Back in the Badlands

Its been an eventful couple of weeks since my move back south of the river, and I now reside in East Dulwich / Forest Hill in a kind of no mans land - trust me, my address just has a street name and a postcode these days. And contrary to what you might think, you don't need to carry a weapon at all times. Just Saturdays. And Fridays. And every other Tuesday.
It has meant that the journey to the hospice is a bit longer than before, but you have the joy of the replacement bus service up to London Bridge, which is a treat at any time and especially so at 6.30am on a Saturday. Sadly, last time out I sliced my hand open on a broken glass at the end of my shift which resulted in a tour of local hospitals, 1 x-ray, 2 stitches and several pleasant hours passed reading my book and sitting in A&E, soaking up the ambiance.
I did manage to not bleed on the floor in the hospice, although I did leave some of the washing up uncompleted which did jar my professional ethos. A big thanks to Louise who did a great job bandaging me up and to Shane who selflessly drove me around until I got sorted which I really appreciated. Although you should ignore his stories about me crying like a baby - anyone who was there would tell you I was crying like a marine. A tough one.

So with a new locale to explore my girlfriend and I wasted no time in getting some trek training in for me. I'd also been very kindly given a merino base layer by my good mate Stuart and his now wife Charlotte after I was their best man last week so it was a good chance to try it out. Not only does it wick away sweat from the body and not smell at all, but it's also very complimentary to my figure:

And despite what anyone says I am definitely NOT breathing in. Well, not much anyway. Dulwich Park is a stones throw from the new flat and is very ace. It even has a dirt track which is largely flat and exactly one mile long, great for running. There is everything you could want from a park - gardens, boating, cafes, football pitches, play areas, work out machines, tennis courts and even table tennis tables. And it has quite the history:

And some of the gardens are simply exquisite:

After a jaunt through there, we picked up a 'green chain link' which is a walk through south London that is as green as possible, and it next took us up to the Horniman Museum, which is also a stones throw from the flat, on the other side. Its a cool museum that I will explore further as it could be a venue to write every day, but on this day we just took in the gardens. Very nice they are too, with some great views of London in the distance:

From there we walked around and back past the flat to the other side. As I have found both north and south, any 'green' walk in London invariably involves some cemeteries, which to be honest are always interesting places to walk through. The nearest to us is Camberwell Old Cemetery and it had a rather touching plaque in the paving stone as you walked in:

From there we continued our walk into a smaller park, before another 2 cemeteries, and there was this very fetching map to help guide us:

You maybe can't appreciate the detail, as that actually covers quite a wide area. Although what Thomas the Tank Engine is doing there was not explained. But who doesn't like Thomas the Tank Engine ? Especially when Ringo Starr does the voices. Visionary. Anyway I digress. Quite a bit further on, and after Camberwell New Cemetery, we were in Nunhead Cemetery which is also woodland, and if you ask me most modern cemeteries are missing a trick when they clear out the trees - it gives the place more of an aura and a sense of the dead being back with the earth to me. It also makes the scenery so much better:

After here the Green Chain Link ended, but I still had boots on the ground time to rack up so we wandered back towards Peckham Rye and explored the park and woodland there before making it back to East Dulwich for a well-earned Sunday Roast while QPR got stuffed by Man Utd on the big screen. Which was nice. I was too tired to take any more pics though ! But 4 hrs in the bag.

As a final note, I was back at the hospice yesterday after missing the previous week for my friends wedding. I decided to walk back to the flat from Woodside Park which is 15 miles, although I decided to stop for lunch in central London, and then as I was going by, I just had to visit my girlfriend in St Thomas's hospital - the work she does on the neo-natal ward really is incredible, I'm so proud of her. Some of the babies were incredibly tiny, and filled with tubes which was so sad, but the success stories and letter from grateful parents on the walls made up for it. Anyway, I completed the walking part of it in 4hrs 19 minutes, although the whole thing was more than 6 hours. Plus 3 hours on my feet in the hospice before I started. Its fair to say I was hurting in the end but hey Shane - boo sucks to you sunshine !!

Until next time...