How’s your list coming along? Mine is getting extraordinarily long, what with this heatwave in London. It’s debilitating to the extent that simple everyday chores and tasks rapidly become exhausting and remain incomplete, let alone those long-held promises-to-yourself that you haven’t yet touched, but we’ve just not had a single rainy day for weeks.

• Deleting files on my laptop which tells me that its hard drive is full.
• Moving my email folders to my local Drive and setting up a new email account on two of my devices.
• Replacing the backup disc on my desktop computer as the present one tells me it’s full.
• Completing the draft files in my walk · listen · create profile and publishing Walking pieces from the Museum of Walking into the archive.

My great plan to de-clutter my studio is now only feasible in the middle of the night as its internal temperature has consistently remained above 35C.

I was going to walk another of London’s strategic routes but just the thought of an hour-plus-long tube or train journey to get to the start of each section has put me off, let alone the lack of shade.

Oh don’t get me on to shade… you can guess that with my passion for street trees and expanding the ‘urban forest’ that this heatwave has given me no end of conversational ammunition.

• Completing the EU reporting on communities and activities report including gender analysis for the last three walk online events.
• Remembering to send consent forms to online guests.
• Reaching out to the composers of the 80 Soundwalks created for Sound Walk Sunday in 2017 to contribute in time for the 10th anniversary next year.

Even walking to nearby Blackheath - a twenty-minute stroll across open ground - becomes a duel with the sun. I’ve found a shadier route for half the journey, adding another ten minutes, but that still means 15 minutes with no cover against the sun. How my daily grocery errands have changed!

The number of rough sleepers has diminished too - I know not where they may have found somewhere else to sleep - instead we now have tourist campers in many of our parks. And don’t get me on to cohorts of student tourists... if you wonder why we choose to battle the heat on a walk across Blackheath rather than ‘pop to the shops’ in Greenwich. Yes, Greenwich deserves its ranking as one of the ten most visited destinations in Europe!

I’m going to crawl back under my stone now and encourage you to make sure to keep to the shade. There’s plenty we have to offer to keep you distracted with poetry for pilgrimages and island hopping from Sweden.

Do not miss this!

Follow us on social media