Hello Blogpeeps,

Another round up from my full and eventful life. Much of my week has been spent working on a new walk in the liberties of the Tower, which will visit tidemarks left behind by the area's history of maritime trade. It's not a docks walk - if you want one of them, my good friends Nika Garrett and Rob Smith can oblige:
http://www.mylondonwalks.co.uk/index.php/en/londontours/eastendoflondon
http://footprintsoflondon.com/portfolio/maritime-blackwall

My one is more inland, and takes in one of the grossest acts of architectural vandalism committed in the name of post-war city planning:

Five of us are working on a walk each which together will form a supplementary programme of walks for the adult education course 'Walkie Talkie' when it comes around again in April (http://charnowalks.co.uk/walkie-talkie/). This will be my one.

Anyway, yesterday morning I gave my 'Before the Make-Over' tour for a very enthusiastic audience of five (did the wine gums help, I wonder?). It tunes in to echoes of Plantagenet and Tudor London which persist despite the destruction of the Great Fire of 1666. I get the feeling though that it would make a pair of better walks if cut in half and worked the halves. We shall see.

We started at Blackfriars, where Paul Talling was also starting his River Fleet walk:
http://www.derelictlondon.com/authors-guided-tours-of-london.html
He does excellent tours, ferreting out so many obscure and unnoticed items and places.

The Black Friar - quite a pub

On Thursday evening I was allowed to contribute to Red Army Fiction's first gig back at the Gallery Café this year: http://www.redarmyfiction.com/ It's a writers' forum created by the lovely and lovable Alison Eley and Raven Garcia, whose imaginations are possibly even more fertile than mine. I read out most of the opening section of 'Jack', a story from my (hopefully) soon to be ready second collection of stories. Jim Minton, who read a beautifully descriptive item of his own, was good enough to lay out ten smackers for a copy of my first collection, 'Death and the City': www.lulu.com/spotlight/Charnowalks.

Anyway, I think I'd better get on and do something more useful, like tackling that stack of ironing. So, thanks for tuning in. More drivel will be forthcoming next Sunday.

Mind how you go.

Love,

Dave Charnowalks