I didn’t do too well in the first lockdown this year and I spent too much time feeling purposeless and worried, not really about getting ill but about losing my job. One day in May I decided to go for a ride on my bike to see if it would help. I tweeted as I went and it did help. This is what I wrote and saw, and this is where I went.

Here’s quite a long story. I was mardy yesterday so I got on my bike and rode. It made me happy. These are the reasons I found to be cheerful as I went, starting with my bike (again).

I stopped first by the river at Bermondsey Wall, opposite Wapping Pier Head and looked west towards St Paul’s and Tower Bridge.

I rode through the Rotherhithe Tunnel and along Commercial Road to Limehouse, to Limehouse Cut, Limehouse Town Hall (once the Museum of Labour History), Hawksmoor’s St Anne’s church and the houses in Newell Street seen from the churchyard.

Onto the Isle of Dogs and past St Paul’s, Westferry Road (Thomas Knightley, 1859). Wild, polychrome, Pisan Romanesque, built for Scottish shipbuilders working on Brunel’s Great Eastern. Described by Ian Nairn as, “fighting mad”.

Just south of fighting mad St Paul’s (now an arts space), beyond the Millwall Outer Dock, were the remains of the ramp for the launch of Brunel’s vast steamship, the Great Eastern, built by J Scott Russell at Millwall Iron Works, on 31st January 1858.

And then, further south yet, the view south across the river to Greenwich Hospital and the Queen’s House from Island Gardens. Wren complementing and complimenting Jones.

At Folly House Beach, on the east side of the island, west of the Greenwich Peninsula and the Millennium Dome, someone had left some Encouraging Stones, painted and with prayers on them.

I’d never been right down to Leamouth though I’d crossed Bow Creek a thousand times, so it is: Bow Creek and Trinity Buoy Wharf, Leamouth

I decided to keep going east from Bow Creek, to Silvertown, Thames Barrier Park and the Thames Barrier itself, which is a wonder.

And once I’d got that far, it would have been a shame not to keep going to the Woolwich Ferry. Over on the South side is the Dame Vera Lynn.

I rode back west via Connaught Bridge over the Royal Docks and (for nostalgia’s sake) Canning Town to see the old Mayflower Centre where I used to live; then north to Stratford and the Olympic Park.

The Aquatic Centre and the Velodrome are the best remnants of 2012, when it felt like we were still modern and hopeful.

After that, I just rode north up the Lea Valley, past Hackney and Walthamstow Marshes to Springfield Marina. I didn’t really see the city again until South Tottenham.

I came home up and over Muswell Hill (drinks break provided at a careful distance by Max, Linus and Elsa) and then sailed down Archway Road, through King’s Cross and Bloomsbury, over Waterloo Bridge. 45 miles of London. Much less mardy.

If your own mardiness becomes harder to manage than mine usually is, then this might be a useful link https://www.samaritans.org/