London can get me down.
My general guideline is: I'm not happy unless I can run for 10km or less and be out of town, in nature. London, at 1,759square-km, doesn't qualify. It can take over an hour and a half to get from Paddington station to Harry's house in South London, crawling darkly and anonymously down the Northern Tube line. This is the same amount of time it takes to get to London from Bath, on the other side of the country.
The Tube is a brilliant idea brilliantly executed. And I think the Tube is the main reason for my problem. I don't know where places in London actually are, I know where they are on the tube map. I have no idea what the stretch of city between King's Cross and South Kensington looks like, except underground.
Which is why this weekend, I empowered myself over London. I brought my bike, and didn't use the tube once.
Suddenly, streets and neighborhoods have real, physical meaning, beyond coloured lines on a modernist map! There is light, there is connectivity, and, my goodness, there is nature. Nearly every neighborhood has its own preserved reserve of green, a place where, even in the midst of over seven million people and buildings forever, you can breath.
And there's no congestion charge for bikes!
"No one is healthy in London, no one can be." -Jane Austen
5 comments:
this is such good news. i was worried you'd hate london forever!
Whoa, you would NOT like Houston...
No, maybe not Houston, but Davidson SK seems to be an easy run-out, freezing and blinding white though it may be.
As for London, clever approach.
Awesome. Hey, do you want to go for a ride together in a few weeks? I'm going to be in London on March 16th and 17th and I'll have my bicycle with me. Let me know if you're around and interest in going for a spin. Maybe we could hit up Drury Lane and get some muffins.
London's not that bad - didn't realise you though it was that bad - and wait, we did the ride home quickly enough!
You just wait until it's summer, then you'll love the place. We can go and see Wimbledon Common and Richmond Park, which is pretty much open countryside with deer, and _proper_ woodland. Also the London Wetlands Centre: http://www.wwt.org.uk/centre/119/visit/wetlandcentre/.htm
Still, I understand, hands up who wants to work from home!
(meee)
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