Visiting the redeveloped Battersea Power Station for the first time.
It’s amazing.
It cost upwards of £7.5 billion.

Here’s a little 🧵 about parking your bike. 2/ When you arrive, you’re greeted by these cute ‘Bike Hub’ signs.

1/ It’s a beautiful day and I’m on leave so I’m going for a walk. 2/ I’m going to look for football. There’s a lot of football in London.

I have a manuscript written in the early 1820s by a clergyman named Robert Fiske. It’s a long, terrible poem called ‘The Seasons’.
So, for a small adventure, I’m going to Fulbourn, near Cambridge, to see the church where he ministered for 45 years.
Then I’m cycling home. 2/ First stop, @hotnumbers in Gwydir Street for breakfast with @RobertHanks then, via Cherry Hinton Brook and Fulbourn windmill, to St Vigor’s, Fulbourn, where Fiske was rector from 1781 to 1826.
Excellent tomb there (not Fiske’s, obv).
On, on.

6/
St Paul’s, Bow Common, had the door open to air the church so I took a look inside to see Charles Lutyens’ mosaics in Maguire and Murray’s amazing building. Thank you so much to Mother Bernadette (and Julian) for making me welcome. 7/
After that it was a bit of a race: past Dod Street, where I worked at the DHSS in the 80s; St Luke’s Victoria Dock, like a great upturned ship; across the Royal Docks and past Tate & Lyle.

1/
I stripped the bike to the bearings yesterday and now it’s cleaned and rebuilt, so today I’m out in the sunshine.
New stickers courtesy @UGClimbing and @hgskate with thanks. 2/
First stop, haberdashery: the brilliant @williamgeeUK, in Dalston, for sewing supplies. Thanks for your help.

#Cummings
Holy cow, he’s sitting down. #Cummings
Sitting down, in the garden, like a man who’s chosen an amusing ‘outdoor’ Zoom background.

#ReasonsToBeCheerful no.66
Elderflower cordial quietly steeping. #ReasonsToBeCheerful no.67
Elderflower cordial quietly resting, waiting to be bottled in a fortnight.

1/14
Here’s quite a long story.
I was mardy yesterday so I got on my bike and rode.
It made me happy.
These are my #ReasonsToBeCheerful, nos. 43-65, starting with my bike (again), no.43. 2/14
I stopped first by the river at Bermondsey Wall, opposite Wapping Pier Head and looked west towards St Paul’s and Tower Bridge.

1/5
Apropos nothing.

At Whitsun 1972 we stayed in a damp cottage on the North York moors.
I was 7 years old and my holiday money for the week was 17½p.
Yes. 17½p. 2/5
One rainy day (they were all rainy days) we went to Runswick Bay.
Today I would think Runswick Bay beautiful, even in the rain.
But at 7 years old, the only thing I found to be of the slightest interest was a small, pottery hippo in a shop.
I really liked the hippo.

1/6
Hi, @LauraJCleaver, here’s the story about ‘The Case of the Late Pig’.
Many years ago I worked as Research Assistant to Ted Heath.
Not the band leader.
The former Prime Minister.
Don’t judge me.
I needed a job. 2/6
I wrote briefing papers on music teaching in state schools (in favour), bad residential care homes (against) and did some desultory archival work for his autobiography at his very nice house in Salisbury.

#ReasonstobeCheerful no.1
We may not have to endure The Hundred this summer. #ReasonsToBeCheerful no.2
These leaves

I suddenly have 666 followers.
Should I be worried? It’s ok.
The Devil immediately made three people unfollow me to throw me off the scent.

Words that I distrust:
‘state-of-the-art digital hub’. Words that I distrust:
‘Eatery’

It’s my last visit to the Vigilante Feminists of Woodlands as the Vigilante Feminists deconstruct and disband after four glorious years.
So, it’s the van & boxes visit and I’m rather sad. We are packing.
The cat is not.

Proper cricket.
It’s a nightmare. Proper cricket.
It’s perfect.

So, the rain stopped over an hour ago. The covers are off. The umpires have inspected. But the toss isn’t till 3 and no play before 3.30.
Seriously?
Will someone please get a move on? Three minutes till the toss and it’s raining again.
Of course.

Today I will mostly be making a knife with the @greenwoodguild a @StepneyCityFarm
I am unreasonably excited. I have hammered the tang.
Haven’t we all?

The former New Douce Room steps en route to their new workplace, via the 8.13 to Bromley South.
Next stop, Herne Hill.
Getting them home from there should be hilarious.
#MuseumSurplus It’s a long way from the Hope books.

Under this blue sky, I am riding with aching limbs up to @BBCRadio2 to #PauseforThought with @achrisevans
I feel old.
I wonder if I’m old?
So I’m thinking about getting old. About one minute to #PauseforThought
I am never not nervous at this point.

#Thread 1/5
People talk about #CentristDads as if we are a species of gently apologetic marsupials.
But we are not.
The centre, as conceived as a position between left and right, no longer exists.
The extremes today are truth and untruth and I am an extremist for truth. 2/5
And like many extremists, my extremism is fuelled by anger.
I am angry at the abandonment of even the pretence that politicians are driven by anything other than the rankest self-interest and lust for power.

Things from the #PeopesVoteMarch today.
1. A lot of people 2. Surprisingly camp Atlas supporting the porch of Thomas Gainsborough’s next-door neighbours in Pall Mall.