A New Year walk

Wishing you a very Happy New Year, with good health and happiness throughout 2018.

Yesterday evening we enjoyed a new years eve dinner with a friend. It was a fun evening with lots of laughter. He was fascinated with Richard's 3D printer and Richard enjoyed explaining how it worked and showing him some of the items he's printed. Tony went home at 11 as he's an early to bed and early to rise person and didn't want to stay up till midnight.
We watched the fireworks on the TV at midnight and then went to bed.

Today we had arranged to go for a walk with Kathryn. John had been given a book of the hidden rivers of London and we planned to walk the route of Earl's Sluice. The sluice is an underground river, that flows in southeast London and was named after the Earl of Gloucestershire in the time of Henry 1st. 

The Earl's sluice rises in a duck pond in Ruskin Park, Denmark Hill. We travelled to Denmark Hill by train and as we came out of the station we found the William Booth Memorial Building opposite the station. William Booth was a Methodist minister who founded the Salvation Army.

That's a statue to William Booth outside the building. I couldn't fit all the building in the picture as I had a wall behind me and the tower on the building is 61 metres tall. The building is now used as a training college for the Salvation Army. From here we walked to the pond in Ruskin Park and then followed the route of the river past Kings College Hospital and on to Burgess Park.

Burgess Park was part of Sir Leslie Abercrombie's 1943 County of London plan for post war redevelopment. The park was created between 1950 and 1980's  over a bombed out area of London surrounding the basin of the Grand Surrey Canal. The park is named after the first female mayor of Camberwell, Jessie Burgess.

The are old lime kilns in the park.

The old public baths and public wash house building still stands in the park but has been re-purposed.

On the side of this building we found this,

Within the park the lake was host to Egyptian and Canada geese plus a variety of ducks and gulls.

Once through the park we passed the home of Millwall Football club

As we walked on we went under several bridges. This one played havoc with my perceptions. The newer bricks seems to be standing out and the older bricks seemed to be going upwards for ever. The roof of the bridge just didn't seem to be real.

We only saw the Earl's Sluice once on the walk but it was no pretty river with a towpath and ducks. The river has to come out of the ground to go over the railway line and it is carried in a 60 cm pipe on its own bridge. Once over the railway line it goes back underground.

We eventually reached the Thames at Greenland and South Docks. These docks are now a marina and used for water sports. By this time it was getting dark.

Several boats had Christmas lights and trees.

At the Thames the Earl's Sluice opens into the river. Looking across the Thames the full moon was huge and I loved the reflection.

Canary wharf was looking very pretty with all the lights. Looking across London there are lots of red lights on all the cranes.

It was a very good way to start the New Year. Tomorrow is back to work time and I shall be driving to Reading. No time for stitching tonight unfortunately but there will be tomorrow evening.

Lyndsey