Andy's holiday walks

Andy took a week off at the beginning of August, so I thought that was a great opportunity to bore him with some of the walks I go on about all the time.

The afternoon after the ill-fated Circle Line pub crawl, we had a lovely 2 hour ramble through Brent River Park (under Hanwell viaduct, along the River Brent, across at least 3 Golf Courses and ending up on top of the A40 with a magnificant view of the new Wembley, the Hoover Building and Starvin' Marvins Diner!).

The next day we headed east and did the 'Old and New in Docklands' walk, backwards.

We started at Westferry DLR, through Limehouse and Shadwell - it was from Shadwell Basin that Charles Dickens set sail on The Amazon for America.

Ropemakers Field and the surrounding areas of Limehouse is where Dickens' 'Our Mutual Friend' was set, and Oscar Wilde's 'Dorian Gray' comes to score some opium. War poet Wilfred Owen wrote of Shadwell stair: "I am the ghost of Shawell Stair. Along the wharves by the water-house, And through the dripping slaughterhouse, I am the shadow that walks there". There are some eerie bits to this part of east London - but mainly it's gorgoeous dockside apartments now.

We popped into 'London's oldest Riverside pub', The Prospect of Whitby. Built in 1520 it was originally known as The Devil's Tavern after its clientele of smugglers and criminals. But sadly, it's no long seedy and has a great view of Docklands and the city.

We continued by wandering through the converted wharves and warehouses of Wappping and into the gorgeous decadent St Katharine's Dock. From there we wandered along the river to the Globe - where we watched a great production of A Winter's Tale.