A day of diversions (in many senses of the word)

Oh, so much has happened today, and every little bit of it deserves its own post, but alas, it's late and I have to be up early tomorrow, and I'm completely knackered. In short: I traveled just under 12 miles on foot today -- 6 running, 6 walking to and from the Tate Modern -- but about 3 of those miles were due to diversions in the sense of detours. One was caused by a 10K race taking place on my running route (an appropriate reason for a diversion, but requiring a change of route, none the less) and another was caused by who-knows-what craziness that the police had to take seriously, given the recent bombings, thus causing them to close off the Thames walk on the south bank of the river between me and my way home. I was just east of the Globe Theatre and wanted to go west to the Millennium Bridge, but about 12 cops stood in my path and told me "it'll be hours" before the mysterious event was dealt with. For a moment I thought, "I'm stranded in Southwark!" but then I collected myself and headed to the next bridge eastwards and took a more roundabout way home. And while on that bridge I could see that the trouble was already cleared up and the pedestrians moving freely along the walk. Sigh.

And, of course, the Tate Modern was very diverting. The current free exhibition in the Turbine Hall on cities was really fascinating and I love how the permanent collection is laid out thematically. This wasn't my first trip there, but it was more leisurely visit this time.

And the other diversion -- in both the entertainment sense and the detour sense -- really, really deserves its own post. Here's a highlight: during my run, while I was contemplating the reason why Middle Temple Lane was locked off at Fleet Street and reading a sign on the gateway, a man asked me, "Why are you running through the middle of London? Are you a werewolf?" (Note: I was not in Soho and did not have a Chinese takeout menu in my hand.) There's a lot more where that freaky pick-up line (because I think that's what it was) came from, but I'll have to save it for a "Freak Magnet: London edition" post.

And I still haven't blogged about the lovely time I had in Specialized Library #1 this week, which I keep meaning to do! Ack!

Tomorrow and Tuesday (and perhaps Wednesday also) I'll be up at Oxford and may have even less time to blog. We'll see.