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Wanstead flash flooding pics
Celeb spotting
Pop legend Feargal Sharkey paid a visit with friends to Wanstead Cricket Club on Friday. And since it was junior training night, some sort of pun like Teenage Cricks might be in order. Or, preferably, much better via the comments form below please.
Ben’s mammoth kayak mission
Wanstead geography student Ben Harris is attempting to become the first person to kayak solo the entire length of the world’s longest lake.
Ben, 21, started on 3 July and has now completed the first leg of four, avoiding crocodiles among other threats. The map below demonstrates he has a way to go – his progress is marked in blue.
On his site he explains his mission: “My aim is to kayak the entire length of the lake, from its southernmost tip in Mpulungu, Zambia to its northernmost tip in Bujumbura, Burundi, becoming the first person to complete this voyage solo. This entails close to 750km of kayaking, and will take me over a month to complete. The trip will be unsupported, low budget and I will be travelling light.”
He has form – he has previously cycled unsupported from Wanstead to Barcelona, has canoed and hiked in Canada’s remote Yukon region with the Inuit people, has mountaineered in the Alps and spent five months of solo travel across South America.
His current mission is to raise money for Centrepoint to support homeless young people. He’s sharing details of his trip on Instagram, and is inviting donations via this link – he’s already raised more than £6,000.
Vaccination central
Walk-in vaccinations are now being offered at Wanstead Pharmacy, from Monday to Saturday 9am-6pm (excluding 1pm-2pm).
Wanstead has been doing well for vaccination rates, as this map shows (the darker the area, the greater the vaccination rate). But there is still some way to go.
| First dose | Second dose | |
| Wanstead | 79.5 | 67.7 |
| Snaresbrook | 78.7 | 65.7 |
| All Redbridge | 68.1 | 52.3 |
Redbridge Council has compiled a useful list of FAQs about vaccination, including links to versions in different languages. It is available here.
A total of 746 people in Redbridge have died within 28 days of a positive COVID test.
Nice
If you’re on this site, you’ll be aware that we like to note new signs on shops in Wanstead. We make no apology for this (so if your reaction, having come to this site, is to object to us writing about a new sign, then you really should take a look at yourself rather than add a comment to this post which says something like “Have you got nothing better to be interested in? You’re utterly pathetic” We’re not. YOU are).
So nice to see the new sign over the beautician now known as Polished, and even nicer to note that it complies completely with the rules for signs on High Street shops (which state that it should not be “internally lit”, a rule which seems to be more honoured in the breach than the observance).
And for those keeping count of Wanstead shops which have French names, please remove Click Beautique from the list.
(Just FYI, the list currently includes: Beauté Parfaite, Provender, Café Brasserie, Jo Jo Maman Bébé, Le Marmiton, La Bakerie, and Le Voyage.)
Grim phone
Woe betide anyone who needs to make a phone call while out in Wanstead and doesn’t have a mobile with them. The absolute state of the phone box – which has actually deteriorated since these photos were taken – is a disgrace. The phone itself is useless, the cubicle is a health hazard, and the noble idea of providing public access phones seems to have lost its point.