Hackney Marshes Parkrun

While me and my lovely wife were in London to watch ABBA Voyage (read about it here), I took the opportunity to run a tourist parkrun. The closest one to where we were staying was Hackney Marshes, the home of Sunday league football. I was astounded by how many football pitches there were there. I Googled it and apparently there are 82 pitches, mostly football but also a few cricket and rugby pitches thrown in for good measure. That’s a lot of sport!

The start and finish of the parkrun was about two miles away, mostly through the Olympic park and along the River Lea. I arrived a little early and did a bit of the run route before lining up for the pre-run briefing. There were quite a few people there, but not too many, if you know what I mean. The start was spread across a wide area which meant that it wasn’t too chaotic.

The route was an out and back with a loop from the mid-point. About half of it was on paved paths and the other half on grass. However, the day I was there the grass was dry and good to run on. What I did come across was quite a few runners who weren’t doing the event and were running the course in the opposite direction. The only other time that I’ve come across this was at another London parkrun, Fulham Palace (read about it here). I know that park runners don’t have sole use of a park, but I know that I wouldn’t want to try and salmon my way against hundreds of runners.

Anyway, it was an enjoyable parkrun, nice and flat, which makes a change from Lancaster. I finished in a time of 22:44, 64th overall and 2nd in my age group. In Lancaster or Morecambe, that finishing position would have placed me 5th or 6th in my age group. I have an idea that people over 50 have long since moved further out of London, or they just don’t partake in parkrun. It was also the 644th event at Hackney Marshes and my third highest event number behind Bushy Park (event #786) and Woodhouse Moor (event #783).

Hackney Marshes was my 64th different parkrun location and was my first “new” event of 2024, even though I have run at Lancaster, Morecambe and Rothay Park. Hopefully it won’t be my last “new” event of the year.

Would I run there again? Probably not, and that isn’t because I didn’t enjoy it, I did. It’s more that if I was in the area again, there are another ten parkruns less than five miles away.

ABBA Voyage

My lovely wife, Helen, mentioned last year that she would like to see ABBA Voyage. Seeing as I wanted to see it as well, I bought us both tickets to see the show on her birthday.

It was an almost stress free journey. Avanti West Coast train to London, and then two Tube rides to Stratford station near to the Olympic village. A small detour and we found our hotel. It was a Travelodge, and it wasn’t particularly good. We won’t be staying with them again.

We found a local bar serving food, which was mostly filled with people who looked like they were going to see ABBA. A couple of drinks later we headed to the purpose built arena, which holds 3,000 people and has sold out every night since the show opened. Long queue for the ladies toilets, as always. I don’t understand. It’s a purpose made arena. Why didn’t they build more loos? Anyway, another drink before the doors opened and we could enter.

The area in front of the stage doesn’t have any seats so that people can dance, although people are encouraged to get up and dance wherever they are sat. There were also a few dancing pods set half way up the seating area for larger groups.

On to the show. What can I say? It was brilliant. A live band. All of the hits and spectacular in every way. So good that you completely forget that ABBA are not actually there. I would absolutely recommend it to everyone.

In hindsight, I should have booked a hotel in the center of London, close to the Docklands Light Railway, which has a station which couldn’t be any closer to the venue. Next time, as we will be going again.

The following morning we had a walk around the Olympic village, although the funny tower thing was closed for maintenance, which was a shame as it appeared that there was a huge slide to take people back down again.

That evening we planned on meeting Helen’s eldest son, who works in London, and his girlfriend, for a meal at Mercato Metropolitano, a huge warehouse filled with dozens of different food stalls, close to the Elephant and Castle.

Afterwards, we went to Puttshack for 9 holes of indoor crazy golf. This was also brilliant, with electronic scoring that recognized each ball. With three different 9 hole courses, this is also somewhere I would like to go again.

The Trains are Shocking

I feel another rant coming on. I have blogged many times about the trains in the UK being shocking, but it is time for a recap.

Last weekend, me and my lovely wife, Helen, travelled to London for a few days to see ABBA Voyage for her birthday. It was fantastic, and I will write about that soon. Anyway, late on the Friday night I received an email from Trainline to say that our train the following day had been cancelled, and that it was okay for us to either jump on the one immediately before or immediately after the one we were supposed to catch. Not too much of a problem as we made it to Euston in plenty of time to catch the train an hour earlier. We even managed to find a pair of unreserved seats facing forwards. The email from Trainline also mentioned that we were due a refund via delay repay.

In theory, delay repay should be easy. I have never found this to be the case, especially as I always buy train tickets through Trainline. I do this because there are three different train companies who use Lancaster Station, and I want to be able to have a better choice of price or times.

First thing I did was find the Avanti West Coast Train website, which I registered for. Once I had found where the delay repay was hidden and followed the link, I was told that I had to re-register, as the process for delay repay was different. Eventually, I managed to submit our tickets for the refund. Within an hour, one of them had been deemed unsuccessful. The short booking reference was the same for both tickets, which I’d had to input on the form. I have appealed. Hopefully, within 30 days I will have a £55 refund.

This process feels deliberately difficult, almost as if the train companies don’t want people to claim refunds that they are due. Northern Rail always used to send vouchers, which were incredibly difficult to use, no matter how often I requested a cheque to a direct payment into my bank account.

Historical rant.

I used to have to travel to Manchester one day a week with work. In the first six weeks, my train was delayed every single time, which was annoying. However, what was more annoying was the different train companies. The cheapest ticket, at the time, would be from Northern Rail at approx. £16 for a return. TransPennine would be approx. £26, and an anytime return over £30. However, there were only two trains an hour, one run by Northern and the other by TP. If one was delayed or cancelled, you are not allowed on the next train if it was run by the other company. Why can’t we have just one train company in the UK?

Also, the trains in the UK are the most expensive in Europe, even though they are heavily subsidized. Where does the money go? It goes to the shareholders of the privatized rail companies and isn’t ploughed back into the services. Some of the rail companies are co-owned by the French and German national railways, meaning that our rail fares are being used to subsidize the French and German railways. If that annoys you, I would suggest you don’t look at the water industry.

HS2

Was anyone surprised when HS2 was cancelled? Over the years, each section was scaled back, until only the London to Manchester section remained, which has now become just the London to Birmingham section. If the construction work had begun in Manchester, would the London section have been cancelled? Of course not.

The latest news is that the new HS2 trains will be used beyond Birmingham, all the way to Manchester. This will actually reduce capacity and speed. Let me explain. The current line is used by trains that can tilt. HS2 trains can’t and the maximum speed will be less than current trains.

Each HS2 train has a capacity of 550 seats, but these were going to be run as two units. However, these are too long for the existing platforms and will have to run as a single unit, which has far less capacity than the current trains.

This is nothing less than a kick in the teeth for people travelling from Birmingham to Manchester. Slower trains with fewer seats at a higher price. This doesn’t sound like progress to me. Once again the north is hung out to dry.

Rant over.