanwhile, the biggest advance in our indoor living (and let’s be honest, 99% of living is indoor living right now) was the arrival of our dining table. This was a big deal since we haven’t actually had a dining table we could eat at since the last flat’s table was pressed into service as an office desk back in March, so sit-down dinners with a table and chairs are very exciting and we celebrated by ordering a massive Indian feast, drinking bourbon and finishing the last of the Christmas crackers. (Look, we can’t have been the only ones with the ‘leftover crackers’ problem this year.)
The table also expands out so we can host people (one day) and/or play Carcassonne for the first time in a very long while. We’ve also played two games of Watergate which arrived in a bumper post-Christmas gift package from Katie along with a crossword and some other bits and pieces. Watergate is a two-player board game where one player plays as Nixon and the other plays as the newspaper ‘Editor’ trying to take him down. It should perhaps be promising that Tricky Dicky was defeated in both of our games, although Randi did point out sadly that the equivalent Trump board game would be a multi-day affair where you tried every conceivable path to impeach the President and nothing ever worked. We’ll stick with this one.
Finally, it was great to catch up with Jan from Groupon days a few weeks ago… and when I say Groupon days, I mean Groupon UK days, which is (a) a very long time ago, and (b) still my most promising source of material for ever writing a sitcom. (Some days I think it’s gone but then everything comes flooding back.) We also hopped over to Penge to wish Sam a happy birthday from her doorstep. To be honest we hung around for long enough that any normal person would have invited us in already, but Sam is clearly rude.
