The cat of Shoreditch

It was a lovely, sunny morning and I was due up in North London to see a friend and his family. It would have taken a lot of faffing by tube and train to get there so Fred persuaded me to cycle. It was a really lovely run. I led the way to Elephant and Castle following my route to work, then Fred took over using the CycleStreets app on his iPhone. We wound our way through the City up through islington and over to Old Street. I was overwhelmed by the wealth of street art on one square in Shoreditch. I was happy to spot a SpaceInvader quite near this cat creature, but the cat creature won the blip. Can you see the hands at the edges of the building? You may have to view it large.

After a tea stop near Mile End, it began to drizzle and the windy streets with interesting houses opened into widened roads full of stationary, angry traffic. However, the park at Palmer's Green was a balm for the cyclist's soul. We appeared on our hosts' doorstep not glowing with enthusiastic sunny sporting exploits, but dripping with rain and wearing determined expressions. It took us about two and a half hours to cycle 18 miles, with lots of route-finding. It's great to piece together various London areas and we felt much better for having been out and about. I felt a little dreadful discarding my sodden coat, gloves and shoes on various radiators and I hope I haven't put my friends' children off cycling adventures!

I had a really fun afternoon and evening catching up with Alex and his family. I'm ashamed to say that I hadn't met his daughter (who's four) and hadn't seen his son since he was two. It's not as if they live a million miles away! It's a poor excuse to say that we all lead busy lives with lots of pulls in various directions, but that's the truth of it. I'll make sure that it won't be a five years before we all meet up again.

I especially enjoyed meeting the gerbils and giving lessons on how to draw various rodents, but I can see that I have a little competition - little M drew a most impressive gerbil indeed.

I won the Scrabble, though, and that's the main thing!

Fred and I had an amazing night cycle through the city of London between King's Cross and London Bridge - we had the place to ourselves!