Mick Hartley

Sunny and cold. On the bike and down to the Lea:

 

Past Hackney Marshes – deserted on a weekday:

 

Past a frozen Old Ford lock:

 

And up on to the Greenway to see how the Olympic stadium's coming along:

 

A chat with some London Wildlife Trust people on a project to smarten up the Greenway before the Olympics. They're looking for volunteers – every Tuesday. Might I be interested? Maybe. When it's warmer. Then the detour to cross over Stratford High Street. Apparently they're planning a temporary bridge over the road for the Olympics, but if enough people start to use the Greenway on a regular basis, who knows, maybe they'll make it permanent.

Past Joseph Bazalgette's "cathedral of sewage", the Abbey Mills pumping station:

 

And the extraordinary gothic terrace left stranded on Abbey Road:

 

Over the Channelsea River – tide's out:

It's been a problem for a while, has the Channelsea. Not for much longer, though, with the new Prescott Channel lock currently under construction.

On to Plaistow to check out the state of the art:

And then back down Stratford High Street, over Three Mills Wall River:

 

We go home, the swan and I.