Stratford East London

 Stratford and the Olympic Park

Thursday 6th July 2023

Well hello there. It's been quite a while. A frustrating few months when the walks got shorter and the knee more painful. But, we finally have a new one, which is something of a double-edged sword at the moment. Yes, it has to be better than the old one (eventually) but it is taking a while to settle and be less troublesome. Knee replacements are painful. And I mean painful. They can take months to heal and, in the healing, cause as much frustration as before you had it. 

However, we're now four months post op and hopefully getting somewhere. Exercise and pain relief is the key. And patience, which is something you tend to run out of quite quickly when all you want to do is get out there and walk! 

Something of a breakthrough came a couple of weeks ago when my brother and I decided to take a train trip to Stratford in East London to do some shopping. Not usually the first thing on our agendas, but he had a few days off and wanted to do something and by taking the Metropolitan line to Finchley Road we could hop on the Jubilee Line straight through. So it was that we found ourselves in the Stratford Centre, which was somewhat disappointing as we had expected a large shopping mall. Before we discovered we were on the wrong side of the station, we took a little bimble out into the High Street and there was some interesting architecture overshadowed by all the high rise blocks going up. At least some of them had something to recommend them - if huge apartment blocks can have recommendation - in that the designs were rather more interesting than what is currently being shoved up in Watford! But, as I said, we discovered that the Westfield Centre was on the other side of the station (told you we weren't really into shopping), so we crossed over and began our trawl around the shops. I was actually looking for a particular brand of shoes, but was disappointed to find a very small collection in one of the stores. So we went for a bite to eat and then decided to take a walk into the Olympic Park, somewhere Martin hadn't visited. 

By this time my knee was starting to twinge quite a bit. I'd already taken a couple of pain killers earlier, so I persevered and we first took a look inside the enormous aquatic centre, where we were told Tom Daley had just turned up for a practice. Sitting alongside the pool sweating in the 'swimming pool heat' we finally spied Tom emerge on the far side with a few other divers and they walked round to the begin their practice, climbing up to the boards, diving, climbing out and doing it all over again. I took a few photos as no one said we couldn't and there were no signs and then we thankfully made our way outside into the fresh air. 

Martin then decided he wanted to take a closer look at the Orbit, or the ArcelorMittal Orbit to give it its correct name. Having walked all around the outside, we decided we wanted go up to the viewing platform and take some photos, but having stood in the queue for several minutes, we found out there was a private function being held and the platforms were unavailable that afternoon. 

"The Orbit"

We took a detour around the aquatic centre and came by a sculpture "Since 9/11" by Miya Ando. It was created using steel columns from the World Trade Centre recovered from Ground Zero in New York, commissioned to teach students about the events, causes and consequences of 9/11, so that by living together in peace, harmony and tolerance, such events can never happen again. 

'Since 9/11' by Miya Ando

It was time to head back to the station. By now the knee was becoming really painful and I was getting slower and slower. But we got there eventually and a couple more tablets washed down with a bottle of water and the long train ride home helped to ease the discomfort. 

It wasn't until I checked my phone App that I realised I'd walked about 13,500 steps and just over 6 miles. No wonder my knee hurt!  It would take a few days' rest and some care to recover. But it showed that I could begin to do my walks again, if I was sensible.This time I had probably overdone it.

More photos in the gallery