Easter Sunday - The Afternoon

I've chosen the Regents Canal walk over Angela Down, it's a close call but I wanted to go to Limehouse this afternoon anyway (as you do!).

The walk begins at Mile End Lock and our guide is called Michael, he's in his late fifties, a former Student leader at St.Mary's University and is now a volunteer for the Save Our Waterways, a group who are trying to do exactly what it says on the tin. The group is much smaller than the one for old Jack, there are only about twenty five people, all English apart from one American girl and a family of three from Australia.

We aren't far into the walk when my feet really start hurting, by the time I get back to the hotel tonight I would have walked for seven hours in total today and boy will I know about it. The history of canals in this country is fascinating but you'll have to find out about that yourselves.

The walk takes the best part of two and a bit hours down to Limehouse Basin.

The one thing that strikes you at the end of a two hour walk is that there isn't anywhere to sit at Limehouse Marina. I point this out to a couple who are standing next to me and we come to the conclusion that it is deliberate. I mention that there are a couple of marina's on the Dorset coast where seats were not part of the building due to the fact that if you've just spent over £500,000 on a one bedroom flat you don't want a drunken Scotsman from Crewe serenading you with a can of Tennants and two verses of On the Bonny Banks of Loch Lomond.

After the walk is over I decide to walk round to St.Annes Limehouse. One of Nicholas Hawksmoor's twelve London churches it has the highest clock tower in London and is where my Great, Great, Great Grandfather was baptised in 1815.

The sad thing about the church is that it is closed, that isn't unusual but what is sad is the fact that the churchyard is closed as well. There's no chance to appreciate a fine building that is already hemmed in one three sides by buildings. The clock tower was built so tall so that ships travelling up the Thames could see it as they passed through Woolwich some three miles down river - now that view is obscured by Canary Wharf.

After walking around the church I headed back towards my hotel, stopping on the way to take more photographs, as I'm walking down Limehouse Causeway there in front of me is the car of my dreams. Now I'm not much of a car enthusiast, as long as it gets me from A to B that's fine, but I've wanted to own, as long as I can remember, a Citroen Traction Avant.

After walking around the car and taking a photograph I continue my walk back towards the hotel via Limehouse, Shadwell and Wapping. By the time I reach the hotel I can barely walk and yet at the same time I feel exhilirated. The East End has changed almost beyond recognition in the twenty years since I did such a lot of walking around it and although it's the place of my parents birth, grand parents birth and so on back to the 17th century on my Dad's side but not mine it still feels like home.

I collapse onto the bed as England's innings finishes, I'm exhausted. I watch some of the Australian innings and fall asleep. I wake up to see Andrew Symonds sealing the inevitable Australian victory and to discover that there isn't anywhere open to get something light to eat. I put the mp3 player on and drift off to sleep.