comings and goings::2

In the balmy days of October last year, I had to run an errand to Canning Town and rode down the romantically named Twelvetrees Crescent which crosses over the River Lea in Bromley-by-Bow.   It is, for the most part, a modern industrial estate but there are the looming remains of Victorian gas towers, a neglected planting of trees and, intriguingly, a dead end with a set of locked gates .  I found out later that this was probably the home of the now defunct London Gas Museum (There is, you'll be pleased to hear, a National Gas Museum elsewhere).  I went back last week hoping to find the old building, or at least a cache of spring flowers among the trees. No success on either score.  It turned out that the little wood was overgrown and littered with discarded cans.  There was a clearing on the edge with a memorial to the men of the Gas Light and Coke Company who had died during the Great War.

And, quite touchingly, a gas lit lamp burning high up  surrounded by the overgrown trees.

I cycled home in the coolth along the canal to Fish Island hoping to find a bit of nature.  Some birds were flitting around in the ivy, a few water birds fussed around and a cormorant flew low over the water.  Then around the bend, the Olympic Stadium lorded it and it was time to turn off and head back home.