An Opening and Potential Closure
A while back I vowed to post more about Hackney (and due to recent press never has there been a better time to try and say something good about living here!) ANYWAY this week without, I have to say, any kind of fanfare the London Fields Lido finally opened. The timing for me could not be better I'm about to start on 6 weeks of editing and there's nothing like sitting on your arse in an edit suite arguing and eating cake for weeks on end to pile on the pre-christmas pounds. I would love to include a photo here but obviously cameras, like petting, are now banned from pools.
The other thing I've been thinking about sorting out to compete my Hackney life is getting an allotment. This is no casual undertaking and I spent Saturday doing some serious research - my nearest site is the slightly bleak patch on Overbury Street, which looked perfectly alright until I arrived at Manor Gardens. Now this is right on the edge of Hackney, but sadly for the plot owners it's slap bang in the middle of the 2012 Olympic site. I had actually confused the site with one I'd visited years ago belonging to friends (which turns out to be further along the canal) but I knew before I arrived the allotments are under threat. Due to a manure delivery the gates were open and we wandered in to look around. The site is huge and really impressive. It REALLY does fulfill the cliché of an urban oasis, made all the sharper by the fact you walk through what must be some of the most bleak bits of light industrial London to get there.
Eventually (realising we were now locked in!) we chatted to some of the people working on their plots. One woman had continued to work her husband's site after he'd died and proudly showed me the interior of his shed complete with a full cooker. Another man tried to joke with me about now having to move his rhubarb which almost broke him when he moved plots within the site 18 years ago. It really was heart breaking to think that the site will now disappear, I suspect that a lot of the older tenants won't brave the move - and the new shed and £300 compensation seem like rather a pathetic exchange for the community they will be potentially loosing. I can't pretend to know a lot about the ins and outs of all the plans, but failing to include the allotments and the innovative alternative ideas they've put forward does seem incredibly short sighted of the Olympic team. By the time we left, the incredible display of Dahlia's running riot across the site had taken on a slightly funereal autumn feel.
The other thing I've been thinking about sorting out to compete my Hackney life is getting an allotment. This is no casual undertaking and I spent Saturday doing some serious research - my nearest site is the slightly bleak patch on Overbury Street, which looked perfectly alright until I arrived at Manor Gardens. Now this is right on the edge of Hackney, but sadly for the plot owners it's slap bang in the middle of the 2012 Olympic site. I had actually confused the site with one I'd visited years ago belonging to friends (which turns out to be further along the canal) but I knew before I arrived the allotments are under threat. Due to a manure delivery the gates were open and we wandered in to look around. The site is huge and really impressive. It REALLY does fulfill the cliché of an urban oasis, made all the sharper by the fact you walk through what must be some of the most bleak bits of light industrial London to get there.
Eventually (realising we were now locked in!) we chatted to some of the people working on their plots. One woman had continued to work her husband's site after he'd died and proudly showed me the interior of his shed complete with a full cooker. Another man tried to joke with me about now having to move his rhubarb which almost broke him when he moved plots within the site 18 years ago. It really was heart breaking to think that the site will now disappear, I suspect that a lot of the older tenants won't brave the move - and the new shed and £300 compensation seem like rather a pathetic exchange for the community they will be potentially loosing. I can't pretend to know a lot about the ins and outs of all the plans, but failing to include the allotments and the innovative alternative ideas they've put forward does seem incredibly short sighted of the Olympic team. By the time we left, the incredible display of Dahlia's running riot across the site had taken on a slightly funereal autumn feel.
posted by Nina at 11:34 AM
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