Mutton Brook - no Spring lamb here

What goes up must come down? I feel that there's no shame in admitting that I felt a tad sub-par this morning; the price to be paid for good conversation and freely-flowing wine I believe. So it was in the nick of time that I made it to the Heath this morning - surprising Adam and Mike in the very act of setting off. No longer were they to enjoy a gentle 10K but, potentially, something more physical. On an ordinary day that might well be true but today I was happy just to potter around the Garden Suburb talking about rugby (Italy beating the French? What a joyful result!), tsunamis and nuclear meltdown in Japan (unbelievable images) and how the media industry might be brought to its knees by digital piracy!

More fun than all of this though we also took the opportunity to explore some new paths, alleys and back-street mews in a bid to add a little novelty.Taking the road less travelled is always interesting when you're on foot and occasionally quite satisfying when you manage to connect up the dots between places you know - almost as if the geography around us is a giant jigsaw-puzzle. Diversions such as these led us to Mutton Brook, an inconsequential stream that runs alongside the A1 to meet, and merge, with the Dollis Brook. The funny thing is that while we padded alongside the culvert in Lyttelton Playing Fields we realised we had no idea where the stream comes from - it just seems to appear from nowhere.

Mutton Brook

So I've looked into this further and it seems that the brook initially rises in Cherry Tree Woods (the site of our local and much-loved playground) before travelling underground to emerge somewhere behind Vivian Way in East Finchley (or this is what the OS map suggests anyway). This makes a lot of sense as there is a muddy area (almost a wetland) in the woods, by the railway tracks, where Joshua likes to play and the water that collects here must go somewhere! It's only when you actually stop and think about your local environment like this that you realise just how much history, knowledge and information is imprinted in the landscape around us despite the best efforts of urban planners. That's probably why Nick Papadimitriou has set up his website on Middlesex County Council or, at least, the bit that he's interested in.

Distance: 7.2 miles

Time: 1h 5m 0s