The Hopper fare was introduced in September 2016, allowing bus and tram passengers to take one extra journey for free within 60 minutes of tapping in. Two years later it was extended to allow unlimited journeys within an hour, saving Londoners even more money and enabling some pretty lengthy one-fare journeys. Over a billion Hopper journeys have been taken since... Hopper Challenge 1: Starting from Bus Stop M, escape London by bus for one fare of £1.75 TfL buses cross the Greater London boundary, so all I have to do is catch one before my 60 minutes from Bow elapses. So how to start? Of the buses that serve Bus Stop M the 488 is only going one more stop, the 108 terminates in Stratford and the 276 grinds to a halt around Newham Hospital, so not them. The only solution is to ride a 25 or 425 all the way to Ilford and then pick up a bus to the Home Counties there. 0h00m Board a 25 at Bus Stop M. £1.75 deducted. My hour long-countdown begins. 0h01m We sail through the Bow Roundabout now that the roadworks and lane closures are finished, hurrah. 0h03m We're neck and neck with a 425 along Stratford High Street. At some stops we get all the passengers and it overtakes, then at the next stop it gets all the passengers and we overtake. 0h08m Mass exodus at Stratford bus station. It'd be quicker to get the tube where I'm going, but not cheaper. 0h13m There are multiple sets of roadworks between here and Ilford, mostly related to the addition of segregated cycle lanes. We also have to duck out the way at one point to let an ambulance pass through. If we don't get to Ilford in time I can't use my Hopper and this challenge collapses, plus my journey will cost twice as much. These are not worries you have with a Travelcard. 0h20m We've reached Forest Gate, and so far the 425 driver has overtaken us three times. 0h27m Four times. 0h30m At Little Ilford Lane the traffic's looking really slow going the other way, but we're progressing fine. 0h32m Alight at Ilford Hill and walk round the corner to stop H outside Ilford Station (0h34m) 150 to Chigwell Row, the 167 to Loughton or the 462 to Limes Farm Estate. Grrr, all of these buses are at least 9 minutes away... but in good news that's well inside my time window so I should be fine. However it's worth pointing out that a Hopper connection can totally fail if the second bus doesn't turn up in time, so it's often a fare saving that requires a massive lump of luck on your side. OK, bus two... 0h46m Board a 462 outside Ilford station. £0.00 deducted. After nine years that's my very first Hopper, kerching! 0h56m We've reached the Gants Hill roundabout and are about to head off on a tour of the backstreets. The 462 is a proper twiddlybus, a guided tour of all sorts of Redbridge streets not normally seen. 1h00m As my hour expires I'm on Longwood Gardens near the shops. A magnolia is in full bloom in someone's front garden. 1h02m Technically a Hopper fare is valid for 62 minutes, not 60, in case the clocks on buses aren't quite accurate. But there are no other bus routes here I could switch to anyway. 1h05m Barkingside High Street is busy and takes away most of our passengers. 1h07m Now for a swoosh past Fairlop station and Fairlop Waters Country Park, a scenic diversion the 462's been taking since 2016. 1h14m After threading through Hainault we finally cross the Greater London boundary at the top of Manford Way. The first stop in Essex is just outside Grange Hill station, but I'm continuing to the terminus for extra value for money. 1h21m I've ridden alone with the driver round the loop road on the Limes Farm Estate. The last stop is at Amanda Close, technically only five metres outside the Greater London boundary but that totally counts. I have escaped London using the Hopper fare and spent only £1.75. I'm just 7 miles from home but it's been a 13 mile journey to get here, and I've paid only 14p a mile. Limes Farm is a fascinating place, a large 1960s council estate built for Chigwell Urban District and accessed via a single road. It's both spacious and green but also well past its best, with oddly-shaped flats, one drab Londis and a few intervening attempts at regeneration. It deserves a full blogpost one day but not now, I have one more challenge to tackle on the way home. Hopper Challenge 2: How many buses can I ride in an hour? 24 buses back in 2017 and a City Monitor reporter rode 28, but that was taking advantage of a longer grace period. Originally TfL allowed 70 minutes for one Hopper fare but during the pandemic they cut the buffer from ten minutes to a less generous two so I've only got 62 minutes to try to max out. 0h00m Here we go, a 247 to Barkingside, start the clock. If I stay on to Barkingside High Street there should be lots of buses to switch to. Checks app... bugger, no buses for the next ten minutes. This may be a road served by six different routes but I have unintentionally launched into a bus desert. Well this is rubbish. And I can't go back and start again because my Hopper is valid for another 50 minutes. 0h17m OK, I'm going to catch a 167 in the opposite direction, one stop back north, just to fill the time. 0h24m Sigh, you wait all this time and then three southbound buses come at once. I'll pick the 128 and jump on that for one stop. 0h26m ...and then switch to the 150 that was coming up behind. I would switch again at the next stop but no further buses are due. Let's try again at the Gants Hill roundabout. Sigh, half time and I've only managed four buses so far. 0h37m It's still very gappy, even with eight routes to choose from. So gappy that I've had to catch the next 150 coming along behind. 0h43m Barely quarter of an hour left so I really need this 396. Don't look at me strange when I ding the bell after one stop. 0h44m This is more like it, straight onto the 128 behind. 0h46m And then a 462. Why wasn't I having this much luck earlier? 0h51m And for the last stop into Ilford here's a 179. That's nine buses so far, and four in the last ten minutes. I have time to catch one more and I need it to be a 25 or 425 that'll take me home. 0h55m Come on come on. 0h56m Please turn up before I hit the hour. 0h57m Eek this is getting close. 0h58m Oh thank goodness, a 25 and just in time. It means I managed 10 buses in the hour, which isn't bad after my disastrous opening 20 minutes. 1h01m It turns out I could have sneaked in an extra W19 just before my 62 minutes was up, but I wouldn't have known that for sure at the last stop so it wasn't worth the risk. 1h41m And I'm finally back at Bow Church where I can hop off for a cup of tea. 2h18m The 25 I was on finally pulls in at Holborn Viaduct. This means I could have enjoyed a 2¼hr journey all the way from the outskirts to the City for £1.75, confirming the Hopper's sometimes exceptional value. The Central line does this in 30% of the time but at twice the price. In conclusion I have now used the Hopper and managed to get all the way from Bow to Essex on a single fare. I also used a Hopper to get home and rode ten buses in the process, which isn't a record but is still a very decent bit of card-bashing. If I'd done this seven years ago it would have been proper bloggage but instead it's old news, sorry. And never again.

Bromley-by-Bow has a new tower block and unusually it's not along the A12 or the River Lea, it's in the historic part. It replaces a drab council block which the local housing association was keen to wipe away, and rightly so, as part of a long-term project to replace Stroudley Walk with something better. I first blogged about those plans 11 years ago, that's how long-term it is. Warren House in September 2021, which took an age, and building its 24 storey replacement seems to have taken even longer. But it now has almost all its cladding in place, its faux brick panels making it look like every other newbuild block, and the resultant tower looms unfamiliarly over medieval Bow in an architecturally vacuous way. plan is that the rest of Stroudley Walk has been replaced by lower-rise blocks of affordable housing to help ease local pressures, while the new tower is being flogged off to well-off incomers to help pay for it. It's a shame the overall scheme only delivers 42% affordable housing but that's the modern reality, indeed it's a significantly better percentage than some. The new development is called Upper East, which is a perfect example of a meaningless name which could have been pumped from a buzzword generator. The development's vision is even worse: "Celebrating yesterday, building community, defining tomorrow". Not only is it meaningless but it's also downright lying, there being bugger all "yesterday" being celebrated here whatsoever. Let's see what other bolx the brochure can offer... • a dynamic new neighbourhood in the heart of East London (bolx) experience elevated living (bolx) exceptional development (bolx) designed for modern living (bolx) the perfect location for relaxation and socialising (bolx) ...and that's just on page 3. • Perfectly positioned between Stratford, Canary Wharf and The City (bolx) With Hackney Wick, Shoreditch, and Brick Lane just moments away (utter bolx) Grove Hall Park, a serene greenspace with a playground and walled memorial garden, is perfect for a little walk on a lazy Sunday or a place to sit with friends in the summer months (haha lol bolx) Upper East offers exceptional convenience for professionals, with Canary Wharf and The City just a short commute away (yeah right, bankers welcome) Peak bolx is probably the claim that "Living at Upper East puts you at the centre of Bow’s vibrant culinary scene." I do like the area but never in a million years would I describe its cafes and restaurants as "a diverse array of dining options that cater to every taste", indeed foodwise E3 bats well below the London average. I grant that shopping and culture are easily accessible, what with everything Westfield and the Olympic Park have to offer, and that transport connections are pretty decent. But a lot of the supposedly nearby treats aren't especially nearby or indeed treats, more a desperate selection compiled by an intern attempting to upsell a skyhutch to an ignoramus. "London is a prime destination for students seeking top-tier education". The hope is that some rich parent will gift their foreign student a serviced bolthole during their studies, indeed I see sales for Upper East opened in Malaysia long before they opened here. In a capital city with a huge housing problem it seems criminal to be flogging flats abroad rather than targeting Britons, and an enormous and wasteful palaver to be creating stacks of luxury boltholes just to get 115 affordable flats added to our housing stock. Upper East is nothing new, merely new for round here. But it will stand prominently on Bow's skyline forever as a reminder that the high life is now only for those who can look down on the rest of us.

The major roadworks at the Bow Roundabout are complete and traffic is flowing freely again. Hoo-bloody-rah. It took longer than strictly necessary for all the cones to be removed. They lingered mysteriously on a couple of arms of the roundabout, so for example traffic on Bow Road was still being unnecessarily funnelled into one lane even when traffic arriving from the A12 had the full two lanes available. But with all the cones gone six months of disruption have finally ended, so if traffic snarls up now it's because of rush hours and normal congestion rather than anything self-imposed. Also when I said the roadworks were complete I was lying, they're still working on the expansion joints. This is because the Bow Interchange isn't just a roundabout/flyover/underpass combo, it's also a bridge over the River Lea. The current bridge is now 55 years old so it made sense to use this opportunity to give the metal joints a good once-over, and for practical reasons most of that renovation is being done at the end of the works. A team from a company called BridgeCare turned up with two huge vehicles called Bridge Expansion Joint Units and used shovels, blowtorches and specialist equipment along the length of a curved groove, measuring out the gaps between the two joints with wooden blocks. Previous updates: #0 #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10 #11 #12 #13 #14 #15 #16 #17 #18

A selection of thoughts from Sunday 1) I only received 5 birthday cards this year, most of them from people who remember me being born in 1965 (dgD, dGA3, dgDBM). Pictured are some of the 43 cards I received when I was born, all of a very 1960s aesthetic. Number of birthday cards received (age 0) - 43 (age 20) - 23 (age 40) - 16 (age 60) - 5 2) I was hoping to catch a nice early train from Hackney Wick but there weren't any, indeed it turns out on Sundays there never are. The entire Mildmay line between Willesden Junction and Stratford is unserved before 9am on Sundays, with the first westbound train departing Stratford at 0900 and the first eastbound train departing Willesden Junction at 0902. The station with the slowest start is Camden Road whose first Sunday train arrives at 0922, and I wonder if that's the latest timetabled start on any day on any TfL line. 3) Sunday was an unseasonably springlike day for early March, at 18°C the warmest 9th March since 2014. The warmest 9th March on record was in 1948 with 23.9°C recorded at Wealdstone, that's 75°F. While I was researching this online I also found the weather forecast for the day I was born ("England and Wales will be sunny and rather warm this afternoon, but frost and some fog patches will return tonight in midland and eastern districts"). The temperature was -5°C at Kew when I was born, rising to 10°C in the afternoon, and my Dad would have cycled through fog to see me at the hospital. The Met Office has a nerdily detailed archive of weather forecasts and data records for the whole country here. 4) To enjoy the weather I walked the Croxley Boundary Walk, a 6.3 mile waymarked circuit around the village where I grew up. It's a fantastically varied walk for somewhere so close to London (canal towpath, country lane, fields, village green, river valley, chalk stream, woods, disused railway, moorland) and well signed throughout. On the way round I spotted several signs of spring (catkins, snowdrops, daffodils, crocuses, celandines, flowering cherries, budding trees, nest-building, butterflies, bees collecting blossom, emerging bluebell stalks), also a fox, several swans, a heron and a pair of red kites. I previously walked the Croxley Boundary Walk on 9th March 2014, and blogged about it then so I won't again, but do enjoy a few photos and yes I do recommend it. 5) On the way round the Croxley Boundary Walk there's a lovely path that climbs across a large field from the edge of Whippendell Woods. I was shocked to discover there's now a plan to turn this field into 600 houses, unexcitingly titled 'Land north of Little Green Lane', which would extend the village's built-up area by 5%. Thankfully the top end of the field would survive, reworked as Rousebarn Country Park, but the whole plan's brazenly speculative and very poorly connected to the rest of the village. Whatever the government's definition of 'grey belt' is, this definitely isn't it. 6) I've had plans for a while to see if I could get a mention on the radio on the occasion of my 60th birthday. In the event one of my target shows turned out to be pre-recorded, one was doing an International Women's Day special, one doesn't really do dedications any more, one I wasn't listening to at the crucial moment, one I forgot about until it was too late and the one email I did send made no ripples whatsoever. If anyone sent in a message on my behalf and I missed it do let me know, else I'll have to wait another ten years. 7) BestMate and BestMate'sOtherHalf took me out for a meal in the West End and we started off with cocktails. We thought we'd try the Cellar Door, the speakeasy bar squished into a former gents toilet off Aldwych, which Londonist described as "a mirrored microcosm", Time Out as "a tiny basement" and Secret London as "lav-ley". It seems it only picks up after 9pm, pre-cabaret, so it was pretty much dead. Also they were probably the slowest cocktails I've ever had, sluggishly confected, so the atmosphere really didn't match the setting. 8) For my birthday meal we went to London's oldest restaurant which is Rules in Covent Garden, established 1798. It's a classical warren adorned by Georgian portraits, seemingly with a regular clientele of ruddy couples, shire buddies and old money. The food's extremely traditional, all meat, game and oysters, although not so staid that they won't stick a candle in some ice cream and bring it to your table. For my main I was totally set on steak and kidney pudding until I saw they were doing a proper Sunday roast, then couldn't resist crumble and custard for dessert. BestMate has kindly shielded me from the overall bill. Also we had the table next to the really famous one, the one where M's seen dining in Spectre and which brings all the James Bond fans to the pass. 9) While I was out, Radio 4 broadcast a half-hour documentary by a blogger who rides buses and writes about them, in this case the new V1 nightbus from Manchester to Leigh. It was dead thoughtful of them to schedule something so on point on the occasion of my birthday. Incidentally if you're waiting for me to report back on the number 60 bus route, I'm planning to make that the first trip I do with my 60+ Oyster card when it arrives, which it hasn't yet so you'll need to be patient. 10) I may have overdone it, I had to lie down at one point. But if what you want for a milestone birthday is a memorable day then Sunday certainly delivered.