Art in the wrong place

Even though one mission of this blog is to capture changes I have deliberately not reported any graffiti before because I do not want to encourage the people doing it by giving them more publicity. Graffiti is normally just a meaningless (to most people) tag consisting of a few large letters with no artistic merit but this is something else and is worth recording. 

That said, it is still graffiti on a wall that deserves better and so I will not say where it is.

New grass

A desire path has been between Kingfisher Drive and Riveside Drive has created a muddy scar across the grass which someone is trying to repair by planting new seed and putting up a barrier to allow it to grow. 

That seems to be working for the moment but desire paths are there for a reason and the muddy line is likely to return.

Wrapped roof

I am always interested in new construction projects locally and this one has the advantages of being almost on my doorstep and of being on a corner making it very visible.

Odd one out

This is one of those cases where I fail to understand both why someone wanted to do this and why it was allowed to happen. Once upon a time this was a neat terrace of four houses in Woodville Road, now it is a mess.

Dividing the path

The shared path through Royal Park Gate was clearly divided into separate lanes for pedestrians and cycles when it was first created but nobody paid any attention to them, mostly because the path is too narrow for two lanes, and the lines were allowed to fade in to oblivion.

Now someone has decided to repaint them and I am sure that they will be ignored again.

 

For reasons I am not going to attempt to guess at, the new line stops at the junction with Horsley Drive.

Le Look Image is 30

Le Look Image hairdressers was already well established when I moved to Ham in 1996 . The time has flown by for both of and now they are celebrating 30 years.

Walking Ham

I thought that I would share my CityStrides Lifemap so that you can see the paths I have walked in Ham. There may be a few paths missing because I do not always map my walk but it gives you a good idea of where the paths are and how much walking I have to do to try and keep on top of changes locally.

One of the things is shows very well is just how many paths there are in the north-west section of Wates Estate.

LS08 BCF

Lost ways?

One of the things that I most love about Ham is the way that it is so permeable, that is there are lots of paths that let you more across the area in most directions for most of the times. The worst enemy of a street walker is a dead end.

While most parts of Ham are good in this regard some of the paths through Wates Estate, particularly in the south-west corner, have been blocked off. Sometimes this is very obvious and in other places I am not so sure, and these are three of those.

A lot of the garage areas have a separate pedestrian exit and I think there may once have been a way through here from Mariner Gardens to the set of garages in Watermill Close nearest Broughton Avenue.

This is the view from the other side and there is certainly space for a path here.

Similarly, this gate looks as though it blocks a way also from Mariner Gardens to the set of garages on the bend of Watermill Close.