London: City of London; Tuesday, 31 August, 2021

I had my final early breakfast and checked out of the hotel before starting what I was calling my Orange day – a series of attractions located slightly away from the city centre, but linked together by the London Overground – the Orange line on the tube map.

First stop of the morning was south to Forest Hill and the Horniman Museum. Founded by tea magnate Frederick Horniman to showcase his collections from his travels, it’s turned into one of those museums that has a little bit of everything from Natural history and Geology to World cultures and musical instruments. The star attraction being the badly stuffed Walrus. When presented with the beast to stuff the taxidermist didn’t realise that walruses have lots of folds of skin, instead he stuffed the beast until it’s skin was taught, consequently it is an enormous beast – and one that has long been the mascot of the museum.

From Forest Hill the original plan had been to quickly hop back onto the Overground and head up a few stops to Hoxton. Unfortunately, that required the Overground to be operating properly and I’d chosen the very worst point to turn up as the service was only just starting to recover from an earlier suspension. Rather than a train every 7-8 minutes I ended up sitting on the station for nearly 40 minutes as train after train went from on time to late to delayed to cancelled. Eventually a train did finally come through, but even that was terminated short, thankfully two stops past where I needed to get to.

Eventually I reached my second destination of the day – the Museum of the Home in Hoxton. The museum is housed in a set of old alms houses and it charts the history of the home over the centuries. One of the key parts of the museum is it’s rooms through time exhibition which shows what a typical main room of the house would have looked like from the early 17th century through to the modern day.

I caught the Overground a couple of stops north to Dalston Junction, where I needed to walk the 200 yards or so up the road to Dalston Kingsland station, but I took the opportunity of a coffee shop to stop off for a very late lunch, before continuing my journey round to Stratford and then walking down into the Olympic Park.

I’d booked my final attraction of the trip – the ArcelorMittal Orbit – with quite a bit of scepticism as it did look a bit like a gimmick. However, once up on the viewing platform of the tower it was clear that this really is a good place to visit. Whilst the views of the Olympic park aren’t great – you’re too low down and close to see the Olympic stadium itself properly, but from the top it’s one of the best places in London to see both the historic City of London and the modern financial capital in the Docklands.

There are three ways down from the Orbit. You can go back down in the lift you came up in. You can descend the nearly 500 steps to ground level, or you can pop yourself in a padded sleeping bag an fling yourself down the 170m slide that wraps round the outside of the tower. I decided to use the stairs and every now and then there would be a scream of sheer terror as another person decided that the slide probably wasn’t the best choice.

Back down at ground level I had intended on walking back to Stratford station to get the train back into town, but as I was walking towards the station I passed a bus stop at the same time as a bus heading back to Shadwell was arriving, and as that was only one stop on the DLR from my hotel I decided that I might go for a bus ride instead.

I was glad I did as the bus wandered round large parts of the Olympic park and then the surrounding areas that just 20 years ago were either heavily industrial, or urban wasteland, but are today slowly being regenerated – including the canals and cuts that feed into the River Lee.

Back at Shadwell I hopped on the DLR one stop back to Tower Gateway, grabbed my bags from the hotel and started on my journey back home.