A Canal Walk

Well, I'm happy to report that all my peeps in Tampa seem to have come through Milton OK. My stepsister said a large limb fell across their road, temporarily blocking access, but it was being removed as she told me about it.

You may have seen that a massive crane collapsed in downtown St. Petersburg and crashed into the building that houses the Tampa Bay Times. I've been in that building several times, including once almost a quarter of a century ago (!) to interview for a job I didn't get. (It was actually better that I didn't get it, because the opportunity arose to move to New York a few months later.) I still have friends who work there. The building looks pretty badly damaged.

Things in London are fortunately much calmer than Florida, weather-wise. I took a walk yesterday along the Grand Union Canal, from Lisson Grove through Little Venice and Ladbroke Grove to Willesden Junction -- about four and a half miles, according to Google Maps. It was a good day for photography, with light rain eventually making way for intermittent sunshine, so I got some decent photos.

I tried to pay attention to the changing seasons. We haven't hit "peak leaf" yet but there's some color out there.

The leaves combined with the quirkiness of the canal boats made for fun picture-taking.

I don't know what's happened in this area under the Westway. There are three or four derelict, burned-out boats in the water, including that one in the foreground that is little more than a pile of floating plywood, and there's loads of rubbish piled against the wall along the path. It looks like there was a fire, or series of fires, and people are perhaps rebuilding -- but I couldn't find anything about it in the news. It's a mystery.

I stopped at Trellick Tower to check out all the street art. I used to come here with Olga all the time when we lived in Notting Hill. It makes for good graffiti photos, but I only took a few this time around. I guess I'm not as into graffiti as I once was.

This area between two bridges was hard to photograph because it was just a little too wide for my camera lens -- and I couldn't back up anymore without the bridge intruding into the picture overhead. So I took a pano shot with my iPhone. It's nice to have a couple of camera options!

It was a little strange to make this walk without Olga, but she can't go that kind of distance anymore. Hopefully she was content to go to Hampstead Heath in her dog-walker's van!