Well, only Natasha at the Needle. The massive drenching showers of earlier in the afternoon had completely disappeared and if you had planned to come, but changed your mind due to that earlier weather, you missed a treat. Over the bridge, through the mad mayhem that is rush hour Thames crossing traffic, for maybe a minute, down to the riverside and peace, calm, sun peeping through the clouds, for the next two hours or so. A real theme of this ride, Far from the Madding Crowd, you might say.
The ornamental canal was dotted with the nests of water birds. One fine swan stretched up to reveal one beautiful, huge, blue egg. We oohed and aaaahed at the coot chicks, bobbing up and down. Earlier, I had seen what looked to be a wagtail, but a yellow one, trying to drink. I have never seen a yellow one here before, anyone else? Or am I mistaken- definitely possible!
On through the two basins, Shadwell and Limehouse, to the Regent Canal. Natasha was a West Londoner, so was keen to know through just what parts of London we were weaving our way. The canal was quieter than at the weekend, and sometimes we were even able to ride alongside each other. At one point we passed a little fluffy pile of sleeping goslings, nestling together on the towpath, carefully guarded by both parents. I would have loved to photograph this, but the parents looked a bit large and fierce, so just squeeed! and rode by. We headed up the steep slope at the Islington tunnel, where the towpath and the strong horses had to stop and leave the bargees to power their craft through by leg and footpower alone and found our way through the useful and quiet network of cycle lanes here back to the canal further along. Soon we became aware that we were in the Kings Cross/St Pancras area because of the massive amount of building work alongside the canal. We headed up the steps leading to the new St Martins Fashion School.
After pootling around a bit, ending up at dead ends due to the massive building site that this part of London is, I eventually gave up trying to find a back street way to our destination and headed up the main road for a short stretch, then down a cycle route which took us straight to St. Pancras Churchyard. Through the gates, and into another world. The setting sun through the trees gave the small area an atmospheric warm, green glow. There were not many graves, but a few famous ones. Sir John Soane is buried here, and his mausoleum apparently inspired by his design of London’s iconic red telephone boxes, also buried here are Mary Woolstonecraft, author of Vindication of the Rights of Women, and her husband William Godwin, although apparently their actual remains are now elsewhere.
Her daughter Mary, author of Frankenstein is supposed to have planned her elopement with poet Percy Bysse Shelley at her mother’s grave in the churchyard. Bach is buried here, too. When the London Midland Railway needed the land for its huge railway development in the area, Thomas Hardy, a young architect student at the time, was given the job of exhuming the graves which had to be moved 
and recording these. The gravestones are piled up in one corner of the churchyard, and an ash tree has grown up through them, its trunk almost absorbing and enfolding many. Far From the Madding Crowd, indeed. Probably not quite what Hardy was thinking about, when he penned his famous novel, but to two Londoners weary after a day’s work, this place perfectly defined the phrase.
By now, it was getting dark.
We had taken longer than I expected to cover this part of the journey and so we decided to leave the second part, a visit to the graves of less famous, but no less interesting women of London’s history to another evening, and headed back down to Waterloo, past the award winning Brunswick development then back to the Madding Crowd down Kingsway. Natasha enjoyed the swoop around the one way system at Aldwych to Waterloo Bridge and there we parted, her to head back to West London and me to head south in the gathering gloom.
Next week, a river, Rotherhithe, Deptford and Bermondsey trip. Maybe with a bit of Blackheath and Greenwich thrown in. Watch this space.