Pound for pound

My last money news was that I had £3.96

Well, my simian friend let me give you an update. My finds since then have seen me pass the £4 mark!

BUT.WAIT.

Coming home from work yesterday mulling over my goal of reaching the promised land of £5 in 12 calendar months I looked in the road and saw something black. It was too circular to be a squashed bottle top (the scurge of my money finding adventures) so I decided to check it out. I bent over to get a better look but still couldn’t make out what it was so I decided to pick it up. As I reached for it I noticed some tell-tale ridges around its rim and realised with immense glee that it could only be a £1 coin. And indeed it was. It was thick with oil and dirt. I think this was why no one had picked it up. It just didn’t look like a coin. Actually, it didn’t look much like anything.

I have to say that I have rarely been happier. Finding money is excellent. I was about 200 metres from home and I simply could not stop smiling. I hoped D and S were in so I could tell me of my good news that I’d reached my £5 goal after months of toil (yes it was toil!). They were in but as always, did not share my joy when I skipped in, merely telling me that I am a criminal for not handing in cash that I’ve found! Splitters!

I found 5p in Brighton a couple of weeks ago also. I have mixed in with my collection the money that I’ve found in Birmingham, Brighton and Coventry. What a quandry. Now I can’t buy some piece of kitsch tat with money found purely in London.

In total so far – the money I’ve found amounts to -

£5.28!

and NG said I would be lucky to find £2.00!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Go me!

Let’s sing -

Sunny day – Sweepin’ the clouds away,
On my way to where the air is sweet.
Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street.

Come and play, everything’s A-OK
Friendly neighbors there that’s where we meet
Can you tell me how to get
How to get to Sesame Street

It’s a magic carpet ride.  Every door will open wide.
Happy people like you.  Happy people who.

Like a beautiful sunny day sweepin’ the clouds away
On my way to where the air is sweet
Can you tell me how to get,
How to get to Sesame street, how to get to Sesame Street,   How to get to . . .

Brighton Misc’

Gosh, my third post this evening…

NG and I went to Brighton on Friday.

Here are some random pictures.

Hey look, it’s that Victorian monstrosity Brighton Pier. I quite like this picture. It’s an analogy for Brighton and every other seaside town really I think. On the surface everything is bright, shiny and smiley but underneath it’s rotting, dirty, unkempt, cold and neglected. Still, it supports everything else. Jeebus, I’m in a pensive and reflective mood tonight.

Now this pier has character. Just look at it. It’s magnificent!

Near and far.

NG and I decided to build Pebble-Henge. Isn’t it marvelous? The larger pebbles were imported from Wales you know?

It’s sure to stay up for generations.

Hello darkness my old street

Ha, that’s a clever title and no mistake.

I get the train from Old Street Tube on the way home from work. On the opposite track, which is nearly always empty (as the train only has one more stop after Old Street – Moorgate), there is the tunnel entrance that seems different to the others in London. I don’t know why exactly. Perhaps it’s because the station is so empty and the design seems to soak up sound in the way I haven’t experienced in other Tube stations.

I have become rather interested in this particular tunnel as it just seems to devour the light. Peer as you might into the tunnel, you cannot see a thing. It is only when a train comes, with its lights on, initially lighting up the silver rails from a distance that you reaslise the tunnel is not straight. The train thunders into the station turning sharply to its left. Afterwards, when all light has disappeared, the tunnel once again becomes a mystery with not a trace of its origin.

I had to take a picture of it although it doesn’t really do it justice. Some things you just have to experience.

I love darkness. The possibilities.

This tunnel seems to invite you to walk into, to walk into the darkness, disappear and be gone forever.

You know the kind of feeling you get when you’re on top of a tall edifice looking down, feeling like you can’t trust yourself not to jump…

I will disappear one day.

Doctor, doctor…

I visited my doctor to discuss what the hell is going on with my calf. We discussed rehabilitation for the calf and she asked if I’d been stretching. I said no. Apparently after a calf tear, you’re suppposed to go through a programme of stretching to improve recovery before running.

She had a prod around my leg and said ‘wow, there’s a lot of knots in your calf.’

So now I intend to stretch my calf to within an inch of its life!

To this end, I did a nice slow four mile run tonight and did some stretching as part of my cool-down exercise. This was my first run without my leg strapped up and it seemed to come through okay. I’ll see how the leg is tomorrow morning.

Injury

At the end of last month – March 29th – I injured myself whilst running. I tore a calf muscle in my right leg. This proved to be incredibly painful and resulted in my not being able to use my toes at all. Needless to say, this meant that walking anywhere was nearly impossible. I spent the rest of the day lying on my bed, reading and surfing, with my leg alternating between being propped up on the radiator and resting on the bed atop a bag of frozen peas! If I wasn’t in pain, this would have been laughable as the bag of peas had been opened. At first some peas rolled out everywhere; which meant that I struggled to bend down to pick them up before they unfroze. I then hobbled around the house looking for celotape.

D and S proved to be of no help. Inbetween the laughing at my predicament, they asked ‘Can we get you anything?’

I said a bigger bag of frozen peas would be great. It was about 12:30 on a Sunday afternoon and a big bag of frozen peas would have come in handy. ‘Okay they said, we’ll get you some.’

They said they were going out and would be back later with the frozen stuff. All good.

Well they didn’t come home until about 11:30pm at which point I was in bed.

I couldn’t move easily in bed as turning over meant that my toes would have to come into play at some point. I had an awful night’s sleep

Needless to say, D and S didn’t come home with anything frozen.

The next morning though I was upbeat again and aiming to get fixed as soon as possible. Go me!

It’s been nearly a month of incredible frustration of not being able to run. I’ve tried to run a couple of times as my calf has been feeling much better but after about 1.5 miles, it starts to hurt again. I did two slow, easy miles last Tuesday to try to ease my calf into running again and it felt okay but the next morning I was in pain again. I suspect I haven’t been stretching adequately afterwards. I’m going to start swimming next week and will go running on Monday evening and then stretch afterwards.

Money and other animals

NG were going to go to Brighton today but she was ill so I dumped her and decided to do my own thing.

I was sitting outside this morning on the step and looked down and saw a filthy 5p piece. It was so dirty I thought it was a dirty 1p but nope – five more pence for my collection. Wooo.

I had a walk around London with the intention of sitting on the Southbank nursing a drink and watching the world go by but hit upon the idea of going to Camden and milling around the markets. I love Camden. All those people trying to stand out in a place where everyone dresses the same. Excellent! I especially like it when I see kids dragging their parents around, hoping to buy some Emo clothing. That is just so blisteringly excellent.

After walking around Camden for a while, I came upon the realisation that I was only ten minutes from London Zoo. Oooh, animals! This was now my mission for the day. Off I headed…

I checked how much cash I had on me – about £13. Should be enough to get me in the Zoo no problem I thought. Wow, how happy was I? Nice sunny day, not a care in the world, heading off to the zoo. Wooooo!

I was a little taken aback when I arrived at the zoo and looked at the entrance prices. A whopping £18.50 to get in!

Wha…? Yes. £18.50! This put me off going in. For about two minutes anyway. I was going to see animals this day and nothing was to stop me! I had a bit of a headache that was threatening to get worse so I decided to eat and drink first as I suspected that it was due to being dehydrated. I had a nice plate of chips and beans and a bottle of water.

Chips = £2.20

Beans = £1.95. Yes, you read that correctly. £1.95 for a side order of beans. They were dry and uninspiring too. If there’s one thing I want from my beans, it’s inspiration! Chips were nice though but were brought down by those beans. Plus the knife and fork were those wooden types.

Now, I like zoos. Or at least the person I think I am, in my head, likes zoos. I walked around becoming more and more upset at all the animals in the cages. The feeling that these animals were being wronged reached its zenith when I visited the gorilla enclosure. I found that there was no one else around as I walked past a glass enclosure and there was a gorilla sitting by it only a few feet away. I felt incredibly privileged to be in its presence. The gorilla was playing with a blanket. It looked so frustrated, bored and at a total loss as to what to do. I felt so sorry for it. (I understand that I may be anthropomorphising). Then a group of people came and saw it and began taking photos, with flashes. At this point the gorilla slowly walked off outside where it was met with many other people with cameras.

Particulary annoying was attempting to have a chilled walk around the aquarium but being prevented from this by masses of people with their cameras up against the glass taking pictures with the flashes on, with no regard for the animals. Fish, frogs, crocodiles, turtles etc.

I don’t think I’ll be going to another zoo for a long time. It just made me sad.

I did find 1p though; near to the lion enclosure.

On the way home I went for a burger. I found another 1p under the counter

I found yet another 1p on Hornsey High Street.

So, 8p found today. That brings my total up to:

£3.96 Tra la la…

Lix wot lunches

In the spirit of saving money, or more precisely, attempting to see just how much money I can save taking my own lunches into work, I started this week to do just that.

Monday proved to be problematic as I forgot to buy sandwich bags at the weekend. This prompted a rifle through the cupboard to see what I could see and found a tin of potato and leek soup. Hurrah! The dream’s still alive! This meant that I didn’t have to go out searching for lunch on Monday at one of the myriad of shops scattered around my workplace. I dutifully microwaved some soup and sat at my desk watching something on the iPlayer spending most of my time making sure I didn’t spill any down my front!

Tuesday was much better. I remembered to buy some sandwich bags on the way home on Monday and Tuesday morning saw me making myself a cheese and onion sandwich. This was neatly placed, alongside a soya chocolate drink, in the sandwich and stowed away in my bag. By lunchtime the sandwich had reached an amazing consistency and felt like I’d placed several layers of plasticine together. They were super yummy though. Om nom!

Up yours food retailers! I do my own now!

Money me

Well at the last count, I had accumulated £3.09 from the streets of London.

Since my last post I have found a whopping 79p bringing my total to £3.88. Woooooo!

That’s only £1.12 off my £5 target. I have until the 20th September to do it.

There have been so many coins, I have forgotton where I found them all but here are the ones I remember:

20p – on Goswell Road, Islington

20p – on the 5-a-side pitch in the sports hall on Goswell Road.

1p – under a bench in the changing rooms on the same day as above.

1p – on the stairs at Old Street Station, that lead from the overground train to the underground

1p – In the Burger King at Turnpike Lane

1p – In the road – Turnpike Lane

1p – In the road – Priory Road, Haringey

1p – In the road – Priory Road, Haringey, about two minutes after the above

2p – In a disused doorway on Turnpike Lane

1p – In Exmouth Market, Islington

5p – The street where I live

5p – The street where I live, coming home. Found in nearly the same place as the above 5p

1p – Outside the Tescos on Hornsey High Street

If I remember where I found the others, I’ll update.

I’ve found so many coins, my mind mixes them all up!

Money tree

Some more money found me today

Three one pence pieces were found under a tree on Hornsey High Street – brilliant! Work colleague SF suggested that it was a money tree, which made me chuckle.

Another coin was found after work just outside the Three Compasses pub in Hornsey High Street.

Total so far £3.09

Hornsey is proving to be an excellent area for finding money.

The adventures of Claudia and Lix

Today I wanted to collect Claudia from NG’s. I arrived at about 09:30 to check Claudia over and get her ready for riding home.

First though, needed to get some energy so we went to the coffee shop and had breakfast:

What a lovely way to start the day...

I had decided to have a slow ride and mill around London seeing what I could see. My route was to go through Chiswick, through Hammersmith, and then head south to the Chelsea Embankment and ride along the Thames to Waterloo and then North to Hornsey. It was gloriously sunny all day and perfect for cycling.

I got to Hammersmith easily enough. Then I passed a road called Colet Gardens and it immediately stood out as a name I’d come across recently and then suddenly it hit me! I’ve just watched the first series of the 70’s police drama The Sweeney and was looking up where they filmed it and was delighted to discover that it was film in and around Hammersmith. The opening titles of the series were filmed in Colet Gardens. I had to take a picture.

The opening credits are a series of still photographs closely linked so as to give the impression of movement. This is set to fast music.

This is one of the pictures:

We're the Sweeney and we haven't had any breakfast!

I'm Lix and I had a muffin for breakfast!

From here I went south to the Chelsea Embankment:

You can see Battersea Powerstation in the background.

The view from Chelsea Embankment

From here I rode along the Thames, sometimes walking to see things. My route from here took me to Parliament Square, through Whitehall, up to Trafalgar Square, past Charing Cross Train Station, along the Strand, up to Aldwych, to Holborn via Kingsway, then up to Euston Road past King’s Cross, St Pancras Train Stations, along Pentonville Road, past Angel Tube on Upper Street, up to Highbury and Islington Tube, then further north to Hornsey.

Here are some pictures of my journey:

The view from Victoria Palace Gardens

A pigeon came to say hello. Hello Pigeon

Beautiful Claudia

Left -Westminster. Right - Parliament. Ahead - Whitehall, and Trafalgar Square

It's just past two and time for tea. Um de dum, de dum.

I hadn’t ridden Claudia since last summer. It was probably fool-hardy of me to attemp to cycle all the way from Brentford to Hornsey not having ridden for so long but I did take it easy. The worked out from MapMyRide.com that the total distance I cycled was 19.5 miles. That is the furthest I’ve ever cycled. I’m very pleased. At the moment though my legs feel a bit wobbly. I’ve had a good week excercise wise. Along with my 19.5 mile cycle, I’ve done two 10k runs.

After my cycle, one part of my body is feeling particularly erm, sore. But lets not go there eh? No, lets not!