Wimbledon Common
Putney Heath
Sunday stroll through Fulham, Putney and Wimbledon. But it is hard not to see just my lockdown routes in this area close to home. We all did them, these permitted daily exercise walks, desperate to escape the four walls that we call “home” but also anxious to “stop the spread” or catch Covid and be part of the problem.
Sometimes I walked my routes with milk cartons refilled with water just to up the exercise value, sometimes with a camera doing photography exercises, sometimes to share on my blog what I saw.
One friend enumerated his: Route A, B C etc so he could alternate. Eventually there were places we could meet outdoors, those park benches have a special aura, labelled invisibly with those first tentative and precious steps back to sociability.
Yet my daily exercise walks saw me through the lockdowns, though now there are memories lurking at every significant view. I’m thinking that the best way to exorcise these ghosts of lockdown is to walk these over-familiar routes again, trying to see the beauty around me afresh and anew now that my status is “fully vaccinated”. Maybe I’m also working on “survivor guilt”.
Today’s route was Fulham, crossing the Thames at Putney Bridge then enjoying the last of the autumn leaves on Putney Heath and Wimbledon Common.
Not the Blue Danube - the River Thames seen from Putney Bridge
Sub-tropical Fulham