Sim Carter: Past Tense Imperfect

The Birds mural by Mateusz Odrobny & Ana Mill   Image credit: The Guardian If it's Friday we must be back in London.   Every Friday I take a virtual walking tour ‘above ground’ on the London Underground. Using  my Tube guide & my fitbit® device, my goal is to walk 10,000 steps a day roughly following along the Underground route, reporting back here on Fridays with my findings We're currently following the Central Line.  Here are the previous days . This is Day 59 Just when I thought I couldn’t walk another step along the route covered by the Central line, I find out from my pal with the googly eyes that the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock hails from these here parts! Born above his father’s greengrocer’s shop at 517 High Road in Leytonstone, Hitchcock is the area’s most famous son but don’t tell that to David Beckham who grew up in the area too.  While  Hitchcock’s boyhood home was knocked down years ago, in its ...

If it's Friday we must be back in London.   Every Friday I take a virtual walking tour ‘above ground’ on the London Underground. Using  my Tube guide & my fitbit® device, my goal is to walk 10,000 steps a day roughly following along the Underground route, reporting back here on Fridays with my findings We're currently following the Central Line.  Here are the previous days . This is Day 58. Huzzah! Following the Central Line we've made it out to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Admittedly it’s a bit out in the boonies but it’s the site of the 2012 Olympics and home to the London Aquatics Center where you can swim in the same pool where Michael Phelps won four gold medals, earning the title of the worlds greatest swimmer. If you prefer to stay dry—and it’s not the winter season— you can take a boat tour through the park.  Or take a ride on a Swan Pedalo! You can have your gold medal winning swim lanes, that , my friends, is my speed. Hate...

Park at Mile End Image via  SublimePhotography.com If it's Friday we must be back in London.   Every Friday I take a virtual walking tour ‘above ground’ on the London Underground. Using  my Tube guide & my fitbit® device, my goal is to walk 10,000 steps a day roughly following along the Underground route, reporting back here on Fridays with my findings We're currently following the Central Line.  Here are the previous days . This is Day 57. One of the first London suburbs, the East London town of Mile End feels worlds away from bustling London. Still, Mile End isn’t without its points of interest.  The nearby Queen Mary University of London located houses a cemetery in its midst. A strange thing place for a cemetery but yes, the uni came second, the graveyard came first. One of the only remaining Sephardic cemeteries in England, the Neuvo, or Novo Beth Chaim Sephardic cemetery was first used by Spanish and Portuguese Jews—making their hom...

If it's Friday we must be back in London.   Every Friday I take a virtual walking tour ‘above ground’ on the London Underground. Using  my Tube guide & my fitbit® device, my goal is to walk 10,000 steps a day roughly following along the Underground route, reporting back here on Fridays with my findings We're currently following the Central Line.  Here are the previous days . This is Day 56 . I’m starving! Time for brekkie. I don’t know about you, but I don’t start my day, not every day anyway, with what they call the full English breakfast: fried eggs, stewed tomatoes, sausage, toast, beans (beans, ugh) black pudding (blood sausage, yikes! but my dad loved ’em) and, oh I dunno, mushrooms, avocado, etc. My dad would have added fried bread. Not my breakfast. I’m a cereal woman. Usually Cheerios with a sliced banana. Sometimes porridge. That’s oatmeal to you, Yankee. To be honest, calling my Quaker Oats “porridge’’ is one of my few remaining shout outs to my Br...