Morning. Ditton Road didn't reopen yesterday, the buses left Hook Road at six this morning, and Rose Walk residents answer yesterday's back-lane idea. Also: why some old filter beds on the Portsmouth Road have a place in the history of medicine.

Yesterday I said Ditton Road would reopen outbound, going by UK Power Networks' letter. It didn't. Helen, a regular correspondent, points out why: the council's cycle route works are a separate job, and the council lists signals and closures where Ditton, Hollyfield and Kingsdowne Roads meet Ewell Road until 25 January. The power cable work finishing doesn't open the road.

The same letter said Kingsdowne Road would close at the Ewell Road end until the 28th. If you've been past and seen whether it has, reply.

From 06:00 today until 23:00 on Thursday the 24th, the 71, 465, 671, K4 and N65 are off Hook Road. Wait at Upper Brighton Road / Ditton Road for the 71, 671, N65 and 465, and at Hook Road / Ash Tree Close or Hook Parade for the K4.

Yesterday Des suggested the lane behind Rose Walk could become a cycle route from Berrylands station to the Hogsmill. I asked Rose Walk residents for their side, and they sent it.

The lane is a private road, owned by the Rose Walk homeowners. It is not a public cut-through, and the council knows it is private. Bikes, the Lime and Forest hire bikes especially, can't easily be pulled under or over the gate.

Residents say the people who already use it bring them antisocial behaviour, arrogant cyclists, drug deals, dog mess, and walkers who think they have a right of way, and that it has been getting worse.

That's both sides, as promised.

The old filter beds at Seething Wells helped prove what spreads cholera.

In 1852 the Lambeth water company moved its intake up the Thames to Seething Wells, well upstream of London's sewage. Its rival, Southwark and Vauxhall, kept drawing from the river at Battersea. In parts of south London both companies supplied the same districts, so neighbouring households were alike in almost every way except what came out of the tap.

When cholera came back in 1854, the doctor John Snow found out which company supplied every house where someone had died over seven weeks. Homes on Southwark and Vauxhall water had around eight times the death rate of homes on Seething Wells water.

Most doctors then blamed bad air. Snow's numbers pointed at the water. Seven of the filter beds are still there by the river, and they are the same ones the London Plan item was about yesterday.

Kingston Cycling Campaign and Full Cycle are running a free family ride on Sunday for the London Cycling Festival: 6.5 miles, easy-paced and mostly flat, round the quieter roads of New Malden and Raynes Park. It leaves from the pavilion café in Beverley Park at 10.45 and is back by 12.30. Full Cycle volunteers will look over bikes before and after, and police bike marking is planned. It's free, but book one place per rider at tiny.cc/FunRideSept26. The forecast has Sunday as the calmest day of the week. Suzanne from the campaign sent it in.

Rain clearing this afternoon, 20°, and windy.

Tonight: Empty Chairs at the Prince of Wales, 7pm, free · the Proper Blokes Club walk-and-talk for men, from the Glenbuck Road entrance of the station, 6.30, free · Birds of the Horn of Africa at St Matthew's school, 7.30 · drawing at the Lamb, 7.30, £10.

Tomorrow: the Hogsmill talk at Tiffin, 7pm, free · a bat walk from St Andrew's Square, 7pm.

Des asked why the bottom of this email says New York. That's the postal address of the previous email service, the company whose software sends it. The writing happens rather closer to home.

Back tomorrow.

Mike