Friday's Fave Five - 19/7/24

Well I'm trying to get back into the habit of blogging - I've been reading a lot more posts this past week and leaving a few comments here and there - I'd forgotten how time consuming it can be lol.

But this meme hosted by Susanne here is a good weekly reminder to take a breath and look for the good things from the previous week.

1)  A visit from my elder son and his wife last weekend.  He had managed to secure tickets for the Mens' tennis FINAL at Wimbledon!

Getting tickets for Wimbledon is a complete lottery - tennis clubs etc have one system for securing tickets.  Then you can go and queue for daily entry - which involves queuing for hours (even overnight) or you can enter a ballot for tickets.  If your name is selected you can then opt to purchase tickets (or not).  As I understand it you will be given an option of a day and court and my son was fortunate enough to get the Mens' final slot.  I have no idea how much the tickets actually cost - and they were seated in the back row but the two of them had a lovely day out.  

and of course it was lovely to see them albeit briefly.

2)  Tuesday we had granddaughter Ella here for a bit.  Lovely having a little one in the house again now that Vinny has gone.

3)  Kitchen sink fixed - we had a blocked sink recently and in trying to plunge it we ended up with leaking joints.  

4)  2 for the price of 1 this week - I was booked in for a shingles vaccination on Tuesday but I was also offered a pneumonia jab as I'm now old enough.  (No need to remind me of my age thank you lol)  Anyway I opted to get both.  I'm thankful they're done but my arms (particularly the one the shingles jab was done in) have been very sore.  I'm thankful that we have the chance to get these protections free but not looking forward to having the second dose of the shingles one in a couple of months time.

5)  Getting back into a normal rhythm now we have the house to ourselves although that has meant earlier starts as my body clock seems to have adjusted during the time that Michael and Vinny were here.  I've also managed to get back into the habit of reading and finished 2 books this week.

And the sun is shining!

Have a good weekend all.

It's quiet here - 13/7/24

They made it!

My son Michael and Grandson Vinny made it to Boston on Thursday and got through immigration so quickly they had to wait for Mummy to arrive to drive them home to Vermont!  And so their new adventure begins with the family reunited after what has been a difficult couple of months.

And now my house seems so quiet!

These last few weeks have been hard - physically and emotionally.  But somehow we got everything done in Michael's flat and it's now ready for tenants and on the letting agents website.

We had a lovely day on Monday - we took Vinny to a Zoo and Dinosaur Park.  He's a bit big for the buggy now but we were glad we took it as he got tired from all the walking and he's much too heavy to carry far.

Hertfordshire Zoo has an animal section but it also has a Dinosaur Park with huge (and loud) animated model dinosaurs.

Vinny loves dinosaurs but he was a little unsure about all the noise and how close they seemed to be at times lol.

The zoo is only about 40 minutes away from us and we got there soon after it opened so it wasn't too busy at first although several school groups arrived mid morning.

Wednesday was Vinny's last day at his nursery and they had a leaving party for him and the children that will be starting school in September.

Looks so grown up in this photo!

And then VERY early on Thursday morning they left and many tears have been shed.

I've been trying to keep myself busy and therefore distracted and there is plenty to do in my house now - it has been sorely neglected over the past couple of months.  My vacuum cleaner was at the flat more than it was here and dust on wooden floors seems to multiply overnight!

I need to get back to walking too - I haven't done much of that lately as the scales show.  But we did get a couple of things done this week that have needed doing for.....AGES!  (Yes we did move here over 3 years ago as regular readers will know lol.)

A new toilet roll holder in the downstairs bathroom - the old one sloped down slightly and the toilet roll was often falling off onto the floor.

A new shower head in the upstairs bathroom - that doesn't spray water EVERYWHERE except where you want it.

An outdoor clothes airer finally in use.  In an ideal world the holder for this would be concreted into the ground - but neither of us are confident about doing that so I bought a long spike thing that was supposed to just push into the ground and keep the airer secure.  Sounds simple but not if your ground is very stony under the grass and you can't get the spike far enough into the ground!  I then had the brainwave of using our old parasol stand to put the supporting pole into.  Except it's so old and the  screws are rusted so it's unusable.  No problem - I'll order a new one.  Which came quickly and seemed perfect.  Except, despite the fact that it's heavy, the side of our garden can be a bit of a wind tunnel - perfect for drying the washing but not so great for keeping the airer upright!  Yes, it toppled over!  Thankfully I was only drying some very wet dirty towels at the time before I washed them properly so no harm done.  But, having got that far I was not going to be defeated.  Now the old parasol stand is on top of the new parasol stand and together they kept the airer upright yesterday and my bedding dried in no time.  It doesn't look pretty - in fact it looks pretty daft but it can easily be stored away when the grandkids are here and it works for me.  (Also there is no photographic evidence of this madness.)

It will it save on some of the tumble drying now that summer is here.  Oh,  summer seems to have been and gone!  Hopefully it will put in another appearance soon.

One of the advantages (disadvantage?) of having a little one in the house for so long is that my body clock seems to have adjusted to waking up around 6 am each day.  It hasn't had that effect on Hubby though so I'm enjoying having an hour (or 2) in the mornings when I can savour my first cup of tea, watch the birds in the garden and work out how to fill the void that my son and his family have left.

People talk about their glass being either half full or half empty and I'm often more of a half empty person but I'm really 2/3 full because my daughter and her family are close by and my other son and his family are only a car journey away.

Actually my son Matthew and his wife Amy are coming down today and staying overnight as they have tickets for Wimbledon tomorrow!  Which reminds me the bed needs making up so I'd better get a move on.

I didn't post this as a Friday's Fave Five post but I'm sure there are more than 5 things in here that I'm grateful for so I'll still be linking up with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story with other like minded bloggers.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Friday's Fave Five - 21/6/24

Oh goodness.  When people start checking up on you (thanks Terri) you know it's time to get a blog post done.  And Friday is always a good day to do that as it means taking a pause and thinking about the things we have to be thankful for.

Thanks to our host Susanne for reminding us to do this each week and share our posts here.

1)  There is light at the end of the tunnel that is "getting my son's flat ready for renting".

The last few weeks have just blurred together as we've cleared, stored, sold, or thrown out all the things in the flat.  There are still a few bits and pieces to deal with but first we have to finish all the cleaning, decorating and all the other things that are required before it can be handed over to the letting agent to take care of.  There is also a large pile of boxes almost ready for shipping to the US.

Their flight to the US is booked for the 11th July so we are counting down the days.

Some things moved from their house to ours!

Still time to spend with cousins.

2)  My son's work ethic and parenting skills.  It's been a tough time since our DIL and grandson Rory left for Vermont on 22nd May but Michael has risen to the challenge and is doing a great job single parenting Vinny and doing what needs to be done with the flat.  As you can imagine it's been hard.  Vinny misses his Mummy and brother and although being able to talk to them over the internet mostly helps it can also have the opposite effect too.  There have been lots of tears.  

We've revisited skills we haven't used for a while such as painting and also gained new ones - today between us we fitted a new timer switch to their water heater that is much more user friendly than the old one.

3)  Hubby and I reached the milestone of 40 years married a couple of weeks ago.  We had originally planned to go away for the weekend to celebrate together quietly.  Instead we took advantage of a local yard sale to try and get rid of some of our son's "stuff".  We did sell some things but our garden room and garage are now full of things that we still need to dispose of.  I'm not even going to think about that until the flat is sorted, we have our house back to ourselves and we've had a break from all the current stress.

4)  My DIL has secured a teaching job in Vermont.  She will start in August and it has the added bonus of pre-school provision for Vinny.  It's a 30 minute drive from their house but that's about half the time she used to commute here on public transport.  That's a huge weight off their shoulders as you can imagine.

5)  Easy meals, takeaways, dinners from the freezer and a grandson that really isn't too fussy.  The days start early - Vinny is usually up around 6-6.30 am and then we've been at the flat most days until it's time to collect Vinny from nursery and get home for dinner.  And of course a Hubby who cooks.  And chocolate!  Needed a lot of chocolate these last few weeks.

Of course all of this hasn't left much time for blogging and I really haven't had the headspace for it either.  

Have a good weekend all - we'll be taking a breather before getting back to the "to do" list on Monday!

Friday's Fave Five - 24/5/24

Well it is 3 weeks since I posted a blog and 4 weeks since I did a Friday Five!

It's been busy here - my son and his family moved in with us on 1st May in preparation for their move to Vermont.  There are things that need doing in the flat that meant it was easier for them to just move out and stay here for a bit.

But of course they wanted to keep some normality for the 2 children which meant Rory going to school and Vinny to nursery every day - a trek!  We've tried to help out as much as possible so I've been taking them to a bus stop in the morning leaving the house at 7 am each day.  This saved them one bus journey and made the remainder of the journey a little easier.  I've also been helping out at the flat and doing some pick ups. 

Thankfully our house is big enough to accommodate them but it has meant more planning for meals etc and a change to our lifestyle, albeit temporarily.

On Wednesday my DIL flew to Vermont with Rory.  There were a lot of tears.  They have arrived safely and will be getting the house there ready for the family and, hopefully, securing a job for my DIL.  She's a teacher so hopefully there will be a job for her although it sounds like she will have to jump through hoops to prove her experience of teaching in the UK qualifies her to resume teaching in the US.  Why do things have to be so complicated?

My son and Vinny are still here.  My son is still working for another couple of weeks and completing the things that need doing in the flat so that it's ready to rent out.  Vinny is still going to nursery.  Packing up a home to move is hard but packing up to move abroad is harder still.  And of course Vinny is sad that Mummy and Rory are not here.  Bedtime has become a bit of a challenge.

But there are still things to be grateful for:

1)  A fun day at the park on Sunday - it was a Spring Festival with lots going on and the weather was lovely - if anything slightly too warm.  I'd volunteered to help set up in the morning and then I also helped out for a bit on the stall the Foodbank had.  They had a couple of fun games they were using as fundraisers plus donation buckets and raised an amazing £800 pounds.  With more people signing up to the Foodbank we need all the funds and donations of goods we can get right now.

2)  A house that is big enough to accommodate my son and his family - we all have our own bedrooms and we're managing to cope with the extra people for meals, washing etc.

3)  Safe travels for family members that flew to far away places this week.  My daughter and her family are currently in Boston for a holiday break.

4)  A husband that cooks - with all the extra things I've been doing it's definitely a blessing to know that dinner will appear without me having to do anything.  (Well apart from a bit of planning and organising the shopping delivery lol)

5)  Resilience.  Today has been very stressful.  I won't go into details but I had to deal with a situation that was unexpected, didn't go exactly to plan and involved a lot of driving around.  But my mission is accomplished.  I'm back home and I might even pour myself a glass of wine!

Have a good weekend all - we have an extra day as Monday is a Bank holiday but of course when you're retired all days are holidays!  Hopefully I'll get a lie in but with Vinny here I might not.  He came in for a snuggle one morning this week and his feet were like blocks of ice! One way to get woken up.

See more Friday Fave Five posts here.  Thanks to our host Susanne.

A-Z Challenge 2024 - Reflections Post

Well I completed the challenge in that I posted for every letter of the alphabet and on time!  (Although some came close to the wire.)

Did I win?

I'm not sure that I did.  There's a lot going on in our house right now so I'm not sure that I gave the same amount of input as I've done in some of the previous years of taking part.  I certainly didn't find time to check out too many new blogs but I did try to visit those of people who had visited mine.

Thank you to all those who did, especially if you left a comment.  Apologies if I missed getting back to you.

Thanks also to the A to Z Team (Arlee Bird, J Lenni Dorner, Zalka Csenge Virág, John Holton, Jayden R Vincente, and Ronel) who supported everyone through the challenge and do such a great job every year.

There were lots of suggestions from the team of what to consider for this post (read more here) but if I tried to address all of them this post would probably never see the light of day.

For me one of the main reasons for doing the challenge is to try and keep my blog active and interesting and to stretch my writing.  Well I need to work on the being active part as this is the first post I've done since completing the challenge!  I'm also not sure that I really stretched myself as there was very little forward planning done apart from drafting out what each letter would be.  Many of the posts were written either on the day or maybe a day or two in advance.

But, having said all that I expect to be doing it all over again next year!

A- Z Challenge 2024 - Z is for Ziggy's

This year I'm blogging about my local area.  

My area?  Highams Park which is in the borough of Waltham Forest in North East London, (UK) a little known place that nestles between Chingford and Woodford that most people only come to if they have a specific reason to - if not we usually get bypassed.  Suits us.

Having lived in Forest Gate in East London for 36 years (and for my husband 65 years!) moving was a big deal for us.  But we've been in Highams Park since September 2020 so I feel I know enough about it now to fill out 26 posts! 

We've only moved just over 5 miles but we didn't know this area at all before moving here.  Although of course we did have a good look around when looking for a house and there were a number of things we wanted on our check list.

One of the shops in Highams Park is called Ziggy's

It's actually a gift  shop selling a variety of gifts and cards but they also serve coffee and cake.

It's directly opposite the entrance to our Tesco supermarket so in an ideal location to catch passing trade.

And that's the A-Z of my local area done!

Thank you to all those who have visited and left me comments.

A - Z Challenge 2024 - Y is for Yellow birds

This year I'm blogging about my local area.  

My area?  Highams Park which is in the borough of Waltham Forest in North East London, (UK) a little known place that nestles between Chingford and Woodford that most people only come to if they have a specific reason to - if not we usually get bypassed.  Suits us.

Having lived in Forest Gate in East London for 36 years (and for my husband 65 years!) moving was a big deal for us.  But we've been in Highams Park since September 2020 so I feel I know enough about it now to fill out 26 posts! 

We've only moved just over 5 miles but we didn't know this area at all before moving here.  Although of course we did have a good look around when looking for a house and there were a number of things we wanted on our check list.

Wildlife is always a plus and there are plenty of different types of ducks on the lake near us plus swans of course.  And in the forest there are deer and cattle as well as squirrels and foxes.

We get a number of different birds in the garden too including yellow tits (which I have no photos off yet) and parakeets.

There are lots of parakeets around here - and yes they are mainly a green colour but they definitely have yellow on them too.  Yes I was scraping the barrel trying to think of a word for Y lol.

These pics were taken in the park a while back.

but we often get them squabbling over our bird feeder in the garden.

I only managed to get a pic of one this afternoon.

A - Z Challenge 2024 - X is for Xylography

This year I'm blogging about my local area.  

My area?  Highams Park which is in the borough of Waltham Forest in North East London, (UK) a little known place that nestles between Chingford and Woodford that most people only come to if they have a specific reason to - if not we usually get bypassed.  Suits us.

Having lived in Forest Gate in East London for 36 years (and for my husband 65 years!) moving was a big deal for us.  But we've been in Highams Park since September 2020 so I feel I know enough about it now to fill out 26 posts! 

We've only moved just over 5 miles but we didn't know this area at all before moving here.  Although of course we did have a good look around when looking for a house and there were a number of things we wanted on our check list.

Right, hands up who knew that xylography is: the art of making engravings on wood especially for printing

Well my hand is up because I found the word when looking for an "x" word for the challenge.  And it fits in nicely with the "Wild about Highams Park Animal Sculpture Trail".

Not exactly the same sort of woodwork - the animal sculptures that are dotted around Highams Park were created with a chainsaw by artist Marshall Lambert.

The trail contains 12 sculptures but I think there are a couple of additional ones in the park.  I've got photos of most of them but need to get to the park area for the last couple (I did a long walk today!).

The animals are as follows:

1)  Terrapins

2) Fallow Deer (this is about 25 yards from our home!)

3) Otters

4) Hedgehogs

5) Squirrels

6) Tawney Owl

7) Frogs

This one has seen better days!

8) Badger

9) Rabbits

10) Foxes

11) Swan (Apparently this one is on the base for the Maypole - never noticed that in the park before.)

12) Ducks  (This one is the other side of the park - I just didn't have time to get there today.)

The sculptures and trail were created in 2019 when Waltham Forest was the London Borough of Culture and the trees were donated by the Corporation of London who are responsible for Epping Forest.

Friday's Fave Five - 26/4/24

I'm here on time this week!

Susanne reminds us every week to look back and find the blessings in the week - there are always some.  Here are mine:

1.  A family gathering last weekend - it was bittersweet for me as it was a farewell party for my son and his family who will be off to Vermont quite soon.  But it was good to catch up with a lot of family members and also their friends.  Many of their friends and of course their cousins have young families like them so there were lots of children there.  They'd hired a bouncy castle which kept them entertained all afternoon.

The party went on into the evening but we took their boys home and put them to bed so my son and his wife could enjoy the evening without two tired little ones bothering them.

2.  The party meant we got to see my other son and his family for the weekend.  And Ness the dog.  Ness doesn't like being left alone, especially in a strange place so we have a crate for her.

Which doubled up nicely as a den for the two boys.  Kept them amused for ages.  Unfortunately they were able to let themselves out! lol

3.  Knit and Natter session on Wednesday - I'm always thankful to meet up with like minded friends and catch up.

4.  Postal voting.  We have a London Mayoral election next week and the London Assembly.  I like voting by post as I don't have to worry about if or when I can get to a local polling station on the day.  We got our ballot papers at the end of last week and we've both completed and posted them.

5.  Quick delivery from online shopping.  I ordered a few necessities earlier this week.  One parcel has already been delivered and the other is on its way.  

Of course there are lots of other things to be grateful for - especially if you dare to turn on the news right now.  Probably best not to.

Have a good weekend all.

Oh and as a P.S.  only 3 letters left for the A-Z challenge I've been doing.

A - Z Challenge 2024 - W is for Walking

This year I'm blogging about my local area.  

My area?  Highams Park which is in the borough of Waltham Forest in North East London, (UK) a little known place that nestles between Chingford and Woodford that most people only come to if they have a specific reason to - if not we usually get bypassed.  Suits us.

Having lived in Forest Gate in East London for 36 years (and for my husband 65 years!) moving was a big deal for us.  But we've been in Highams Park since September 2020 so I feel I know enough about it now to fill out 26 posts! 

We've only moved just over 5 miles but we didn't know this area at all before moving here.  Although of course we did have a good look around when looking for a house and there were a number of things we wanted on our check list.

Places to walk was high on the list - I love getting out to walk.  Often I walk alone and I like to listen to music - I use Spotify to generate a walking playlist where the tempo of the music keeps me walking at a fairly steady and quick pace.  Not fast, but just not an amble either.  Of course sometimes I walk with Hubby but that's definitely at a slower pace.  I like to convince myself that by walking regularly I can at least slow down the aging process.  I don't obsess about doing e.g. 10000 steps a day but I do like to keep a good average going.

Of course just a walk around the lake is a good mile and a half and with Epping Forest on our doorstep there are lots of walk we can do.

Thanks to all the rain we've had it's been tricky walking around the lake as it's been so muddy but we walked the circuit on Sunday and it wasn't too bad - still not ideal for nice trainers but fine for old ones and it was fairly easy to avoid the really muddy patches.

When it's really wet and muddy I tend to do a loop incorporating the park which at least has tarmac paths or if all else fails there's always a Leslie Sansone video to follow on YouTube

A - Z Challenge - V is for Volunteering

This year I'm blogging about my local area.  

My area?  Highams Park which is in the borough of Waltham Forest in North East London, (UK) a little known place that nestles between Chingford and Woodford that most people only come to if they have a specific reason to - if not we usually get bypassed.  Suits us.

Having lived in Forest Gate in East London for 36 years (and for my husband 65 years!) moving was a big deal for us.  But we've been in Highams Park since September 2020 so I feel I know enough about it now to fill out 26 posts! 

We've only moved just over 5 miles but we didn't know this area at all before moving here.  Although of course we did have a good look around when looking for a house and there were a number of things we wanted on our check list.

Well I'm writing this post late in the day - it's been a busy day filled with helping out with school runs for my eldest grandson and Volunteering!

Being retired I have a fair amount of spare time. Once the pandemic was finally over I began to look at ways to involve myself in the local community.  

One thing I have done is help out at some of the big events organised by the Highams Park Planning Group such as the Summer Fair and Christmas Market.  This is a good way of being involved and helping out but without a big commitment.  I've been in situations before where I've found myself sucked in to things and then it's been tricky to take a step back.

The main volunteering I do though is to volunteer at the Foodback run through The Hub which I wrote about here.  The Foodbank runs on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I help out on Thursdays.  Again I didn't want to get overloaded and my Hubby attends a walking group on Thursdays so it made sense to do something on the same day rather than tying up another day.  

The Foodbank operates in the local church and during the session we provide hot drinks and snacks as well as various other services.

There are various roles for the volunteers during the session.  There are people who serve the people coming for food.  We don't just give out bags - people can choose from a wide range of fresh and canned/dried goods with amounts determined by the size of their family.  Then we have Befrienders who will sit and chat with people and try and see how they can be helped in ways other than just providing them with food.

My skill sets are put to good use in the store room.  Each Thursday we get a delivery from The Felix Project an organisation that collects and distributes food that would otherwise go to waste.  Some of what we get is prepared meals that can be microwaved but we also get a range of fresh food and a lot of dried and canned goods.  We also get donations from the public that are collected from various collection points locally as well as donations from a nearby bakery.  We also have a group of people that have allotments who donate food.  Grants and fundraising also provide funds to buy goods.  

The deliveries/collections have to be sorted and either put out to be given to people or stored for future use.  The store room is not huge and sometimes it feels like a game of tetris - moving things around to accommodate all the goods.  There is a good shelving system in place as well as a number of fridges and freezers but finding space for everything can sometimes be a challenge, especially on days when everything has to be moved out of the church because of events taking place over the weekend.

The other role that I regularly undertake is to work in the kitchen.  This involves making cups of tea or coffee, serving cakes/pastries and preparing jacket potatoes or simple things like beans on toast.  Nothing very complicated but surprisingly many volunteers shy away from that role.  I quite enjoy it because it does give me contact with the people using the foodbank.

The good thing about volunteering at the foodbank is that there are enough people that if 1 or 2 are missing we can still function.  There is a paid manager who co-ordinates the volunteers and at the beginning of each month we're asked to say which dates we can commit to.  It usually works out fine and the nice thing is that if numbers are low on  a Thursday for example, people from the Tuesday session will help out and vice versa.

Phew I'm just going to get this posted on the day!  Only 4 more A-Z posts to do.

A - Z Challenge 2024 - U is for Undertakers

This year I'm blogging about my local area.  

My area?  Highams Park which is in the borough of Waltham Forest in North East London, (UK) a little known place that nestles between Chingford and Woodford that most people only come to if they have a specific reason to - if not we usually get bypassed.  Suits us.

Having lived in Forest Gate in East London for 36 years (and for my husband 65 years!) moving was a big deal for us.  But we've been in Highams Park since September 2020 so I feel I know enough about it now to fill out 26 posts! 

We've only moved just over 5 miles but we didn't know this area at all before moving here.  Although of course we did have a good look around when looking for a house and there were a number of things we wanted on our check list.

I was struggling to find something to write about for U and then I realised that at some point we will need an Undertaker.  Thankfully there are two Undertakers in Highams Park so we'll be ok.

I've left a letter for my kids with details of what I'd like.  Hubby doesn't give two hoots what happens to him, or his ashes.  At least that leaves me free to do as I think best if he goes first.

And on that cheerful note I'm off to think about the remaining letters of the alphabet!

A - Z Challenge 2024 - T is for Transport

This year I'm blogging about my local area.  

My area?  Highams Park which is in the borough of Waltham Forest in North East London, (UK) a little known place that nestles between Chingford and Woodford that most people only come to if they have a specific reason to - if not we usually get bypassed.  Suits us.

Having lived in Forest Gate in East London for 36 years (and for my husband 65 years!) moving was a big deal for us.  But we've been in Highams Park since September 2020 so I feel I know enough about it now to fill out 26 posts! 

We've only moved just over 5 miles but we didn't know this area at all before moving here.  Although of course we did have a good look around when looking for a house and there were a number of things we wanted on our check list.

Transport was near the top of the list.  We do have a car but we wanted to future proof our location as much as possible.  For example we wanted somewhere that we could walk to the things we needed or use public transport if we got to the stage of not being able to drive.  Plus it is becoming more and more difficult to drive around London, not to mention expensive.  Fortunately our car is fairly new so it doesn't fall into the emissions charging scheme but finding anywhere to park is becoming harder all the time.  I try not to use the car if I don't need to but sometimes you just have to - for example going to our daughter's house, which is just over 3 miles away, takes 10 minutes by car, 36 minutes by bus & train, except the bus is currently on a major diversion and would take much longer than Google thinks.

Anyway.....we are a 10 minute walk from Highams Park Station.  This is on the London Overground (Liverpool Street to Chingford line).  It is 2 stops to Walthamstow with a connection to the London Underground.  Trains run every 15 minutes most of the time and are air conditioned.  At rush hour they can be a bit crowded travelling home but not sardine style crowded - just seats full and quite a few people standing.  Going into London is never a problem as we are the last but one stop on the line.

We can also get to Walthamstow by bus - the stop is right opposite our house and the return stop is about 200 yards down the road.  Walthamstow has a busy bus station with lots of routes available to us.

We could also get to the Central Line of the Underground by getting a bus in the opposite direction to Woodford station.  Except there is currently a problem with a road bridge that goes over the railway lines close to the station.  It needs to be reinforced so currently the bus is driving 3 sides of a rectangular diversion if that makes sense.  Originally the signs said the diversion would be in place until 31st March.  That was revised to 30th September and today I noticed that a couple of signs now say "until further notice".  It's not looking good.

As a further problem - our daughter lives the other side of the tracks from us so we have to cross them.  There is a crossing point close to her house but, the crossing point between that one, and the one that is totally closed, is only half open - with traffic lights controlling the traffic.  It makes for fun when I'm doing the school run for my Grandson, especially if the traffic lights break!  There are only certain points where you can cross over the railway and everyone seems to be trying to do just that.

Thankfully I only have to cross that bridge once or twice a week.

The London Overground system actually connects areas of London quite well with many stations interchanging with the Underground system:

Sorry for the poor quality of this - you can view the original here.

But soon our section will be known as the Weaver Line - all the various sections are being given names.  You can read more about this here.

The renaming and all the rebranding that it will entail is costing over £6 million.  I'm sure there are better things that money could be spent on.