The fourth book in the Old Testament is the Book of Numbers, sandwiched between Leviticus and Deuteronomy. As we seek the Promised Land outside the EU, Numbers has a chilling resonance: the first generation of Israelites are condemned to wander in the wilderness for forty years, the second generation are led to Canaan.
Not a pretty prospect but at least there may be ultimate redemption. Numbers gets its name from two censuses of the Israelites and, in its current form, dates back to around 500 BC, but I digress. I have been looking at the number of people who use Barons Court station: 7.12 million in 2017. It’s a meaningless number out of context so 97.92 million used Kings Cross St Pancras, the busiest tube station. If you are interested in usage of other tube stations from 2007 to 2017 click here.
Margravine Cemetery has a counter inside the north gate. It recorded a footfall of 75,314 between 23 – 25 March this year, an average of 3,423 per day. One Sunday in May, 1,881 people passed through so it’s not just weekday commuters taking a short cut.
I walked up to Richmond again yesterday and it was strikingly different to Friday. On Friday, when it was high water, the Thames had grandeur but was also to be respected with strong currents. Yesterday it was low water and ducks, crows, pigeons, gulls and geese pottered around in and out of the river. Cormorants and herons fished, one cormorant stood wings stretched out to dry in the sun and a fox mooched around on the shore by Syon Park. The river was so still and narrow that it would have been easy, but probably illegal, to swim across.
If you need to know the tides in the UK, including the Thames, this is the best link.