To the Barrier

On Sunday morning a nostalgic South African, a jet-lagged Australian, a pregnant woman and a four-year-old decided to go to the Thames Barrier. Despite forgetting to bring any of the three maps we made it there and afterwards took a short stroll along the Green Chain Walk.

My husband visited the Barrier at the age of 10 with his dad, so he got a bit nostalgic and during our coffee break at the visitors’ information center he reminiscenced about the good old times.

The four-year-old just wanted to go down the long slide over and over again, but after some diplomatic negotiations we were able to move to something I really wanted to do – walk the walk.

The sky was blue, the sun was out for the first time in many days and it was lovely to walk along the path surrounded by tall trees. Since Katya started attending Steiner/Waldorf kindergarten 4 days a week at the beginning of this year we don't go to the parks as often as we used to and looking at the houses, cars and asphalt roads all the time makes one yearn for the views full of trees, grasses and flowers.

I would’ve loved to stop in many places to allow us to enjoy the beautiful details of our surroundings, but since the sunset was quickly approaching we had to hurry up a bit (as much as one can hurry with a 4 year old and a pregnant woman). As the name suggests, the Green Chain Walk goes through the green areas (parks, woodlands, meadows, etc) in the South-East of London and from the short stretch we managed to do it looks like one can learn a lot about local history, geography and nature, so I really want to do the rest of it this year.

There are few more photos on Flckr.