A lamppost on an urban street; there is a shop to the right, and there are houses behind. The lamppost is on a pavement made up of small stones. Around the lamppost are three cone-shaped pieces of fabric, one above the other, presumably held up by supports underneath. The fabric is made of lots of little squares sewn together, which are crocheted. Lots of colours are used in the crochet, but the predominant one is green. Around the bottom of each cone are pink and purple tassels. Above the uppermost (and smallest) cone is a tightly-wound string of fairy lights, which are off, and above that three red hearts are arranged in a ring around the lamppost.

Welcome to the London Borough of…, part IX

Last time: I went to the Museum of the Home, and only got two more borough signs. Slacking, really.

If this project, for want of a better word, is characterised by one thing, it’s poor planning. We’ve already seen that in several ways: failing to make sure the things I’m trying to photograph actually exist, for one thing. But then the debacle with the map right at the start, the assumption that all boundaries would have signs even for those boroughs that had any, the decision to run between three not-very-close signs in the gap between two trains, the reliance on an infrequently served station to not take all morning, and, most damning of all, the failure to suspect I might one day write about this and take any real notes.

Fortunately, it was nearly over: there were nine boroughs left, all in either central or north-east London. For seven, I’d located signs; for one, I had a backup plan; and for the last one, well, I was sure I’d figure something out. It was more than possible to get this done in one more day. Almost too easy. Not enough of a challenge.

My foreshadowing isn’t subtle, is it?

Anyway, let’s start with the cheat one, which I started with on day three of doing this. This, incidentally, was about three months after the previous one, and six months after I’d started. It was also the first day of our honeymoon. What can I say? He married well.1

I was honestly quite proud of this one. Camden doesn’t have signs, as far as I can tell. But, if you’re not worried about spelling, it’s fairly easy to find a photo with both the borough logo and the word “Wel(l)come” in the background.

A selfie of the blog's author, who is wearing a green-grey winter coat with a faux-fur-lined hood. He stands in front of a Portland stone building; on the ground floor, there are deep horizontal grooves between successive rows of stones, and four signs angled out from the wall advertising exhibitions. Above the ground floor, it is just possible to see some classical-style columns as part of the wall above. In front of the building is a low wall abutting the pavement. On that wall, immediately to the right of the person, is a white street sign. It has the Camden council logo at the top (eight green hands, clasped in pairs, arranged in a circle, beside the word "Camden" in black). Below, in black, it says "Euston Road", and then, in red, it says "NW1". Further along the wall, to the right, is a yellow sign with "wellcome collection" written on it in yellow.
See what I did there?

I’d like to highlight this as perhaps the best example of planning on the trip, particularly as I’d forgotten how good it was. As you’ll see, the station for the next sign was Chadwell Heath. The nearest Tube stop to the Wellcome Collection is Euston Square. If you know London transport, you might know that that’s a bit of an awkward journey—not awful if you need to get between those two places, but it’s hard to see why I’d have made a detour to get that photo when I could have taken it later in the day.

But you know what Euston Square is next to? Unsurprisingly, Euston. Which is the London terminal for the Caledonian Sleeper. In all honesty, I don’t know if I’d actually worked out in advance how convenient this would be. But, even if not, apparently I managed to spot this opportunity even after the approximately naff-all sleep I would have got on the overnight ride down, and for that I think I deserve a medal.

Whatever it was, preparation or luck, I’m afraid it runs out here. Well, not quite here. It runs out at Chadwell Heath station on the purple line, where the station’s loo was locked behind a RADAR lock. (Yes, I’m afraid this is another London-and-toilet-based post. I promise I won’t make a habit of it.) When I was fact-checking my memories for this,2 I read on the Tube toilet map that “If you do not have a RADAR key, staff will be able to give you access to the toilet”, but I suspect even if I’d known that I would have felt too awkward to ask without a visible reason I needed it.3 Instead, I hurried to the signs I was looking for, which were on a pavement-free road passing between two playing fields. Well, I say “hurried”—I seem to remember bobbing into Waitrose on the way to buy another drink, because clearly my bladder hadn’t suffered enough. I definitely hurried to take the photos, because there were few legitimate reasons to be on the verge of that road taking photos… Anyway, here’s Havering.

The blog's author, now wearing white Sennheiser headphones around his neck. He stands in front of a white sign with a blue border, held up by two grey poles. The sign is rectangular, except that there is a semicircle protruding from the middle of the top edge. Inside the semicircle is a faded image of a coat of arms. Below that, the sign says, in blue: "Welcome to the London Borough of HAVERING. Please drive carefully". Behind the sign is foliage, extending a little higher than the sign itself. The sky is grey.
At least I didn’t have to walk 500 miles to get there.

And here’s Barking and Dagenham.

A selfie of the blog's author, standing in front of foliage and a red-and-white pole marking the location of a gas main. Behind him, next to some foliage along the edge of the road, there is a white rectangular sign held up by two grey poles; it is quite a long way away, so appears small. There is a red strip along the top of the sign that says "Welcome to" on it in white. Below that, the sign says, in various shades of red, "London Borough of Barking & Dagenham", followed by the council's web address. There are two thin crescent shapes arcing around the name of the borough on the left. There is then a horizontal line across the sign, and writing below which is mostly hard to read. What can be made out is a logo made up of a red square and three grey triangles, the space between them forming an approximate "M" shape; and text reading "Myrene Signs Limited". Behind the sign, between its poles, there are some houses with mock-Tudor frontages. The sky is grey.
Incidentally, have you noticed I switched to taking the selfies in landscape rather than portrait? It makes them annoyingly inconsistent.

Rather than walk all the way back to the station, I decided to get a bus to my next stop. I thought the view might be interesting; I remember getting a top-deck view of the back streets of Ilford town centre, but I didn’t take any photos, so it would appear I guessed wrong. But, anyway, half an hour later I got to Forest Gate, which did have the benefit of having a beautifully crocheted Christmas tree.

A lamppost on an urban street; there is a shop to the right, and there are houses behind. The lamppost is on a pavement made up of small stones. Around the lamppost are three cone-shaped pieces of fabric, one above the other, presumably held up by supports underneath. The fabric is made of lots of little squares sewn together, which are crocheted. Lots of colours are used in the crochet, but the predominant one is green. Around the bottom of each cone are pink and purple tassels. Above the uppermost (and smallest) cone is a tightly-wound string of fairy lights, which are off, and above that three red hearts are arranged in a ring around the lamppost.
Very impressive, but about as seasonally inappropriate as I could get for this post.

But no toilets. I think there was a sign (or something I found during desperate Googling) saying that a nearby pub had agreed to open its bathrooms even to non-patrons, but I wasn’t sure it was open at half past eleven in the morning. And, even if it was, I felt (again) too nervous to go in and ask. Besides, the signs I was looking for were near a public park, which would definitely have toilets, right? Right?

Now, in my defence, I haven’t lived anywhere near a public park for years. But I did grow up near loads of them, and most of them did not have loos. I think you can attribute the poor quality of the Newham photo to how keen I was to get this whole thing over with.4

A selfie of the blog's author, standing on the edge of a road. Across the road are Victorian yellow-brick terraced houses. On this sign, behind the person is a sign for a controlled parking zone. Behind that, there is a white rectangular sign with a black border, on grey poles. It is partly hidden by the branches of a bush. It shows a coat of arms, to the right of which is written "London Borough of Newham" in black. Below that, in black, it says "Forest Gate".
I’d combine this with a photo of a sign saying “Welcome to Oldham”, but that would entail expanding this project to all the councils in England and… no. Just no.

A minute later, I had Redbridge:

The blog's author, standing next to a grey signpost carrying two rectangular signs with rounded corners. The upper sign is red, with a white border, and says "New zebra crossing ahead" in white. The lower sign is white, with a black border; it says "London Borough of REDBRIDGE", with the word "Redbridge" in red and the rest in black. To the right of this is an image of five leaves of a horse chestnut tree radiating from the same point on a stem. Behind the person and the sign is a row of bare trees, one of which has a cluster of sticks indicative of a bird's nest. The sky is full of white clouds.
I’d combine this with a photo of a sign saying “Welcome to Greenbridge”, but Greenbridge is an album by a South Korean punk band, and so presumably doesn’t have any signs.

And after a further seven minutes, Waltham Forest.

A selfie of the blog's author, standing next to a green sign on a green pole. The pole is topped by a decorative ball. The sign is rectangular, with a quarter-circle cut out from each corner, and has a raised border painted gold. The top half of the sign shows a coat of arms in bas-relief, painted in the appropriate colours. The shield is divided by a wavy line into white and green parts; on the white part at the top are three trees, and below that on the green part is the head of a stag with a crown between its horns. The supporters are two stags, and the motto is "Fellowship is Life". On the sign, below the coat of arms, are words embossed and painted gold: "Welcome to the LONDON BOROUGH OF WALTHAM FOREST, Birthplace of William Morris". Behind th person and the sign are some bare trees and other foliage.
I’d combine this with a joke about another place I haven’t combined this with, but I can’t think what the opposite of “Waltham Forest” would even be. The best I’ve got is “Walttofu Desert”.

I rushed back to where I’d got off the bus. And at this point I met a cat.

A black-and-white cat on a low garden step, next to a tarmac pavement. The cat wears a collar with a large plastic disc at the front. Its eyes are closed, but if they were open it would be looking up at the hand of the photographer, who is reaching down to stroke it.
Welcome to the London borough of this cat. This cat gets a London borough now. This cat gets all the London boroughs.

A sensible person might have listened to their body and walked past the cat. But who could resist that little face? And apparently, the cat’s feelings towards me, because it started to follow me up the road, away from where (presumably) it lived. I began to worry that I was leading it astray, as if I was the Pied Piper of Hamelin who’d misheard his assignment. Fortunately, I managed to shake it off.

At this point, with just three signs to go, I could have taken the Overground from Wanstead Park. Instead, I rushed to Forest Gate station, went one stop back down the purple line to Stratford, and found a men’s room as quickly as I could. And then I spent the rest of the afternoon shopping for Christmas decorations in various London branches of John Lewis.

Finally, a good plan.

To be continued…

London borough count: 30/33
London borough count without cheating: 28/30

  1. My husband was actually at work when I was doing this, because the holiday coincided with an in-office day for him. I’m not that unromantic. At least, I’m not that unromantic; we may be, if you consider that we chose our honeymoon destination for maximum efficiency. ↩︎
  2. “Fact-checking memories” sounds like a plot for a dystopian thriller. ↩︎
  3. Without going too far into my medical history on this public blog, there is a reason why I shouldn’t wait too long. But at the time I was passing through Chadwell Heath, I hadn’t waited too long. ↩︎
  4. I actually took a much better photo of a much clearer Newham sign four minutes early, but it wasn’t a selfie so I can’t use it. I have no idea why I didn’t just take the selfie with that one. ↩︎

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