underground effra

pumped up my tires, oiled my chain and went into work for 30 minutes of paid work... insulting and at the same time not insulting... nice that they value my opinion, a lot of travelling for so little work,

saw nippy there and she told me how she'd dreamt of me last night, we had a lovely chat over my tea and banana cake, sat outside the island cafe, right in front of la palma where i normally eat, bizaare to betray them in such a blatant way but their cake - and come to think of it their tea... are just not as good, i wouldn't eat a whole meal in the island but their banana cake is really nice...

i cycled to the river then put on my headphones and listened to the house track that me & lovely M wrote that night after mobile clubbing...

ended up heading west then south, following the river passed westminster bridge, onto bits of the thames path i hadn't before cycled on,
it was low tide and getting lower and i was really enjoying looking at the little lakes left by the departing tide, water loving birds hanging out in the shallows... took a long bit of video from the thames path of one such lake, using my new found technique of putting the camera onto a solid surface...

got almost all the way down to vauxhall bridge where there is a slope going down to the water's edge... left my bike against the embankment
wall and stooged around a fair bit, finding large stones to put the camera on and videoing the things that caught my eye, another tidal lake where a couple of mallard ducks tolerated my presence for awhile, it never ceases to amaze me how far below the thames path the actual mud of the river lies...

some odd looking mechanical stuff drew me to the river Effra's storm relief channel... i didn't go under the bridge but i suspect the main river Effra channel spits out just where that odd tower is in this picture... i used to gig at a pub in brixton called the effra, never knew it was a river, an underground river at that... all the london rivers i knew of before feed the thames from the north, my picture of south london is more complete now with this river running below brixton, making it's sorry way to the thames just here by vauxhall bridge...

the afternoon had been beautiful when i began my riverside cycle but it was getting grey and almost raining by now so i hauled the bike back up to the paved thames path and made it back to westminster bridge, thereafter following the same route i found last thursday, through st james's, green & hyde parks... a little street action by marylebone tube then the regents canal through to camdem...

my lovely £10 bike carrying me with it's own version of graceful...

x