A good crowd at Cutty Sark Gardens on Saturday morning, some going on Roger’s ride up the Lea Valley, leaving 11 of us to meander slowly down the Thames Path to the ecology park for the 11 o’clock opening of the 1st Millennium Village Summer Fayre. Famous cycling resident, Alexei Sayle, did the honours, cutting the ribbon and declaring the fayre open. Meanwhile Barry and Ray had collected two rickshaws from the school that we had agreed to ride during the day and were ready and waiting for their first passengers.
Then began a long (but fun!) day of riding rickshaws and giving excited children rides between the ecology park, health centre and the school. If you’ve never ridden a rickshaw before it’s hard work! Heavy and difficult to steer at first they take a bit of getting used to but once you get used to the width (judging the gap between bollards kept us on our toes) they’re quite fun to ride.
The demand for rides was never-ending (although the rides weren’t free) but between us Barry, Ray, Cheryl, David and I managed to give people tours of the village continuously between 11 and 4 when we really had to call it a day!
A great day out though - lots going on - traditional summer fayre at the school, pond-dipping and story-telling at the ecology park and free reflexology and massage at the health centre amongst other things. Good feeling of community spirit, helped by the fact that the Millennium Village now has its own Community Worker, whose role is to run lots of community events... and as you will have seen from an earlier e-mail the school are really keen to introduce a new school travel plan and are keen to work with us ... watch this space for future links with the Millennium Village - lots of opportunities to get more people on bikes.
HS.