LoveLea

Amount of creative activity achieved in last 24 hours: 0
Level of conviction in own genius: 7
Watching: About to watch 'Changeling' on DVD
Hair Day: Superlong

Spent a day and a half in ridiculously bucolic South Devon over the weekend, for JimmyDOLLYman's wedding to the fabulous Cress. The main party was in a buttercup-sprayed field where we also camped, and others made use of the cute cream-coloured tipis laid out for them, like an arty middle-class native tribe. The village had a stonking pub, gorgeous 15th-centruy church, and not far away was a brilliant all-purpose deli, cafe, newsagent and DVD store, where many guests breakfasted, stealing all their Saturday Guardians and using up all their posh coffee. The weather was mostly blusteringly sunny, birds flittered merrily about and Cath Kidston-inspiring wildflowers peppered every laneside. The wedding was wondrous, rising comedian Josie Long was a guest, I dried my eyes several times on the hem of my dress and kept off the drink so I could sing a few numbers at the end of the night in a sort of ideal karaoke situation ('Groove Is In the Heart', 'It's Oh So Quiet'), and it was all rather gutting to have to come back to London quite early the next day in order to do a spot at Troy's Magic Piano at the Harrison Bar. Even more annoying as the weather in London had been so glorious that no-one wanted to come to a night of leftfield music and short films and Andy and I played to ooo, about 6 people.

Still, we made up for being stuck in London today by going on a bike ride which started by aiming for, ooo Clapton, and ended up being all the way to Enfield and back which is a good 23 miles of riding on my plucky shopper. Take note: this is an incredible feat for me, I who resist almost all forms of exercise quite stoically, for the main reason that I don't like being a) tired and b) sweaty. We went the whole way on the canal from Bethnal Green and then the Lea Navigation, which turns into the Lea River, taking in all the wonders secret London has to offer: the big teeth-motif graffiti of artist Sweet Tooth, the Olympic site, a brilliant perspective of Hackney Marshes' multiple goalposts, diminishing into the distance with perfect slim-white symmetry. Then there's the grimmer industrial areas, the weird outposts populated by many white working class folk and their terrifying dogs, the huge waste disposal factory soundtracked by deranged gulls' wall of screeching sound. We got bike stickers from a lady promoting bat walks; we took photos of the caramel-coloured ponies loitering under a huge electricity pylon; we saw common terns dip their ink-dipped heads down towards the water in search of fish; we cooled our feet in the cleaner, more northern bit of the river alongside barges entitled things like 'Best of Britain: Alan and Joan Fear' and a jet-black one called 'Valhalla'; we passed all manner of walkers and cyclists from a large family of Hasidic Jews wobbling precariously along (the littlest girl careered downhill straight into a dense bush of pink flowers) to a chap miraculously juggling both drinking a can of beer, smoking a ciggie and texting on his phone. The physical results of today are that my freckles have splattered all over my face, my hands are burnt on one side by sun and on the other by handlebar-gripping, and I am walking like John Wayne. And only partly out of confidence at my newfound athleticism.

Here's a pic.