The two-hundred-slap giveaway

This morning JH, SD and I met at Old Ford Locks Number 19, by the Lee Navigation and the Old River Lea, for a patrol along the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park waterways.

JH also volunteers as a park champion at QEOP, so we shared knowledge as we made our way around.

Overgrowth at Sweet Water.

We walked along the Lee Navigation to Saint Thomas Creek, passing this rubbish sack, which I've reported twice before.

Rubbish sack and porta-potti cassette.

That this was still here really got my goat, so I sent a rather urgent report into the enquiries team!

Then we crossed Saint Thomas Creek and made our way to City Mill Lock, where we explored a less-accessible stretch of old towpath that could dearly use some attention. SD and I pruned back some of the intruding buddleia and brambles, but our route was eventually blocked by the improvement works at the Greenway.

We soldiered on down Stratford High Street, eventually rejoining the park and Waterworks River via Warton Road. There are a lot of works still going on in the park, especially around the Bobby Moore Academy and some towpaths along the rivers are still blocked off since 2012.

Path blocked off under Loop Road and the Railway Bridge.

We carried on via City Mill River and Carpenters Road Bridge, and although our immediate way back to Old Ford Locks via the Old River Lea was blocked by security arrangements for a Robbie Williams concert, we came back past the Monier Road footbridge.

At Old Ford Locks 19, Fountains were clearing duckweed.

At 16:00 I joined DS at Kingsland Basin footbridge for another Share The Space pop-up event.

Bobby was in attendance, here accompanied by the Trust's chief towpath ranger Dick Vincent.

Bobby and Dick at the pop-up.

Some captions for the slowest part of the climb over the bridge.

For this event we had a lot of Share the Space branded reflective strips, the sort that start straight, but which can be tapped into place on an arm or ankle and they'll wrap firmly around.

In fact they're sometimes referred to as 'slaps'.

We started the event with a box of 200 of them, and within a couple of hours they had all gone. They were not only popular with cyclists and kids, but they also were a hit with joggers and runners - a group of towpath users the Trust has struggled to engage with the Share the Space message, despite old-school PSA videos like this one:

This was, by the way, the video I was involved in making a few weeks ago - piloting an electric 'Go boat' from Paddington as a floating camera dolly for an afternoon. I think that work generated about 4-5 seconds of used footage.

On my way home, I stopped to enjoy some music and shoot a rather more relaxing video.

5 hours.