The passage of time in Wellington and elsewhere
A walk today that started from Trafalgar Square. The above was taken in St. James’ Park.
We walked from B. Palace to Westminster. In Parliament Square there were all the flags of the Commonwealth on display as part of a current celebration.
Later, after walking along the Southbank and then back across the millennium bridge and a moody image looking downstream.
Long term known to the locals as a local.
I seem to be struggling with the format of this thing currently, but here goes.
On Friday, the walk we followed was as action of the Capital Ring and the Green Chain Walk; the latter component of which did seem to be that much more pleasant.
In total the walking was about 22 Km, a little more than planned.
The end stop was Nunhead cemetery which has been close to admissions for many years and nature has reclaimed the area, and so it is very beautiful. However, there are a number of war graves sites, which of course, continue to be maintained.
I am starting to think on promotion, and that it is more likely this season, after a close effort last season with the play-off final loss. Brentford seem so resolute even if less exciting? In the news;
Brentford recovered from a poor start to win 4-1 at Middlesbrough and climb into the top two in the Championship.
Middlesbrough were 1-0 up inside three minutes when the Brentford goalkeeper David Raya failed to collect Neeskens Kebano’s cross. However, the visitors were level in the 38th minute when Ivan Toney tapped in after good work by Tariqe Fosu – and they took control after the break.
Vitaly Janelt (58) fired home from the edge of the box after the top scorer Toney had headed the ball down for him, Mathias Jensen (64) made it 3-1 following a slip from Paddy McNair, before Toney tapped in the fourth 10 minutes from time.
A beautiful experience with Shaz and Isaac.
Another late decision as the number of cases increase. So after all the confidence and bonhomie of planning for normality, the reality again imposes itself and restrictions to deal with the latest surge must be tightened.
So EQ stays in Scotland at least. Parcel services are to be used to quickly send presents up north. I expect there is a lot of misery across London and the south-east.
“Perhaps we should call this new Covid-19 variant the “Grinch strain”. As coronavirus in a mutated, more contagious form scuppers plans for festive gatherings, the front pages can do little to hang a bauble on the news. At least you could buy a copy of all today’s papers to keep you occupied during the times of suppressed joy ahead. Puzzle specials, added sections and other extras abound in these final Sunday editions before Christmas …”
At school, the homophobic bullying was worst on the rugby pitch. But the Steelers helped me rediscover my love for the game – and myself
‘Over time the Steelers won the respect of these straight burly British men because not only did they beat them on occasion, they showed them that we’re all pretty much the same.’
So you can imagine my surprise when years later, a rugby club would go on to change my life. Not just any rugby club, the world’s first gay rugby club, the Kings Cross Steelers in London.
I have previously written about my memories of going to GP for my first game. I managed to track down the game with the use of THE ENGLISH NATIONAL FOOTBALL ARCHIVE. I narrowed it down to the Boxing Day match in 1971.
Now I have found more information after buying book about Griffin Park.
From that I can see that it was a big match with a remarkably large crowd of 18,000+.
This also invokes the memory of once queuing for ages to get in with my Dad. So maybe this was the match and it was almost a family day out!
Last weekend I took up the opportunity offered by the club to visit the stadium for a last time. The offer was made by the club in light of the pandemic curtailing the final season and a good will offer to season ticket holders in particular. Anyone could go it seems as the original offer was oversubscribed before he season ticket holders had a chance to get in. Anyway it worked out in the end. Here is my late recording.
And finally the image I uploaded to be ‘in the crowd’ for the games at the stadium that were played behind closed doors. I never did see myself on the telly but here I am:
It was a good trip in the company of Anthony. I saw parts of the ground that I had never seen- great view of the pitch from the away end upper tier, for example, or parts I had not been to for many years.
A nice piece of nostalgia.