Blog – Page 8 – Where is Phil now?

Yay, St Leonards for the day.

Saturday 5 August 2023 – St Leonards-on-Sea.

I approached this day trip to St Leonards with some trepidation, it’s my first visit since Easter when I handed over the keys to my flat to a tenant who could be there six or twelve months and I was unsure how I was going to feel once I got there. I was hoping that I’d just be mildly ambivalent about the whole St Leonards thing. I didn’t want to love it and regret not being able to live there but neither did I want to feel glad I can’t. I’ve invested some emotional energy on St Leonards and I’d hate to feel it wasted. The pouring rain that was being blown all over the place as I waited for the train back to London did enough to bring me back to reality. I enjoyed the half day, and would have stayed a lot longer if the weather hadn’t been so rubbish.

I was harbouring thoughts of moving back if my tenant moved out after six months. Much as I want to have my flat back, I also can’t really afford it at the moment. Having a tenant means I can pay the mortgage and be able to do nice things like the Ghent trip in a few weeks. We also want to go back to New Zealand for a month in early 2025 and that is going to need some serious saving.

This trip was delayed by a couple of weeks due to the train strikes. I was going down to meet some people from my block to discuss the hugely delayed works on the south side of the building. I wanted to get a list of what needed doing and see it for myself. The business part of the visit was really enjoyable and I had a pleasant hour chatting to my favourite neighbours, and I miss them a lot.

I caught the 9:17 train from London Bridge, the train was mostly empty; it’s not a nice day, definitely more autumn than summer. I enjoyed the journey down. Music and a book over coffee and a muffin to sustain the journey’ regular morning train journey fare.

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I left the train at West St Leonards and trudged up the hill under a solid grey, but thankfully dry sky, the wind pushed me along a bit. The empty and derelict Eversfield Hospital was looking even more derelict than last time I walked past. I so badly want to sneak a look inside….

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I love the building my flat is in; it looks amazing and it ‘feels’ good too. What I don’t like is the cost to maintain it, nor how long it’s taking to get the south side work completed. It was supposed to have all been done by Christmas last year; yet here we are 8 months later with no end in sight and we’ve been battling the maintenance company for weeks. It feels like we have a breakthrough and I was there to make sure everything we knew that needed doing was on the needed to be done list. I remain hopeful it will be over soon and the scaffold can finally come down (again).

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After the meeting at the flat I walked back down to West St Leonards to see a small photography exhibition of the works of Mick Williamson, a Folkestone based photographer who’s been taking daily photos on a film camera since the 70s. He’s taken some fantastic images. What I loved about the exhibition was the use of 10 slide projectors on a central pedestal showing images all around the room, none of them in sync. The clinking and clunking as the carousels moved and the slides we loaded was incredible; I could have listened to that for hours.

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I left the gallery in a gap in the rain and walked along the almost deserted seafront to St Leonards. There were some incredible gusts of wind and there was the odd occasion when I felt I could jump and be borne 50 feet forward. The rain held off for most of the walk but the right side of my trousers got soaked by the wind blow spray.

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I was planning on stopping in at Heist for lunch and a glass of wine but it was really crowded, which I’m taking as a good sign for the health of St Leonards. I’m kinda glad it was busy, I like it there so not being able to find a table meant I won’t miss it. I had lunch at the greasy spoon café instead, it’s perfectly good but not as good as the one in Walthamstow. It too was really busy.

I left there then took a slow stroll up to the station and waited 10 minutes for the train back to London. It was blustery and a bit cold considering it’s still summer. As I said up top it was not a bad way to end the day. I miss St Leonards.

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St Michael’s Mount

Wednesday 26 July 2023 – Marazion, Cornwall.

In the next month I will visit four different English regions. Today, we’re in Cornwall in the South West, this will be followed next week by a day in St Leonards in the South East, then Macclesfield in the North West, finishing with a work training session in York in the North East. This wasn’t planned when the first trips were booked but there is a nice symmetry to it all. To mostly wrap things up I will be visiting Birmingham in the midlands in September for a work related trade show.

We had planned this trip to Marazion a few weeks ago, booking this as one of two short breaks to celebrate Eleanor’s birthday. Due to train and tube strikes we cancelled this holiday a couple of weeks back and postponed a overnight visit to Aldeburgh to mid-October. When the strikes were cancelled we managed to rebook the hotel, thankfully, and here we are in Marazion, a small tourist town three miles east of Penzance. There’s not much in Marazion but the hotel has everything we need and it is directly opposite St Michael’s Mount, somewhere I’ve longed to visit and sitting quietly looking at the view is almost as good as pretty damn good too.

We caught the train down on Monday morning and for a five hour journey, it’s quite enjoyable, particularly from hour two and the far side of Exeter. I took a few photos out of the window as we travelled; the weather at times was ominous.

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The hugely important, inventive and clever civil engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel designed and oversaw the build of a few sections of the railway along the coast including the great Saltash Rail Bridge over the Tamar river and the fabulous coastal section either side of Dawlish.

Unfortunately we were on the rail bridge so I didn’t get a photo of it, though I did get one of the parallel road bridge.

We arrived in Penzance mid-afternoon and took a taxi to the hotel. After checking in we went for a walk through the tiny village of Marazion, with its view dominated by the Mount. I love the Mount and took so many photos from so many different angles; fortunately I’m not sharing all of them. We were slightly bemused by the volume of union flags flying in the village main street, and also the number of cottages that appeared to be short term lets.

We had booked dinner in the hotel, it was a recommended restaurant and the main reason we chose to stay here. We had an early table which turned out to be a good plan as we got shown to a table right by the window and a great view of the Mount. We took a slow meal and spent a lot of time just gazing out the window at the early evening scenery. After eating a very nice meal we had a drink (or two) on the deck until the bar closed. It was a lovely evening admiring the outside, drinking a very nice rose and listening to the classic 70s rock playlist coming from the bar.

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We were either really lucky or had planned brilliantly but Tuesday, our only full day in Cornwall, was sunny and warm and neither the on-off showers of Monday, nor the rain all day of Wednesday had much of an impact on our trip. With the help of the hotel we booked a 10:30 visit to the Mount. Sadly the tide was wrong and we weren’t able to do the hoped-for walk over to the island so had to catch one of the boats that ferry small groups over.

10:30 was the second bookable slot for the day and I’m so glad we went early, the island wasn’t too crowded while we were there and the queue for the boat going over when we arrived back on the mainland was massive. Early seems to be the right time to do things; who knew?

St Michael’s Mount is a tidal island about 100 yards offshore and is fully accessible at low tide. The island was a monastic site, possibly dating back as far as the 9th century. It changed hands numerous times over the next 800 or so years, swapping between different religious orders, royalist and parliamentary leaders over that time. It was sold to the St Aubyn family in 1649 and they’ve owned the island ever since, with family members living in the castle most of that time. Apparently there is a ‘secret’ underground railway from Marazion to the island, and I wish I knew that before we visited as I would have looked for both entrances.

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The way up to the castle is steep and cobbled and not for someone in stilettos; we saw a woman heading that way in them as we walked back to the hotel.

We weren’t overly excited about the castle, it was OK, but as Eleanor said once you’ve seen a few lived in castles you’ve pretty much seen them all, there was nothing special about the castle itself. Great location and it has great views, but it’s a bit so-so inside. I can’t believe I managed to get all those photos with no people in them.

The gardens however…

Wow, I loved them. I’m not a garden person normally but this really was something special. The gardens are terraced up the side of the mount towards the bottom of the castle and the unique micro-climate here they are able to grow a mix of plants we don’t see elsewhere in outdoor English gardens with strong representation with various types of agave and aloes mixed in with more traditional flowering plants. This is not a traditional manor house garden and all the better for it too.

It was hot by the time we left so we stopped for a cold drink and snack in the café on the island before heading back to the mainland on the boat and a brief rest before heading out again for adventure two for the day.

Friends of our who are familiar with the area recommend Treemenheere Sculpture Gardens which were about halfway to Penzance and just inland from the coast. We asked about the gardens in the hotel and they were quite surprised when we said we would walk, and it wasn’t even 40 minutes from the hotel. I guess like most rural communities, this is a car town. I led the way. I won’t say it was disastrous, but Eleanor didn’t enjoy it very much, particularly the dashing across a busy A road motorway. In my favour I was following the fastest suggested walking route on Google Maps and the dash across the A road was at a designated crossing point. I think Eleanor was more annoyed at the overgrown narrow path surrounded by bramble and nettle and then the walk alongside a farmer’s corn field, than the road dash. Either way we walked back a different, albeit slightly longer way that included a road bridge rather than a dash across a busy road.

The gardens were worth it though. We had a very nice lunch and then explored the gardens; there was not a huge amount of sculpture for a sculpture garden.

The gardens themselves were not traditionally pretty, nor fancy and ornamental; there were a lot of shrubs and trees, lots more cacti and the types of thing that grow in the warm, which Cornwall certainly is compared to other parts of the UK. It was very subtropical and I was surprised to see a load of punga trees, a tree fern I’ve not seen in England before, but are everywhere in New Zealand. It almost felt like a walk in Auckland’s Waitakere Ranges. We really enjoyed it and it brought back some happy New Zealand memories.

We spent the evening around the hotel again, sitting outside and hoping for a spectacular sunset which never really came, though there was early promise. It was lovely sitting outside and looking over the Mount. For me, these are the moments that make a holiday. Just sitting quietly, hanging out with Eleanor and enjoying a lovely view.

As predicted, Wednesday arrived under a blanket of low cloud and rain, it was a good day to be heading back to London. I must admit the mount looks great under those low clouds.

We lurked around the hotel after a long breakfast and took a taxi to the station in Penzance at check out time. We were still very early so went for a walk in the rain; lugging our bags with us as there is no left locker storage at the station. Penzance is probably a prettier town if the rain isn’t falling.

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Our journey home was frustrated with signal failure and a very busy train. We were hoping to get a snack and a drink on the five, which turned into a six hour, journey to Paddington, but with only a food cart and a very full train we didn’t get served for four and half hours and there was little left. As well as getting a little hangry we did get a partial refund for the delay which partly made up for it. I managed to snatch a photo of the Brunel’s magnificent Saltash Rail Bridge as we approached which was I guess the one bonus of the slow journey.

Soon enough we were home in London, and as always, Cornwall and the South West were wonderful. Next time we go for longer!

Brutal Day Out–Thamesmead

Saturday 15 July 2023 – Thamesmead, London.

Friday 21/07, home writing.

Eleanor is at book club so I’m sat with my feet up on the coffee table supping gin and tonic, listening to records and catching up on photo editing and blog writing. After hitting publish on the Elan Valley post and typing in the date of this one I took a moment to reflect on how busy I’ve been over the last few months; it felt like there’s barely been a weekend with nothing on. After the long and seemingly quiet period of 2021 and 2022 it now seems like there is almost too much going on; we’ve gone back to the old normal. On Monday we’re off to Cornwall for three days, we have friends round for birthday drinks when we get back, the following Saturday I’m in St Leonards and the weekend after we’re going to see Eleanor’s friend in Macclesfield. There’s no letting up and I’m really happy to be active again; though flipping heck, it’s all gotten really expensive. Anyway, back to Thamesmead…

Thamesmead was (and still is) a housing estate designed and built in the 1960s on marshland on the southern bank of the River Thames. It was a new design and supposedly lessons had been learned from other housing estates built since the end of the war; with an aim to provide homes for local people rather than create an estate and move people into it. It was to be modern estate with a mix of low and high rise. Sitting here in 2023 with a brutalist architecture hat on the design looked amazing; however the promised Jubilee tube line never materialised and with the nearest shops cut off, first by a rail line and then by a busy road, it failed to be the utopia it could have been.

It was very brutalist and future looking with its clean concrete construction and hard angles and was made famous as the location for the equally brutal and dystopian film A Clockwork Orange.

I’ve been wanting to visit Thamesmead for ages, and finally got around to putting a call out for interest on the Whatsapp group that was created for a brutalist photowalk in May last year. Unsurprisingly there were other photographers who wanted to visit so we arranged to meet today. One of the crew who has visited previously agreed to be a loosely defined tour guide which was really helpful as there’s a large area to explore.

We met at Abbey Wood station, on the recently opened Elizabeth line. It was nice to be presented with a good concrete staircase that could be seen from the station platform. A promising start.

I was only expecting a couple of people to come to walk so was pleasantly surprised when 5 others turned up, including one who came all the way from Cardiff for the day, that is dedication to concrete. Our guide, Chris, started the walk by taking us in the opposite direction to Thamesmead, up towards the ruins of the Abbey on the edge of the large wood which between them gave the area its name. We didn’t visit the abbey, but stopped just short and took some photos of the stairway up to a bridge and the start of a walkway through to Thamesmead. I’m a big fan of brutalist stairs so this was a really promising start.

As you could imagine I took quite a few photos as we walked around for round, splitting the massive site into small zones.

Crossing over another lovely concrete road bridge we arrived on the eastern side of South Mere ‘lake’, the western and southern sides being a stage for some of the scenes in Clockwork Orange. Sadly a lot of that section of the estate has been knocked down and new flats and a building site have been left in its place.

We crossed the ‘Eastern Way’ motorway via another great bridge and found a great area of interlinked concrete walkways, bridges, ramps and stairs and my favourite type of place for shooting. There were few people about and I wasn’t pointing my camera at occupied homes; something I’m uncomfortable doing, though some of the group are less shy than me. I took quite few images.

After passing through a low rise estate and taking a couple of images we stopped for lunch outside one of the very few shops we passed; I had a pretty bad sausage roll and a Snickers; there are no fancy sourdough bread cafes round here. We sat on the steps and watched the water rats running in and out of the nearby stream.

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We looped back along the edge of the construction site that is all that remains of the area used in a scene for the famous scene in Clockwork orange where Alex pushes one of his fellow droogs into the lake, all that is left are the steps down to the water. The tower blocks and walkways were knocked down down 10 plus years ago.

Some parts of the high rise estate remain and we walked round those as we headed back to the elevated pathway that got us here in the first place.

The clouds started to hang heavy as we walked and the rain that had been forecast and threatening all day arrived a few minutes before we got to the pub next to Abbey Wood Station; luckily we didn’t get too wet. I stopped for a pint with the crew before jumping on a train back over to the northern side of the Thames and my normal habitat.

It was a cracking day out and a walk in Poplar has already been booked for mid-September. Thanks everyone for a most enjoyable afternoon.

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Elan Valley, Wales

Monday 03 July 2023 – Elan Valley, Rhayader, Wales.

I’m incredibly lucky to have been so readily accepted into Eleanor’s friendship group, they’re a great bunch of people and most of the group have been friends since they met when their first child started in nursery close to thirty years ago. I must admit I keep forgetting that I’ve been on scene for 10 years so I’ve known them all for quite some time as well. They are very definitely my friendship group too.

Rather than a massive boozy party, one of our friends took a group of us away for a long weekend to an outdoor activity centre in the Elan Valley in mid Wales to celebrate a 60 birthday. The weekend was full of activities such as archery, kayaking, high wire (I avoided this) and the highlight for me, a raft build and race on the lake nearby. There was also some walking and a small amount of wine and beer drinking, a surprisingly small amount to be honest. It was a fabulous weekend away in a very beautiful part of the country.

We stayed at the Elan Valley Lodge, a Victorian era school converted into an education activity 30 or so years ago. The school was built to educate the children of the workers who moved to the area in the late nineteenth century when the Birmingham Corporation Water Department started construction of a series of four dams in the Elan and Claerwen valleys to provide water to the city of Birmingham 73 miles away. It is a marvel of engineering and the dams themselves are beautiful pieces of massive scale Victorian designed architecture built over the first few decades of the twentieth century. I’m really glad that as the time went on the original features were not removed to leave a bare and functional construction.

As we no longer own a car some other friends drove us to Wales on Friday and we arrived late afternoon in a mild drizzle, surprising no-one got lost on the way. After dinner in the lodge and a quiet drink once everyone had arrived we went for an evening walk to the nearby Caban Coch Dam. It was the least interesting of the dams we would visit over the weekend.

The area is quite remote, there are about ten houses with only 35 permanent residents and there are no shops or pubs, or anything at all. It is quiet, the heavy grey sky over the grey and partially barren hills didn’t feel overly oppressive, but it did feel a little eerie. I couldn’t live here and I’m not sure I could stay for too long either.

I was glad I brought my camera, though wished I had the tripod with me as the light was so good, it would have been a great evening for some slow-mo water images. One of the negatives about living in the south east of England is the almost complete lack of fast running streams, I didn’t realise how much I’d missed them until I spent some time in the company of this lovely stretch of the Elan River.

Saturday was a busy day spent doing group activities further up the valley on one of the lakes. I went out on the water in one of the kayaks and wished I’d a dry bag so I could’ve taken the camera, there was some lovely angles out on the water. It was a good day though I was suffering from a head cold so took the evening easy, I don’t think anyone stayed up much past 11:00 though.

Sunday I was feeling perkier and the group was back lakeside for a raft building competition followed by a race to test the build quality. I really enjoyed both parts of this activity, though sadly we came third in a three raft race; it was the participation that counted.

After lunch we drove further up the valley to the car park at Pen y Garreg Dam and went for a walk alongside the lake to the Craig Goch Dam; which is one of the finest dams I’ve ever seen. I took a few pictures on the way…

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In places, particularly under the trees, the countryside reminded me of bits of New Zealand, especially the beech forests of the South Island. It was very beautiful and tranquil, and other than the motorcycle group we met at Craig Goch we hardly saw any other people.

Craig Goch Dam was just fabulous, I loved the beautiful design of all the dams we’ve seen this weekend, the details put into the design and the careful construction. These are not mere functional lumps of concrete and stone but works of engineering art. The water flowed off Craig Goch so artfully as well, it was obviously designed to look stunning, wet or dry.

Sadly with the afternoon drawing to a close and dinner to get back to the lodge for; we turned round and walked back the way we had come.

It was a fabulous weekend away to a beautiful part of the country and somewhere I wouldn’t have gotten to myself. Thanks friend xx

Urban Drift #1

Saturday 10 June 2023 – North London.

Walking is something I really enjoy and it’s something I’ve done for a long time (I guess it’s been since I first learned to walk), an unfocused walk around the streets of a city or out in the countryside brings me great pleasure; or at the least is act of de-stressing. It’s rare i come back from a walk feeling worse than when I left. I’d always thought that the best walking for me was under trees or near the sea but since Covid and coming back from the seven months we spent in Auckland I’ve realised that I’m the most comfortable walking in the city. This has nothing to do with safety or about getting lost, it’s just I’ve finally admitted to myself that I’m a city boy and I like the grot and grime and variety of the urban environment.

Over the last few years I’ve wandered a reasonable amount of the centre and inner east of London, it’s a vast and incredibly interesting city to walk in and the inner city is a treasure trove of buildings and streets and artefacts from its 2000 year history. Each walk has its ‘wow’ moments and I never fail to find something I’ve not noticed before, rain or shine they can look amazing if you allow it.

Over past few months, and again, probably since we came back from New Zealand I’ve become more and more conscious that I’ve been enjoying just spending time on my own or with Eleanor and I’m starting to worry I’m hermiting a bit. While I/we go out a reasonable amount I’ve not made a huge effort to see other people while we are out, so in an effort to try to change this and to meet new people I signed up for a walking group with a difference, ‘Pedestrianists’. Today was my first walk with them.

We were given notice via email to meet at a coffee shop near Euston Station at 10:00 am and to expect to walk for four hours; that was it, nothing other than a start time and place. There is no plan, there is never a plan. This walk was what they call an urban ‘drift’ and drifting with others was the exact reason I joined up, most of my walking has no plan, it felt good to do it with others for a change. This was drift number 7. There were a dozen or so drifters, a couple of other newbies but most had done these before. They were mostly young. The concept is that a random walker selects a card from a small deck then tosses the card in the air. Each card is marked with a direction on each side and the side that lands face up is the direction the walks start off. We walk for an hour in that rough direction, aiming to keep off main roads where possible, then repeat the card toss. No one knows where the walk will end up. I liked it.

It was the first brutally hot day of the summer and for a change I had packed and dressed appropriately, I had the big camera and I wasn’t sure I could walk for four hours; the most I’ve walked in the past couple of years has been two and a bit hours. I hoped my knees and hips would cope.

Our first direction was north and we immediately left Euston Rd for a parallel street and meandered our way through Mornington Crescent and Camden.

We walked past the amazing Isokon Flats building in Belsize Park, I’ve see pictures of it but didn’t realise it was in London, it’s a very lovely grade 1 listed low rise block built in the early 1930s. The building had three very important creatives who fled Nazi Germany before the war; Walter Gropius the founder of the Bauhaus movement, Marcel Breuer, an early designer of modernist furniture and Laszlo Nagy the head teacher of the Bauhaus School. As well as being beautifully designed it also homed designers of beautiful things at a critical time. I only had the fixed 50mm lens so wasn’t able to capture the building in its full glory, which obviously means a revisit.

The second hour had us going further north, though Highgate and onto Hampstead Heath; drifting around residential backstreets rather than marching more directly along busy main roads. This is supposed to be a walk for conversation and feeling part of the environment, relaxing and enjoying what the surroundings offer. This is not a walk to get anywhere or be first. The group stayed together through most of the walk, splitting off into groups of two and three, changing members regularly. I think I spoke to everyone at one point or the other, they were a social and engaging bunch and it was quite enjoyable.

We stopped for ice cream, water and a loo break and Kenwood House before heading east for the third and then fourth hours, taking a slightly executive call to follow the Parkland Walk to Finsbury Park from Archway, the only place I had more than a passing knowledge of.

We ended up at the Finsbury Pub near the park of the same name to get some very well earned liquid refreshment. It had been a hot and enjoyable four hours and we knocked off over 15kms. I stayed for a quick pint before heading home with enough time to have a cool shower and head back out with Eleanor. It was a busy, but very enjoyable day and I will be back for another drift when I next get a chance.

A brutal weekend in Norwich

Sunday 18 June 2023 – Norwich.

I haven’t gone away by myself for quite some time, and now I’ve a tenant is in my flat the option for a weekend or a couple of days away with little cost has also removed itself. I like some time to myself so decided I’d go to Norwich for a night and spend the two days walking about looking for and photographing the brutalist architecture the city is known for.

I used to really enjoy taking weekends away in random places before I bought the flat and have visited a few places around the south of England, mainly walking and photographing things. I was sitting in a pub on Saturday afternoon sheltering from a brief, but heavy shower on the way back from walking around the university when I realised that I rarely go to countryside/beach places anymore and most of my walking trips are now urban. I barely even walk in Epping Forest anymore and that is 10 minutes from home. I’ve become almost exclusively an urban walker.

I took a train from Liverpool Street Station arriving in Norwich 100 minutes later. Time that disappeared in a blur of bad station coffee and a terrible fruit muffin, music and gazing wistfully out the window. I love train travel.

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I walked around for a bit looking for a record shop that might have some keen local enthusiast who could advise if there was any gigs on tonight, the internet was telling me nothing other than dire cover bands were performing in a student orientated city, something I found hard to believe. I got misplaced and couldn’t find the street I was looking for so walked to my hotel instead. The city centre is busy but like a lot of city and town centres it’s looking a bit sad, especially with large chain stores like Debenhams closing down.

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I needed to dump my backpack and work out how to get from the hotel to the University of East Anglia (UEA) campus, the site of some very good brutalist buildings and the main objective for the weekend. UEA was only a 40 minute walk from the hotel so I walked there though it was a bit warm out.

I have to say right up front that I totally loved the brutalist bit of UEA, it would have been so much nicer if bits of it weren’t covered in scaffold and if there were less students behind the huge slabs of glass that make up the front of their flats in the Norfolk Terrace building; though I guess they are more entitled to be there than I am. I took a lot more photos than those below.

I’m a big fan of concrete brutalist stairs and UEA had some great examples.

I was also really surprised when I arrived at the top of a set of stairs and was confronted by an Antony Gormely statue. There are three of them on the campus, and they’ve not been without controversy. Which is good in some ways, art should be talked about.

The highlight of the visit is the student accommodation block, like the rest of the interconnected brutalist part of the university it was designed by Lasdun and construction was finished in 1970. The site is true brutalist megastructure and the student block is the crowning glory. I tried to get up close but there were too many students working away in their lounge spaces behind those huge windows.

Leaving the university I caught a bus most of the way back to the hotel, stopping for a rehydrating pint at a decent pub on the way. I’m glad I stopped as the rain came in a sudden and heavy downpour just as I sat down. I waited out the rain before carrying on my journey. That evening I walked into the centre and found a not too bad tapas bar to sit down for some food and a glass of wine or two while I read my book.

Sunday I got up lateish after a lacklustre sleep, my room was warm but otherwise comfortable but I drank that frustrating amount of red wine that had me too drunk to fall asleep quickly but not drunk enough to drop straight off. I had planned a walk around central Norwich to look for some of the brutalist era buildings that fringe the old city centre.

There was plenty of concrete about and some classic late 60s/early 70s buildings that may take the fancy of a brutalist purist, but my god they were photographically dull and I pretty much spent two hours walking round the city with a backpack of clothes, laptop and a novel and bag with camera and a spare lens and a bottle of water.

I got hot and wished I’d had an open return train ticket rather than the significantly cheaper booked service at 14:00. I did find some great bits of city wall down a dusty and overgrown path which was nice.

My main objective for the day was a visit to the Anglia Centre which sounded like it was due to be bowled over any time soon. The Anglia Centre was in the north of the city and on the far side of the river so I took a slow and enjoyable walk along the bank, looking for shade where I can.

I had kinda hoped that any shops that were still there would be closed on a Sunday morning and it would be a bit deserted, though annoyingly that was not the case. It had the right rundown feel and was nice and grey and concrete but there were too many people about and it’s a bit run down and it felt wrong to be taking photos; I’m not into poverty porn.

I walked through the shopping area to the carpark at the back and took a couple of photos of the graffiti covered tower above the centre and briefly wished I could go inside then realised I’m on my own and a chicken.

I wandered back through town and up to the castle trying to find coffee that wasn’t from a chain. I found a place in the mall, but the coffee was pretty bad, I should have a gone to a chain. I took a photo of the original and most brutal building in Norwich, the castle, and then carried on to a pub near the train station where I had lunch and a cooling pint. It was hot out and I’d earnt it.

That London

May and June(ish) 2023 – London.

The last couple of months or so have been a bit of blur; mainly a happy blur of family and friends from New Zealand and excessive eating and drinking. I’m pretty sure I’ve added more weight and gotten slower in the last two months than the preceding two, and I thought those were bad. Much as I’d like to break the cycle it’s going to last until the end of summer. I’m not complaining. I like eating and drinking with friends.

May was a mad busy month, I’d started a new job and it’s been pretty full on, but so far I’m enjoying it and it’s been good being back with some familiar faces in a department I’d worked in before. My Auckland sister came to stay with us for a couple of weeks after attending a conference in Valencia. She timed it perfectly to arrive between the kitchen being renovated (contents of the kitchen stacked in the dining room and dust everywhere) and the bedroom she is staying being converted into a bathroom (contents of the bedroom/bathroom stacked in the dining room and dust everywhere).

I have been reading Tom Chivers’ book about what lies beneath the feet of Londoners, ‘London Clay’, and he mentioned the Mithraeum Museum, a small, free museum in the Bloomberg building near Bank station. It seems that very few people know of it’s existence, which absolutely adds to its allure… It was the perfect place to take my sister to. History mixed with something underground; in both sense of the word.

In 1954 while digging the foundations for a new construction on one of the many World War Two bomb sites archaeologists discovered the ruins of a Roman temple. It proved to be a temple to the Roman god Mithras. The ruin was moved to a nearby site so the construction of the building could be completed. This was subsequently demolished in 2014 for the Bloomberg Building to be built. Archaeologists we given access to the site again and hundreds of artefacts we found. Bloomberg had the temple moved back to its original site, now the basement of his modern building. It was very cool.

There was an installation on the ground floor above the Mithraeum; a bunch of small vessels, such as jugs, vases and small barrels, hung from the ceiling with microphones in them, created a weird drone as we walked around them. I really liked it. Definitely a hard recommend for something to do in London that is slightly different to the norm.

After the Mithraeum we took a slow stroll along the north bank of the Thames then up to the National Galley where we saw a post-impressionist exhibition which was quite interesting, though impressionism remains my favourite period in European art. We had a walk around the gallery’s impressionist collection as well.

This was followed by an even slower stroll through China Town and Soho where we had an early dinner booked at the utterly fabulous Gautier restaurant. The food was amazing, as was a remarkable red dessert wine we had.

In an attempt to bring my sister back down to reality we decided we would go back to North Cheam, in the south London borough of Sutton and do a walk-by of 177 Windsor Avenue; the house we lived in before we went to New Zealand in 1973. I had visited in 2013(ish) but my sister hadn’t been back since we left. I lived there for three months or so when I came back to the UK in 1985 and stayed in a shared flat with some old school friends and I often wonder if they still live in the area and if they are still friends. I guess now I’m over 60 I should wonder if they are still alive.

It was an interesting experience, and I enjoyed more than I did ten years ago; maybe because I was visiting with family and maybe because it was sunnier. North Cheam was seemed less rundown than it did then. We did a short loop walk, past Allerton Gardens where I stayed in the 80s, past my old primary school and then on to our old street and house.

177 Windsor Gardens.

We then looped back to the high street where we stopped for coffee and a wee in McDonalds; the other option was the Nonsuch Inn, which was the pub we frequented in 85, but is now a Wetherspoon’s pub and I won’t give their scumbag owner any of my cash.

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The following day my sister attended evensong at St Paul’s Cathedral, not something I wanted to attend at the time, but hindsight is a wonderful thing and it sounds like it was a magical and uplifting experience, even for those who don’t believe. It’s a beautiful building and I’ve never really explored the inside. I must add it to my to-do list.

While my sister was singing songs to someone’s Lord, I took the opportunity to drift around the streets around Smithfield Market. I had no plan, just wander where the streets take me and grab some photos on the way if I saw anything interesting. I have yet to explore the Clerkenwell area, but with only 30 minutes available today I didn’t get far.

My sister was here for two short weeks and it was great having her stay with us while she was in London and her visit was over all too soon. Before she had even left some friends from NZ arrived in London, though they were staying with other friends for a few days when they arrived. Two days after my sister left I took one of our friends on a walk from Camden, down the canal to Kings Cross for lunch at Spiritland, then further down the canal to Shoreditch; stopping for beers on the way. Out first stop was the Hawley Arms, where Eleanor and I had our first date ten and a bit years ago; not that we have been there much since Eleanor stopped working in Camden. The Hawley is a rock n roll pub and was a hangout of Amy Winehouse, The Clash, The Libertines and many others.

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It was a good walk. I’ve not done the canals in a while and it was a nice reminder of how many nice places there are to walk in London.

It was a really hectic couple of months, with visitors and work being done on the house, but it was fun and I’m grateful we had visitors from NZ over to stay. I’m writing this in mid-July, a month after our friends have left and since then we have had a bathroom fitted, but the work is almost over.

Pere Ubu with Valve @ Rich Mix

Friday June 2 – Shoreditch, London.

Pere Ubu was conceived in Cleveland, Ohio in 1975 and came to my attention probably in 1979 or 1980 when their 1978 debut LP ‘The Modern Dance’ appeared on the shelves of record shops in Auckland. As was common in that period anything unusual was lumped in with punk or new wave and I bought the record unheard, as this was how I shopped back then. I didn’t like it, though I tried. It wasn’t punk enough for me and it was one of the records I didn’t miss when my flat was burgled in the early 80s. To be fair to Pere Ubu, they never advertised themselves as a punk or new wave band; influential as they were to many artists who didn’t mind being categorised that way. I never really gave them another thought. Until earlier this week.

To be truthful, I gave them a first thought about two months ago when a friend of mine from New Zealand asked me if I would by tickets to a concert they were putting on in London when he was here on holiday. I bought tickets for him and some friends, not planning on going myself.

The gig was tonight and my friends ended up with a spare ticket so as they were staying at our place I decided I would go along as well. In preparation I’d listened to their recently released album and thought it was pretty good, not that I was going to buy it; especially as the cost of living has gone up and I need to be much my circumspect with discretionary spending.

We arrived at the venue, Rich Mix, just as the support act, Valve, arrived on stage. I mostly enjoyed their set, there were some interesting instruments and a couple of very good songs; the names of which allude me now unfortunately.

Rich Mix is a great venue; big bar, airy and spacious; the gig was sold out but it was not overcrowded inside. The sound; while not loud, was perfect and the stage lighting was great for photography. An unusual combination of goodness in a venue.

Pere Ubu came to the stage at the scheduled time. David Thomas is the only original member and as he said before the music started he has been living in London for 40 years. While Pere Ubu is a band it is very much David Thomas’s vehicle, it won’t exist when he is gone; and he definitely isn’t well. He was pretty cantankerous as the set went on. Age allows for that I guess. I’m heading that way myself.

I found myself right in front of him, be design, and took a few photos over the first couple of tracks. “Three songs, no flash” was, and still should be, the mantra of any gig photographer. The first song, and the first track on the new LP, ‘Love is like Gravity’ was absolutely fabulous live and had quite a different feel to the recorded version. I loved it and it set a good precedent for the music that followed; especially as the sound was so good.

The band have a theremin player for their live sets, I’ve never seen one on stage before and watching it being played by someone who knew what they were doing was a highlight and a joy. The theremin is an electronic instrument and the player does not touch it; it senses the movements of the musician’s hands and responds with an eerie amplified sound. It was really very cool. Just watching her play made the gig worth attending.

The band mainly focused on songs from the new LP, but early in their set played “30 seconds over Tokyo” a track I knew from the first LP, though one I’ve not heard in decades. It was good, rowdy compared to the rest of the set we saw.

It was a good set, though we didn’t stay to the end, David Thomas was getting frustrated with the band, in a similar way to the late Mark E. Smith did with his band The Fall. We got a bit irritated by his grumpiness in the end and left. Apparently his band have been with him for years, close to 30 in one case, so I guess they are used to his antics.

I otherwise enjoyed the show and have been playing the new album a bit as I work.

The gig was put on by the promoter Baba Yaga’s Hut and it seems most of the shows I’ve been too lately have been theirs. They retweeted an image I took from the gig and the band contacted me to ask if they could use my photos; I was quite happy to let them do so.

The Battleship Building

Tuesday 25 April 2023 – London.

If I count weekends then this is day four of ten days off between jobs; next Monday is the May Day bank holiday in the UK. I’ve prepared myself a massive list of things that need to be done while I have both time and the mental capacity available. There is a massive backlog on the to-do list that I hope to get through, and getting though it will release the weight I feel building on my slowly sagging with age shoulders.

The break isn’t just going to be work and today I popped my camera into my day bag and caught the tube to Liverpool St just after 9. I was after some photos from the interior of the Barbican Centre and (forlornly) hoped that by getting there soon after it opens at 9:30 it would be quiet; I was then going to go on and find the magnificently named ‘Battleship Building’, which is located somewhere behind Paddington Station.

Arriving in the Barbican Centre I was frustrated to find it busy, with people huddled in conversation or slumped over expensive laptops in every corner and on every photographically nicely spread-out set of table and chairs. I should’ve realised this would be a popular place for remote workers and those who want to be seen hanging out in a creative environment. I bought an expensive coffee and took one of the few empty seats and joined those getting in the way of anyone who had the same mis-thought idea as I did. Perhaps we are all frustrated photographers waiting for space to clear?

I wandered about and took a few photos, though I didn’t really find much that excited me and just wished I had the wide-angle lens as it would have been useful; even more so at the Battleship.

The men’s bathroom is fantastic though, very mid-century modern. It must be one of the best looking urinals in England. Fortunately no-one was in here, or came in while I was taking this photo.

I hopped onto the tube to Paddington Station and found the Battleship Building easily enough, only taking one wrong turn down a dead-end street. It was cold among the mid-rise building canyons that have, and continue to be built behind the station.

The Battleship building was constructed during 1968 and 1969 as a maintenance depot for British Rail but was converted into offices in 2000. It sits under the very noisy (and equally iconic) Westway section of the A4 motorway. I might do a Westway photo-walk one day, it could be interesting, or equally it could be properly dull.

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It was difficult to photograph with a standard 50mm lens as it is crowded between other buildings and a slip road; as I said just above I wished I had brought the wide angle lens with me as well.

The building isn’t particularly brutalist and doesn’t appear on the main Brutal London maps, though it has some classic brutalist features and is, in part, lovingly made from concrete; perhaps it’s too curvy, too faux art-deco? It’s a great looking building though, just difficult to photograph. Those concrete towers are great.

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I passed this great derelict frontage on my walk from Paddington to Oxford Circus to get the tube home, though I don’t recall where it is; my path was rather meandering. To meander is the best way to traverse inner London.

The bluebells of Chalet Wood

Sunday 23 April 2023 – Chalet Wood, Wanstead Park, London.
I finished my job on Friday and much as the last couple of weeks have been pretty chilled I’m kinda glad to be moving on as I’d definitely lost interest in the work and had been struggling with motivation for most of the last twelve months. It’s fair to say that I’ve been struggling with motivation in the rest of my life as well, so it wasn’t surprising it impacted my work experience. I have a week off before starting a new role at the place I was at prior to the one I just left. I remain a civil servant, part of the shiftless workerati establishment blob; or something like that.

I’m looking forward to both the week off and starting the new job. I’m hoping this change of employer and work, along with an improvement in the weather and that it’s lighter for longer each day, will encourage a few changes in other areas; like not sitting on my butt in front of the telly scanning social media every 15 minutes night after night. I also plan to re-arrange my workspace in the spare room to refresh the routine and have a load of other tasks planned as well. It won’t be a complete rest.

We had planned on going to Chalet Wood in Wanstead Park to see this season’s bluebells last weekend, but we completely forgot about it, and I only remembered again yesterday. This will be the final weekend they will be out in full bloom. I’m glad I remembered as they were magnificent. I love that this glorious wood is a 30 minute walk from home, roughly the same amount of time it takes to get into the centre of London on the tube.

We were up pretty early by our standards and were at Chalet Wood soon after 8:30. I was surprised to find only five other people as I expected it to be quite busy. The London Marathon is on today as well as an Extinction Rebellion protest in Westminster, the forecast of rain perhaps kept some punters away as well. I was certainly busier when we left and went for coffee in the small lakeside café. The coffee was terrible by the way.

This is the fourth year we’ve managed to catch the bluebells and I swear they get better each time; the display seems to be expanding its reach across this section of wood and there are larger numbers in the fields. Bluebells only really grow in quantity in ancient woodlands and there are few of those left in the UK. We’re lucky in that Wanstead Park was once owned by royalty and was preserved for the hunting of deer and other edible wildlife so it was still a woodland when it came into the ownership of the City of London in 1880 when the owner went bankrupt. We walked the weird past the Temple construction that is one of the last remnants of the once grand set of buildings on the grounds.

I took a few photos, but they really don’t do the place the justice it deserves. You just have to go and experience it yourself, it is a beautiful sight. You need to visit mid-late April, preferably with flatish light, and it’s best to go early in the morning when you can take a seat on a log and enjoy the solitude; get in before the groups of families and loads of other people arrive to disturb the peace.