"Between Bridgers" by F. Mary Wilson - A request for information

A group of local residents were recently discussing Mary Wilson's book Between Bridgers.  I know of only three people in Rotherhithe who have copies, all of whom come from long-standing Bermondsey and Rotherhithe families, but I am sure that there must be more copies squirrelled away and much-valued in local homes.  It would be great to see the book back in print, or made available online, but that depends on obtaining permission from the copyright holder. 

For those unfamiliar with the book, Between Bridgers was written by F. Mary Wilson in 1966, and was illustrated throughout by Mary Want.  I only got my paws on a copy recently, and I really could have made good use of it before.  Mary Wilson was a resident of Rotherhithe's Downtown area, the Head Teacher of Redriff Primary School and had expert knowledge of the area.  More than that, she had a real feel for the place, its present and its past. The "bridgers" of the book's title are the swing and lift bridges that crossed a number of cuts (links between different docks) in the Surrey Commercial Docks.  Although the book is not exclusively about Downtown, it does take a distinctly Downtown-centric view of things, and that's really refreshing because most books about Rotherhithe focus on the area around St Mary's Church, which is nowadays referred to as Rotherhithe village.

The book is divided into a number of chapters, which of which explores a different aspect of life in Rotherhithe:

1. Rotherhithe Street - The Heart of Down Town
2. River Mist
3. Religious Life Down Town
4. Education
5. Surrey Commercial Docks
6. Floods and Disasters
7. Redriff in Literature
8. Signs of the Sea
9. Epilogue

The book was printed in 1966 by Copyprints Ltd of Borough High Street. Copyprints continue to do a good job from their new Borough High Street premises, and they tell me that as they only printed the book the copyright remains with F. Mary Wilson and her descendants.  Effectively, it was self-published.

So the question becomes - does anyone know F. Mary Wilson's family?  If they are still in the area, perhaps they too would be interested in seeing the book become available once more.  And if so, would it be possible to help me to get in touch with them to talk about getting the book either reprinted or published online, so that local residents can once again benefit from Mary Wilson's personal insights into Rotherhithe peninsula?  All help would be gratefully received.  It would be really nice to see this local classic available once again, for the enjoyment of all.

Rotherhithe's Downtown area

Rotherhithe in 1914, with
Rotherhithe village to the west and
Downtown to the east

Downtown is the area along Rotherhithe Street that sits in the area behind Surrey Docks Farm.  Trinity Church, which was destroyed during the war and replaced by a 1950s version that stands today, was built to serve the Downtown area, and had its own school room attached for local children (I've written about Trinity Church on an earlier post).  Downtown was a village in its own right, just as Rotherhithe village to its west was. Stuart Rankin describes it as:

"formerly a self-contained community with its own church, chapels, schools, shops and pubs.  It was separated from the rest of the civil parish by the great sweep of the docks and the swing bridges giving access to them.  It was said in the 1890s that some elderly residents had never travelled as far as Lower Road."   

Trinity Church, on which work began in 1837

Downtown and the area that we now know as Rotherhithe village were therefore two distinct entities in the Rotherhithe peninsula, connected to each other by Rotherhithe Street, but separated from each other by the docks and probably by the less definable sense of being two separate communities, particularly as their social infrastructure, with a church, school, pubs and other facilities became established and formed the centres of local activity.  People had no need to travel away from the community to find what they needed, and Downtown developed a personality of its own.

Downtown was downriver from both Rotherhithe village and London itself.  If it does not refer to its downriver location I don't know where the name Downtown would have come from, but I am sure that the fact that it was named at all derives from the idea that this was a community in its own right.  It seems likely, looking at the maps of the area, that the Downtown area's housing, consisting of terraces of small houses, was built to accommodate the infusion of dock workers and their families.

The heart of Downtown in 1868. The abrubt
bend of the road to the right is where today the
C10 bus turns off Salter Road to turn down
Rotherhithe Street, past Trinity Church on the
left and the Surrey Docks Farm on the right

The 1868 map shows a small community sandwiched between Acorn Yard and the docks to the west and the Thames with its wharves to the west.  The river frontage included the massive Acorn Wharf timber yard (now Surrey Docks Farm and formerly one of the shipyards of the magnificent Barnard shipbuilding family),  the even bigger Durand's Wharf, Trinity Wharf, Queen's Wharf, the tiny Albion Wharf, a cooperage, another big timber yard, a number of saw mills and Nelson's Dockyard. All of these will eventually be covered in future posts - there's enough to keep me going for another decade!

Whereas today Rotherhithe village, much further along Rotherhithe Street, almost on the opposite side of the peninsula, has a clearly distinctive personality based around St Mary Rotherhithe church, Downtown was bombed fairly catastrophically during the war and retains little of its original architecture.

Trinity Church and its vicarage were destroyed by bombing on 7th September 1940, the first night of the 39-day London Blitz, a tragically memorable day for London.  At 5.30pm 348 German bombers dropped incendiary bombs on London.  A distribution map compiled from Fire Brigade records shows where and how densely the bombs fell on that day across London. Another map, on the Guardian website, shows where they fell in Rotherhithe. The bombs hit Rotherhithe so badly that the fires were uncontrollable and had to be left to burn themselves out, largely due to the intensity of the fires in the timber yards. The area was evacuated and much of the Downtown area of Rotherhithe was lost in the blaze.  Trinity Church was one of the first churches to be destroyed by German bombing.  All that now survives of its interior is a charred metal cross, with a figure of Jesus, returned to Holy Trinity in 2002. In the modern churchyard are some of the old churchyard's rather lovely tombstones, leaned up against the churchyard wall.  As a result of the war, the area has been radically developed since the 1930s, particularly during the 1990s.

However, one or two local buildings survived the Blitz, including what became known as the Dockland Settlement, the fourth location for a charity started by a wealthy playwright called Reginald Kennedy Cox (http://www.docklandsettlements.org.uk/).  The Dockland Settlement incorporated what was clearly once a rather nice chapel, the Ebenezer Chapel (a Norwegian place of worship and seamen mission), together with a contemporary two storey house, which was also obviously once very attractive. The Ebenezer Chapel and the attached house were recorded by archaeologists of the AOC Archaeology Group before it was demolished, and that 33 page report can be found here on the Archaeology Data Service website.  It describes the chapel as follows:  "This was built in 1871 for the local Norwegian population. This building was recorded to Level 2 standard as defined by English Heritage Guidelines."  The photograph on this post is a screen-grab from that report, showing the Ebenezer Chapel, that stood at the site until recently.  There's a brief but good explanation of the background to the word Ebenezer (not a name, as I ignorantly thought, but from the Hebrew, meaning "stone of help") on the Missouri Conference website: http://www.moumethodist.org/news/detail/831.

The pastor's house was attached to the chapel.  This was a two storey building with a hipped slate roof that was probably contemporary with the chapel and certainly dated to the 1870s.   The Dockland settlement, complete with chapel and pastor's house, was demolished to make way for a new block of flats in 2013.

The 1870s Pastor's House, before demolition
(from the AOC Archaeology Group report)

Ebenzer Chapel, 1871, showing the porch to the southeast of the nave
(from the AOC Archaeology Group report)

The new development on the corner of
Odessa Street, where the Ebenezer Chapel and the
Pastor's house once stood, February 2015

The future of the Surrey Docks Health Centre

At a rare visit to the Surrey Dock Health Centre during the week, the following information was being stuck to the walls.  This might be of interest for anyone who is registered with the surgery and wants to know what the future holds for it now that the new Downtown development by Barratts is in full swing.  As people concerned with the development will probably already know, provision was made in the planning submission for the existing health centre to be demolished and replaced with a new one that will be incorporated into the Barratts development.

Patient Participation Group

Join us for our Annual General Meeting
Everyone Welcome!
Wednesday 12th June 6.30pm

Information Evening

• Find out more about the New Health Centre from Barrett's
• Find out about what the PPG do
• Informal evening with wine and nibbles
• A chance to meet other patients and members of the practice team

You can find out details from the Surrey Docks Health Centre website at:
http://www.surreydockshc.co.uk/

The existing health centre, which looked terribly unloved and run down even before Barratts started tearing down trees and bulldozing the site, must have been quite an avant garde structure for a health centre development in its day, with its central courtyard garden, the tall, steeply slanted roof providing natural light for the waiting room and the surrounding outdoor seating areas under the trees.  Never a thing of beauty, it did have some very real virtues and it is a shame that it should have become so very downtrodden.

Another lot from 29th May

. . .

Downtown Pond (lower)
Yellow flag and reeds

Wonderful to see the water levels so healthy!

Cut-leaved cranesbill
Geranium dissectum
Geraniaceae
Annual

Magpie (Pica pica) at Downtown Pond
with Yellow Flag in the background

Curled Dock
Rumex acetosella
Polygonaceae
Perennial

A bee enjoying the Budleia globosa in the butterfly sanctuary
. . .

More from Sunday 10th May

As well as the more obvious floral effusions there are tiny little contributions which hide in the grass and often need to be looked for. Tiny vetches, speedwells and birds foot trefoils can be found throughout the ecological park and in parts of the open areas in the woodland.

There aren't many birds to be seen - far too busy feeding their offspring, I assume. I stood and listened to one of the bird boxes where a cacophony of noise made it very clear that a family had made their home there. The noise level rose to even greater levels when a Great Tit flew in and seconds later flew out again, obviously having left its food offering.

The damselflies at the Downtown Pond were great to see. One of them, a female Azure (shown below), appears in neither of my insect books and I found it online on the British Dragonfly Society website, where it says that this colouring is characteristic of the newly emerged insect. If you want to see what local insects are around in this area, the best resource is easily Les Butler's Walks With My Camera which is attracting quite a following.

Common Vetch
Vicia sativa
Leguminosae
Annual

Azure Damselfly (newly emerged)
Coenagrion puella

Germander Speedwell
Veronica chamaedrys
Scrophulariaceae
Perennial

Dwarf form of Birdsfoot Trefoil
Lotus corinculatus
Leguminosae
Perennial

Ribwort Plantain
Plantago lanceolata
Plantaginaceae
Perennial

Still trying to find this one.

Blue skies and new shoots

I arrived in the Russia Dock Woodland at 12.15, having had to return to the house once to get more clothing. It was deceptively sunny out there. Beautiful, but with a serious wind chill factor. I haven't been in the park since early April and it always amazes me how, in all seasons except winter, the colours and patterns change so quickly. There are thousands of insects everywhere. Some plants have gone over after a brief explosion of life, some which have been in flower for a long time have grown thicker and richer and new colours are everywhere.

The daffodils have gone over completely, leaving behind only a few dead heads surviving over tall dark leaves. The blackthorn bloosom has gone over but has been replaced by bright new leaves. The glorious gorse is reaching the end of its life with some patches already brown whilst others are an explosion of dense bright orange-yellow clusters. A tiny handful of celendines remain.

But whilst some plants are coming to the end of their seasonal display, others which have been around since early spring have continued to flourish and are spreading across the park like bright legions. At ground level speedwell, common chickweed and purple dead nettle are mixing with the dandelions and daisies, providing an absolute riot of colour in the short grass. Some of the dandelions have already produced translucent white globes, brilliant in the wind, floating away on the wind with the blossom petals. Groundsell is lurking everywhere. Looking upwards there is cherry blossom in full bloom and everywhere new buds and leaves are appearing. Taller white dead nettels are spreading, white garlic mustard is going mad and there are more patches of purple honesty. The more mature garlic mustard plants have now developed seed pods which is good news for the orange tipped white butterfly whose caterpillars particularly like them as food. Green alkanet is forming dense clumps with its bright blue flowers. I thought that the violets had vanished completely but I was enhancted to see a small patch of valiant survivors in a corner of the ecological park.

New flowers which have appeared since my last visit include meadow buttercups, bluebells in light blue and pink, greater celandine (which looks nothing like lesser celandine), wallflower and three-cornered garlic with its delicate white bells. There were also enchanting deep pink flowers, tiny little things hiding in the grass surrounding the green, possibly mountain cranesbill. These little bright pink gems are few and far between but look out for them because they reward closer examination. Shepherd's purse is spreading itself over a large area, with its distinctive little heart-shaped seedpods. Even wild strawberries have established themselves. Rather less delicate, cow parsely dominates huge patches of the woodland.

In shurbs and trees the elder flowers have appeared, big domes of white flowers over big dark leaves. The hawthorn is now in blossom and looks very fine.

In all the damp zones yellow flag leaves are growing tall and in the damp bed opposite Stave Hill Pond the reeds are beginning to come through, which is very pleasing. The ponds all need more water, but there will be good-news a post about that in the next few days. The water in Stave Hill Pond is as clear as I have ever seen it and little fish, some as long as two inches, were darting around in the sun.

There were lots of flies, bombulius majors, bees, hover flies, butterflies and a single wasp. There were lots of speckled wood butterflies and a number of whites, although the whites remain elusive as they refused to settle. There were no commas today.

Water birds were mainly on Globe Pond - mallards, coots, moorhens and a single Canada goose. In the trees and shrubs the only birds I could identify apart from the ubiquitous pigeons and magpies were robins and Great Tits. I could hear plenty of different types of bird song but could not see the perpetrators.

There were no butterflies in the butterfly sanctuary but it is beginning to return to life, slowly. The grass is beginning to grow and plants are gaining height.

Throughout the ecological park the vetch is coming back, which will be delightful when it comes into flower. The roses are also looking healthy and should be in flower in the next few months.

I saw a single squirrel but no foxes.

On the green, as I headed back towards the bridge over Redriff Road, there are two additional park benches.

Walking past Redriff School before crossing the bridge I looked into the fenced off devestation that is the Downtown site. I was sad to see that the compass sculpture still hasn't been moved to a suitable location and is still surrounded by barriers. The trees that once stood around it have been felled to a foot from the ground and now all that remains are the bare raw stumps.

The Thames Path was quiet in spite of the perfection of the day, but the Surrey Docks Farm was busy with families happily exploring the sights. I was hoping to see the piglets but the path was blocked off with the warning "bee swarm".

On leaving the farm I was horrified to see that the animal sculptures are no longer there. Have they been removed for their safety or have they been stolen? If anyone knows please let me know.

On Greenland Dock everything was quiet. A single juvenile seagull was busy, but the only other area of interest was the pontoon by the Norway Cut Swing Bridge where a pair of coots have made their nest with a vast array of plastic and aquatic vegetation. The coots already have two chicks which are already quite huge! Three unwary mallards were soon given their marching orders as the chicks preened on the pontoon, unconcerned.

I will post more photographs in the next couple of days.

A brief visit

After the demoralizing visit to the Downtown site with other members of the DDC I wasn't really feeling like celebrating the joys of spring and I really wasn't ready for a light hearted walk. But we had a newcomer, Lisa, amongst us so we took her into the park beyond the site where the trees have now been completely smashed. It was useful to show her what the site backs on to, and the areas which the development will impact. I am glad that we went because the Downtown site may have made me thoroughly miserable but the park cheered me up no end.

Steve took the mick out of me about having a broken memory card in my camera last time and asked if everything was okay this time. I said that it was but it was a huge sin of omission - the only lens I had with me was the macro lens on the camera, which wasn't exactly great for either the Downtown fiasco or for good views of the parks. Never mind.

We walked out of the site around Downtown pond, where I was lucky enough to see a Great Tit or Blue Tit, which was busy making a nest in one of the boxes made and put up by the local school. I was particularly glad to see it because my father and I had seen one sounding out the very same nest as early as the 28th December 2008, which I photographed and posted. I got an almost identical picture today. At the base of the tree there was a big clump of Honesty coming into flower, with purple blooms and untidy green leaves. We pointed out the bat boxes to Lisa, which occupy trees on the same row.

Sue Agnew told me that she had seen a heron at the Downtown pond yesterday, and we wondered whether this was the same one that had been here all last year. We also wondered about the nesting habits of herons but we needed Mike Scott to let us know, and left none the wiser. When I got home I looked them up. Grey herons nest in trees, sometimes as solitary couples but often in colonies. I was initially surprised about the fact that they sometimes live in colonies, only ever having seen individual herons in England. But I then remembered the many times that I have seen herons in groups on the granite boulders in Aswan, all sharing each others space. Perhaps English herons, like some English people, prefer the politel formality of keeping one's own space private rather than the Egyptian custom of forming happily gregarious groups :-)

The next stop was Globe Pond. There was a lot going on. A small girl in a bright pink coat was feeding a whole host of mallards and some coots, accompanied by her father, and beyond them we spotted a lovely grey heron and two very fat Canada geese.

Proceeding through the ecological park we passed blossom and violets, many Bombulius major and bees, and two comma butterflies. Stave Hill itself was covered in daffodils which sparkled in the sun, and the view from the top over the woodland was wonderful. The woodland below was a blend of colours provided by new leaves and blossoms, a fabulous range of shades picked out in bright sunlight.

I went home directly from Stave Hill, mainly because I was beginning to get cold. I saw nothing more of specific interest other than a small white terrier who was making himself thoroughly wet and dirty in the soggy channel that runs parallel to Waterman's Walk, and which I am fairly sure belongs to Antony. But the light was fantastic, a silvery pale-gold which filtered through the trees and picked out all the bright new greens. Lovely.

There were lots of people in the woodland and ecological park today, and it was very enjoyable to see everyone having such a good time.

When I arrived home I took some work onto the terrace and went to watch the world go by on and around Greenland Dock for the next couple of hours. Unlike the parks the dock was surprisingly quiet. There were no boats and only a few birds using the water, and not many people walking along the paths which surround it. Of the birds there were the inevitable coots and some seagulls. Two Canada geese floated up, perhaps the same pair that had been at Globe Pond earlier in the day. The highlight of the birdlife was a shag which flew the length of the dock only inches above the surface, so black that it almost blended with the darkness of the waters. I love the shags and cormorants. When swimming along the surface their bodies are almost completely submerged and they look around them endlessly, constantly alert. When they sit on the buoy with their wings held out to the sunshine or breeze they seem almost eternal, like statues. Beautiful. I saw one fishing yesterday and he caught a really big fish, which he proceeded to dispatch in an awesomely efficient way.

Spring life, colours and shapes.

I was woken, for the umpteenth morning in a row, to the sound of coots on the dock. They make the most god-awful din.

I looked out at the bright sunshine and got up with the happy intention of going over the road to see what, if anything, had emerged since the weekend. It wasn't a particularly early start in the end, and I left the house at just gone 11am. But everything seemed to be fast asleep. There were only one or two birds crouching in trees, and I had the park to myself at first. But it soon started to wake up. My first happy sighting was a rusty coloured Wren, immediately followed by a gaggle of Blue Tits where the pigeons usually sit. I was attracted to them by the sheer volume of noise that they produced.

I went to see the Downtown ponds but there was nothing new to see. On Globe Pond there were several pairs of mallard, which was nice to see, and an inevitable bunch of coots, but no frogs or toads are spawning in their usual place.

Walking into the ecological park bird song was so loud that it filled the entire air. The most distinctive voice was that of the Great Tit, with its repetitive call, but I also saw sparrows, finches, robins, starlings and blackbirds as well as the much larger crows, pigeons and magpies.

The shapes and colours of new shoots and flowers continue to fascinate and enchant. Pink blossom has joined white, and the great clouds of gentle colour are lovely. I saw one small clump of primroses and they were super to see, an unexpected pleasure.

There was more insect life than in previous weeks. There were several flies and I saw a number of comma butterflies including one which stayed quite motionless for several minutes in the sun. I also saw a couple of white, but they were too far away for me to identify. Honey bees are taking advantage of the pollen-laden pussy willow which is all over the ecological park and the woodland, and there were a couple of bumble bees in the grass.

There were no foxes to be seen but I saw too very busy squirrels.

I walked back via the Downtown site where metal railings are now in position around the compass. There was no felling taking place. Other work being carried out between the Health Centre carpark and the road appeared to have something to do with large piles of sand or earth.

I crossed the rbidge and had the Thames Path entirely to myself, which was an eerie feeling.

Walking back along Greenland Dock the peace was only broken by the wretched coots, which were tearing the air apart with their screams. As soon as one starts the others all join in and the din is deafening. Apart from the coots the only other birds that saw were a handful of seagulls, three mallards and two swans.

The scene at the Moby was entirely different from that of the previous weekend. When I rounded Tavistock Tower at 1230 there was simply no-one there. All the benches were empty. The contrast betweeen the heaving chaos of Sunday with the over-heated people, the semll of chips and ketchup versus today's peaceful quietness was truly remarkable. Not that I have anything against chips and ketchup but it was all a bit overwhelming in the warmth of the day.

The weather forecast predicted cloud for the afternoon, but I am glad that it was wrong. It has been an idyllic day.

Sunshine is like magic - it brings us all to life

Today was the perfect day for getting a few chores done before heading out without further delay into a stunningly beautiful spring extravaganza.

I delayed to plant out some flowers which I had bought earlier in the week, updated two of my websites, swiftly consumed a hasty brunch of home made rillettes on toast, and I was ready for off. I left at 1220, launching myself into the bright sunshine, heading forth beneath a flawless blue sky. Great stuff.

The spring greenery is coming along nicely, new shoots appearing whilst existing ones begin to expand or break out of buds. The crocuses are over now, but the daffodils are emerging in bright shifts and the violets have expanded to cover an area far larger than I recall from previous years. They are quite wonderful. Yellow Flag irises are flourishing in any damp area, only inches tall so far. Newly flowering plants include forsythia, campanula and speedwell. Lots of trees of all sizes are about to explode into full blossom, with one or two already putting on a very fine pure white show. Catkins and pussy willow are everywhere and both the Woodland and the Ecological Park breathe life and energy.

In the Russia Dock Woodland there were small brids singing but they were all very high in the trees, perhaps because of the sheer volume of people wandering around. The only birds braving the ground level were the crows, magpies and blackbirds., the latter making a huge din as they turned over old leaves. I checked last year's woodpecker nest which was near to the Green but although it was clearly visible there were no signs of an occupant. It was a different story in the Ecological Park where thickets of low level trees and shrubs offer greater protection at a lower level. Here there were lots of birds singing although the only ones I actually saw were Robins and Great Tits. The spring plumage of the Robins is so bright that it is almost impossible not to find them when you hear their song and look for them. They are wonderful.

A couple of mallards were on the Downtown pond but the only other aquatic birds to appear in any number were a few coots and moorhens on Globe pond.

There were no foxes or squirrels and very few signs of pond life, although it must be down there somewhere. Insects are beginning to emerge. There was a crowd of honey bees on a tree with pollen-loaded catkins by the Green, next to Waterman's Walk and I saw two white butterflys and three yellow ones. The whites were too far away to narrow down, but there was no doubt about the vivid yellow ones, which look as though they have been painted with highlighter pens, and were obviously Brimstones.

In the butterfly sanctuary the grass is still short, and there are no signs of insect life, but the shrubberies are coming back to life and small squares of exposed earth in the grass mark places where new plants have been recently planted., hopefully to attract butterflies and other insects. I hope that they grow to be happy members of the community! I was looking out for Les Butler in the Stave Hill area but although he wasn't there it was good to see someone else inspecting the butterfly sanctuary with an interested eye.

I headed towards the SurreyDocks Health Centre, aiming to cross the road using the bridge and walk some of the Thames Path. A sorry spectacle awaited. As well as the ugly wooden hoardings that have been erected by Barratt Homes, there are now metal fences which seal off the entire health centre site. The devestation visible through the bars of the fences made me feel rather sick - big mature plane and cherry trees, some up to 25 years old, felled and left lying over what was once a communal seating area for visitors to the health centre and the nearby school. One of the trees has been felled and left to lie on top of one of the Dockland Development Corporation's sculptures, a compass which once filtered water to form a fountain at the centre of a seating area shaded by tall trees. The trees were lost, miserably, last week but surely the sculpture could be saved? I really don't know how Barratt's can justify this blatant pice of disrespect for a landmark feature installed in the days when local authorities cared about the area. The sculpture should have been moved. It is community property. This cold disregard for our local property makes me very angry.

Abandoning the truly depressing carnage I crossed the footbridge and headed for the Thames Path, passing more banks of daffodils. It was nice to see lots of people enjoying the sunshine. I walked back through the Surrey Dock Farm which was full of families admiring and interacting with the animals. The pigs, which I adore, were all sunbathing. The donkeys were being much-pampered and all the livestock seemed to be enjoying the day, along with the rest of us. At the Farm's pond I paused to look in and there were hundreds of frogs or toads enjoying the sun. It was too sunny to see which they were, but it was great to see them all there. I must keep an eye open at Globe Pond because if they are at the Farm they must be at the pond soon.

I came back home along the side of Greenland Dock. Yesterday there were Great Crested Grebes but today I could only see one. The shag was in his usual place, wings spread wide as he balanced on a buoy in the centre of the dock. One pair of coots have set up their nest on a pontoon by the Norway Cut Swing Bridge, and their nest is adorned with a tangled mess of bright and very ugly bits of plastic bag, wrappers and bin liners. Yesterday a Great Crested Grebe was stealing a piece of binliner from the pontoon.

I rounded the corner of Tavistock Tower, the former dock inlet into Russia Dock, to come back into Russell Place and was confronted with chaos and bedlam at the Moby Dick. The place was absolutely heaving with people downing drinks and vast plates of food. Poor Margaret was delivering and removing plates and collecting empties as fast as her legs would carry her.

When I returned home I sat on our communal terrace and watched the world go by on Greenland Dock, and on the walkways around it. Sailing boats, bicycles, people with pushchairs, groups of people, even one lunatic swimming - they all passed by, blured to the waterside by the bright sunshine and the warmth. For the first time in months I bumped into people I haven't seen for many months, even though they are quite close neighbours. It was good to chat. The sun has brought us all out once again.

I'll post more photographs from today over the next couple of days.

Last lot from Friday 27th February 2009

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Canary wharf seen from the Downtown Pond
through a lovely curtain of catkins and silver birch bark

A lovely display of reeds at Downtown pond

Violet, Stave Hill Ecological Park
Just on the basis of my photographs it could be any one of three.
I need to go back for a better look. Life is so hard! :-)

Garlic Mustard
Alliaria petiolata
Brassiacaceae
Biennial

Named for the smell emanating from the leaves, when crushed.
Can be used for food flavourings and medicinal purposes.
Apparently if cows eat the leaves it taints the taste of the milk produced
One foodplant for the caterpillars of the Orange-tip butterfly which like to eat the seed pods

Crocus

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