A walk and Half square Triangles

On Saturday I went walking with John and Lucy. We walked the next part of the Capital Ring, from Hackney Wick to Woolwich. The day was cold with a wind that went straight through you but there was sunshine. We rejoined the walk on the bank of the Lee Navigation and opposite the entrance to the Hertford Union Canal. We watched a barge turn from the navigation into the canal. There was a lot of graffiti on the industrial buildings on the opposite bank.

Several of the building had some great murals on the walls.

As we parted company with the Navigation and joined the Greenway we passed by the Olympic Stadium, now the home of West Ham Football Club. The stadium had 80,000 seats for the games but has been downsized for the football stadium.

The Greenway is a level track of bonded gravel for walkers and cyclists that has been laid on top of the Northern Outfall Sewage Embankments. We were going to follow this route for the next three miles. Along this section of the Greenway we came across View Tube, a community venue built from shipping containers.

Although we hadn't been walking that long we stopped here for coffee and a Chocolate Brownie with cherries. The venue was fun, the coffee very good and the cake amazing. When we restarted we had to take a diversion around a construction site area but we were soon back on track.

Having rejoined the Greenway we had good views of Canary Wharf and the City of London, however it was a little foggy so I didn't bother with a photograph. We crossed the Meridian line which was marked by a sundial set in the ground. A little further a long we came across Abbey Mills Pumping Station. This building is so pretty. The building was designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette and was part of the sewage system of London. It opened in 1868 and became known as The Temple of Sewage.

Behind this building there is a new pumping station that was opened in 1997. This orange and yellow painted metal object was once part of the pumping station's machinery but is now a piece of industrial sculpture. 

Further a long we disturbed these two cats playing together. It looked as if they were playing rock, paper, scissors but they stopped and got ready to run as we walked by.

The walk along the Greenway didn't offer any other places of interest to take pictures of, in fact it was a little boring. However we eventually turned away from the Greenway and headed out through Beckton District Park, where we stopped to eat our lunch. We sat by the lake for lunch but didn't stay long due to the cold. The path took us to the Dockland Campus of the University of East London. When the site was opened in 1999 it was the first new university campus opened in over 50 years

These buildings are the student residencies overlooking the Royal Albert Dock. The dock is over a mile long and was opened in 1880. It was closed to commercial shipping in 1982 and is now used for water sports facilities. On the opposite bank is the runway for London City Airport.

Walking  along the dockside promenade I took this photo of Lucy in front of the Sir Steve Redgrave bridge. Steve Redgrave won gold medals for rowing in 5 successive Olympic games 

Here we made a detour away from the river and we saw lots of these berries. The birds had been gorging on them just before we arrived but flew away as we came into view.

We eventually came back to the river and at this point the Thames is huge. The houses looked very small on the opposite bank.

We now followed the river and we also crossed two enormous locks that led into the docks. I didn't like this bit at all as the locks were very deep and I won't be repeating the experience any time soon. Having safely crossed the locks we continued our walk along the river promenade into Woolwich where we left the path to catch a train at the Dockland Light Railway station. By the time we reached home we had walked over 12 miles. 

Today I took down our tree. I had rather more help than I would have liked especially as Picasso's help consisted of playing with the decorations and then going to sleep in the box.

I can't be cross with Picasso for long as he is such a lovable cat. He also loves to play like a kitten even though he was 14 last year. I love it when the decorations go as the room suddenly increases in size. Picasso and Scamp spent a little time running round the place playing chase,enjoying the increase in space they had to play.

I spent some time today cutting squares to make Half square triangles. I haven't done any for a while and had forgotten how time consuming they can be. However I dovetailed them with preparing dinner and both jobs got done successfully. I have completed 71 HST's but I still need a load more. Hopefully I'll get the rest done tomorrow and then I'll just need to trim them.

I have also spent time today doing some hand stitching. First some repairs by sewing on some buttons that had come off, then adding a couple of badges to my blanket and finally a little more work on Earlene. She is almost finished, which is exciting but unfortunately I have quite a lot of work commitments this week so I won't have much stitching time. However I've joined in with the 15 minute challenge to try and make sure I do a little sewing every day. So far I've managed at least 15 minutes every day. This week I want to work on Earlene and also my millennium sampler which I really must finish this year.

I'm linking this post with Kathy for her Slow Sunday Stitching. Get better soon Kathy.

Take care and stay warm.

Lyndsey