Monday, April 18, 2005

Unexpected finds on a walk through East London

A happy pig scratching her back on a tree and eating flowers.

There were also donkeys, sheep, lambs, cows, goats and beautiful piglets. Strangely enough they weren't roaming the streets of Stepney, but were happily ensconced in Stepping Stones Farm. It's very small; it took me about five minutes to walk all the way round, including stopping to admire said pig, say "aah" at the piglets and regret leaving my camera at home. They have two varieties of pig (pink and black with pink stripe, maybe saddleback? Not good at identifying pigs, except Tamworths which are easy cos they're ginger), fluffy sheep with lambs, big brown cows and a lovely smell of farmyard, all within sight of the Gherkin. What more could you want?

Unfortunately the farm's future seems to be under threat because of the planned Crossrail link. Which is a shame and very bad planning by someone. Obviously rail links need to be built somewhere*. But why through a rare and beautiful, if somewhat smelly piece of urban farmland?

EDIT: *Like bypasses

No comments: