I had risen this morning and gazed out the window and ruled out any idea of heading out. Hitting the refresh button while browsing the BBC weather site was not improving things. During breakfast I loaded up a bunch of coordinates into my GPS device and programmed a series of new routes.

When I go about planning these trips I always try to cover as big an area as possible while at the same time visit as many waypoints that I can. One of my planned sorties will take me to the outer edge of London Polygon, the area that I have defined which stretches, clockwise, from Stansted to London City, from City to Gatwick, and from Gatwick to Heathrow and finally ends at Luton.

Against my better judgement I pack my rucksack with the necessary supplies and I hit the road. My legs are feeling reasonable good today and the wind is not too strong. Onwards it is, almost parallel to my last excursion which took me past Waterloo and London Bridge. This time I circle into the City where I briefly loose my GPS signal. This happens a couple of times on the trip. Suddenly it would just drop its connection, possibly due to the density of the cloud layer. The indicator for North, South, West and East would also keep shifting around as if the device didn’t quite know what planet it was on.

I continue past Whitechapel, along the many sales booth selling all kinds of merchandise. Maybe I should stop for to get some spare batteries. I don’t. I continue straight ahead for what feels like a long time. Traffic is flowing nicely around me. I am really a bit tired though, so I do my best to just keep my eyes on the traffic and not anywhere else.

Eventually I cycle into Stratford where traffic suddenly comes to a complete stop. In the middle of a small roundabout a rather big woman lies stretched out, probably collapsed. There’s no blood, but she’s isn’t moving. A crowd of around 50 people have gathered to watch this spectacle. I decide that there is no point for me to join them in their festivities. There are plenty of people here and someone has already phoned for an ambulance. I bike around the event and continue slowly along.

I am inching closer to the first point of the day or so it appears. The GPS device is clearly indicating that I am getting there, but a couple of one-way streets later I find myself having to circle back into Stratford centre and try another road. An ambulance drives past me at great speed. I know where it’s going.

Finally I get on the right track. The waypoint I am looking for is situated deeply inside a public park. Eventually I find it, down a muddy slope. A man is walking his dog. It’s a beautiful animal and happily runs across the moist grass. The point is right by the edge of a small river, or maybe in it. For some reason the GPS signal is very unreliable here. I take my pictures as a couple of swans swim by looking at me lazily. I leave the park behind, realising that this is the furthest out I’ve been for my project. On the road again cycling as it starts to rain slightly. My next two waypoints are located within a couple of hundred feet of each other in Hackney. It’s not too far away and as I cycle towards Central London I come across part of the construction site for the new high-speed Eurostar rail connection to Paris. Too late do I realise that I have just overlooked another point. For some reason the GPS has not been switching properly between pre-programmed points and instead been flipping them around randomly to its own liking.

I reach Hackney after what seems like a very long journey. Maybe I am getting tired. I do my thing in the park. Upon leaving, the rain starts again. I am debating with myself whether or not to head back home, which is where I really want to go, or to continue down to London City Airport and do another point. I decide against London City, blaming it on the unpredictable GPS and its lousy interface. What the hell is the difference between point d276e and d276b anyway? I ride home via Elephant & Castle – with its hellish roundabout any time of day. Then into Oval and Stockwell with a sharp left turn by Clapham North Station.