Dave Hill Runs the South Riding

This is from Dave Hill's london Blog in the Guardian

"I've decided to run next year's London Marathon. As part of my training programme I intend to run from far west to far east London, passing through all 32 boroughs and the City along the way. I made a start a few weeks back, and already I have found that I'm on a journey of discovery - one that I'll be sharing with you in the months to come. I'm also raising money for Shelter."

This is my sort of enterprise - running as a form of exploration and I should have linked to it before. 

Perhaps though it is good that I waited because today he covers some of the ground I covered on day 1 of the South Riding: Sutton to Colliers Wood.

I am pleased he mentioned the River Wandle because it is something I forgot to talk about in my post (well actually there were a lot of things I remembered but didn't write about - I didn't want to be too self indulgent). I have memories of paper mills and factories and a filthy discoloured river covered with patches of foamy scum. Now it is amazing how such rivers were filled with the untreated effluent from factories along them because now it is so much better. It is a great example of how much the environment of our cities have improved over the last 50 years or so

In a time when the default position of people talking about the state of the country is to say the place is going to the dogs, everything is falling apart, not good enough, it's all a rip-off, it seems almost embarrassing to point to something and say "erm well actually some things are dramatically better." 

The River Wandle is a case in point and something I can point to and say: "If only you knew how it used to be!"