England – Where is Phil now?

Find a home in St Leonards

There’s nothing quite like lying in bed on a clear morning, coffee in hand, gazing out at the sea stretching past Bexhill and Eastbourne to Beachy Head. It’s one of those small luxuries that makes you feel ridiculously fortunate, and it’s been my reality for the past six years in Helena Court, St Leonards-on-Sea.

I bought a flat in Helena Court in 2018 after spending three years exploring England’s southern coast. St Leonards wasn’t love at first sight—on our initial drive through, we barely slowed down. But something drew me back, and when I returned for viewings in late September 2018, I discovered what I’d almost missed.

Mid-week, off-season, and the town was still buzzing with life. A brilliant wine bar (Graze—still there), proper coffee, and a brightly-painted wooden hut called Goat Ledge serving breakfast on the beach. I walked the streets for three days and felt something click. St Leonards has a creative, slightly bohemian energy that just works. It’s unpretentious, welcoming, and full of independent spirit.

Then I saw the apartment.

The Space
Walking into Helena Court for the first time, I climbed three flights of stairs and stepped into the flat and into this enormous, light-filled living room. The moment I crossed to the window and looked out over the rooftops to the sea, I knew. Immediately after sending some quickly take photos, I called my partner, Eleanor, probably babbling with enthusiasm.

The apartment is split-level, tucked into the roof of a beautiful Victorian building. Don’t let “roof conversion” fool you—the master bedroom is genuinely spacious with that jaw-dropping coastal view. The second bedroom easily functions as my home office, while still having room for a double bed and a built in wardrobe.

The living room is wonderfully oversized—a previous owner removed a wall from a third bedroom, creating this airy, light-drenched space. You could absolutely put the wall back and recreate that bedroom if you needed it, but I’ve loved having the openness. There’s room for multiple work-from-home setups (both Eleanor and I have worked here throughout the past few years) without ever feeling cramped.

The building shares access to a generous garden—perfect for summer gatherings. There’s also a bike locker. The neighbours are that ideal combination: friendly without being intrusive. A polite hello, the occasional garden drink, everyone looking out for each other.

The Location
Helena Court sits on Pevensey Road, in the quiet, leafy top end of town near the grand Victorian houses. Street parking is usually plentiful and free. You’re almost equidistant between West St Leonards and St Leonards Warrior Square stations—about ten minutes’ walk to either. The sea? Also, ten minutes on foot.

Everything falls within easy walking distance of home. The heart of St Leonards; the cafes, independent bars and small restaurants, sit between the station and the seafront.

Since Covid, the creative scene has grown stronger. Artists, makers, and people escaping London have put down roots here, and the town has blossomed with galleries, pop-ups, and that rare thing — genuinely independent businesses that reflect the variety of people who are part of this diverse community.

The most dedicated swim here every day.

My pre-work ritual, when I’m working from here, is simple and perfect; walk down Pevensey Road, grab coffee from one of the Kings Road cafes, stroll to the seafront, find a bench, watch the water. Then the return climb up through St Leonards Gardens and its scruffy Victorian elegance. It certainly gets the blood moving before the work day begins.

Longer seafront walks can be taken in either direction; 30 minutes east through the wonderful Bottle Alley lies Hastings with its vibrant old town.

An hour walk west along the coast is Bexhill, and its 1930s modernist marvel, the De La Warr Pavilion, a perfect spot for a post walk lunch or an evening drink. There is so much choice here, east/west, maybe north, but definitely not south. That would put you in the sea.

Why I’m Selling (and Staying)
I’m approaching one of those life transitions— retirement age is looming in four years—and I’ve decided to downsize. But here’s the thing; I’m not leaving St Leonards. I love this town too much. I’m looking for something smaller, more manageable, but I’ll be staying right here.

This apartment has given Eleanor and me some of our happiest times. Those Covid lockdowns that felt so claustrophobic for many? We spent them here, living full-time on the coast, and it was glorious. Working near these windows with the sea in view, evening walks on empty beaches, then watching St Leonards come alive as others discovered what we already knew as lock down pressures relaxed.

It’s a genuinely special place, and my flat has been the perfect home base for this chapter of our lives.

If you’re curious about the details—room sizes, council tax, all that practical stuff—here’s the full listing.

But really, you should come see it. Stand at that window. Look out over the rooftops to the sea. Imagine your mornings here. That’s when you’ll know.

There are more photos on my Instagram, so, take a look and let me know what you think!

Lawn Road Flats – AKA The Isokon

London – Saturday 7 June 2025

The Isokon has been on my to-visit list for a while now, ever since I passed it on a walk in July 2023, and my memory of that walk has it much further in the past than just two years; thankfully I wrote a blog! Time is dilating, or expanding. Something like that.

Anyway, I had time to kill today and with the first heavy and persistent rain forecast in what feels like weeks (it’s that time dilatey/expandy thing again) I procrastinated for a while before heading out the door with a raincoat in my bag and fingers crossed I could get there and back without getting too wet. With great fortune the rain arrived just as I walked up the path to my front door. It was proper heavy too.

The Isokon flats are in Hampstead, on the other side on North London to where we live in Leytonstone. If the weather had been better I had planned on doing a longer walk, but even the 14,000 steps I did had me half crippled an hour after I got home. My hips are giving me quite a bit of gip lately, I’m trying to stretch them out after walks and each evening, but not much is working. It’s a bit (lot) frustrating as I like walking.

The Isokon flats were completed in 1934, designed by Wells Coates as Britain’s first modernist apartment building. The concrete block looks almost brutalist now, but was revolutionary then – minimal living spaces with built-in furniture, shared facilities, communal kitchen. It was very European, in both design and its concept of communal living and stood out in what was still a very conservative London. It was the first building domestic building in the UK to be made out of reinforced concrete. There is a lovely little free museum that is open for a few hours each summer weekend.

What makes it more fascinating though are the people who lived there. When the Nazis rose to power in Germany, the building became a refuge for fleeing intellectuals. Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus school, lived there. So did Marcel Breuer, Henry Moore, and even Agatha Christie for a time.

During the war it housed refugees and became a centre of anti-Nazi activity. The building declined post-war but was beautifully restored in the 2000s. It’s now Grade I listed, finally getting the recognition it deserves as one of Britain’s most important modernist buildings, and it’s beautiful. I love the steps 🙂

The ground floor restaurant, the Isobar, was extraordinary meeting place where refugee designers and architects mixed with British intellectuals. It was also a hub of socialist and communist activity with Austrian Arnold Deutsch once a resident. Deutsch was a key Russian spy who was in part responsible for recruiting the ‘Cambridge Five’- Philby, Blunt, Maclean, Burgess and Cairncross.

As well as work on the design of the building Jack Pritchard also designed the revolutionary furniture to fill the apartments. Made from very modern plywood these pieces are fantastic with the highlight for me the Bauhaus Movement’s Marcel Breuer designed ‘long chair’ and the ‘Penguin Donkey’, a storage unit for Penguin paperbacks.

The building reminds me a bit of Marine Court in St Leonards, marine Court was finished in 1938 and is considerably larger than the Isokon. I’m trying to sell my flat with an aim to buy a flat in Marine Court and go mortgage free.

The vision for a community in a building that drove the design of Isokon is one I would like to take with me to Marine Court; with regular shared meals ‘an eating club’ as it was in the Isokon, taken in a common area in the building. Who know what will happen when I don’t have to work anymore.

As I mentioned in the last post, the first one after I said I was taking a break, I had mostly written this before I decided to finish posting, so here it is almost two months after I visited.

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life

London – Sunday 1 June 2025

Having only recently announced I wasn’t going to write any more posts, I feel a little embarrassed to be posting so soon. In my defence I wrote this the day after the walk, and well before the self imposed end. I also mostly finished writing a post about a visit to London’s ‘Isokon’ building, so that may also appear. I’m still stuck on Delhi though.

It’s a rare day when friends or family come to London from New Zealand. Long gone are the halcyon days when we were young and free of mortgages and houses and children and family, friends or ourselves were in good, robust health. Travel is hard and expensive. It was just so nice to have far away friends visit.

M and B are visiting London for a few days as M has a conference to attend, they both lived here, like I did in the 80s, but not exactly at the same time as I was here, though we did cross paths, I think. M visited us a few years back and we did a great Sunday London walk through some of my favourite parts of the inner city, if you can ever define London’s inner city. M wanted to do another Sunday walk on this visit so Eleanor and I arranged to meet them at a café near Holborn tube station. Which of course, it being a Sunday, meant the café was closed.

Other than closed cafés and pubs Sunday is my favourite city walking day, it’s just so much quieter than other days, especially in the morning; a quiet walk is a good walk. We were blessed with the weather; it was neither hot nor cold, perfect for knocking off a 12km walk.

Eleanor and I had been up until 1am, so were in need of the coffee we expected to find at our meeting point, fortunately there was an open café not too far away and the coffee and almond croissant were both welcome and enjoyable. Suitably refreshed we set off on what I hoped would be the interesting walk I’d planned in my head.

Our first stop was Sir John Soane Museum on Lincoln’s Inn Fields. I stumbled on it a few years ago when my son was first here, loved it and have been planning on a revisit ever since. Having visitors was the perfect excuse. The ‘house’ is actually three houses that Sir John joined together to house not just himself and his family, but also the vast collection of ‘stuff’ he had accumulated through his and others travels. He was an architect and his collection of art, sculpture, furniture and architectural models reflect his wide curiosity and interest in things historic and beautiful. It is rammed with stuff, a lot of which are plaster casts of original works left in the countries they belong in. I took a lot of photos.

Like me, he also loved ruins, and I find it strange that 200 years ago that some of the ruins I see now were ruins back then; though of course some of those places have been ruins for hundreds of years.

The house was left as a museum when he died in 1837 and is pretty much as it was back then. He was a very well known, and powerful figure; he managed to get a law passed in parliament before he died the “Sir John Soane’s House Museum Act 1833” to prevent his possessions being inherited by his son, who he hated. Not many civilians get a law passed to support their pet grievance. As much as he disliked his son, he was besotted by his wife who died quite young. We had a great chat with one of the volunteers working there who talked about some of the images of his wife that adorned the walls.

It’s an absolute wonder of a museum and we spent a good hour there. I was glad everyone liked it as it sort of set the tone for the rest of the walk.

I took us on a fairly meandering path through Lincoln’s Inn Fields park, where the plane trees destroyed my sinuses, even though I take antihistamine tablets and use a spray; they are lovely trees, but evil.

I digress, I took us on a meandering path through the park then down to Fleet St, and then back up into the old London alleys that link the major roads and are always deserted. I wanted to walk past Dr Johnson’s house and the famous saying that heads this post. Though it was open, we didn’t go in. Not much was going to top Sir John’s pad.

“When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life”. A sentiment I heartily agree with, which explains why I live here and not New Zealand.

While I had an overall plan for the walk there were a few sections where I had no specific route in mind, so we took in a bit of Farringdon then up to St Barts hospital and the scene of a few gruesome 14^th century executions, such as William Wallace (you need to look him up yourself if you don’t know who is. Think Mel Gibson with a blue face, actually don’t, ignore that prick). We stopped in the Barbican, my favourite place in London for a brief visit and a light lunch.

It was a straight run north from the Barbican to a short section of the Regents Canal, before it disappeared into the Islington Tunnel.

We sort of followed the canal over ground before joining it again when it reappeared back from the gloom. I take most visitors to London on a walk along the canals, they’re a bit of London that not too many people, even Londoners, appreciate. Though the paths have got much busier over the years, they are still a great way to connect interesting bits of the city, avoiding traffic filled, stinking, roads.

We followed the canal to Kings Cross where we stopped for a well earned and refreshing drink (beer) at the fabulous Spiritland.

We were now almost on the last leg of the walk, with the final stop at St Pancras Old Church and the ‘Hardy Tree’, which I discovered was no longer there. Reading about it as I wrote this, I found that it had blown down in 2022. In 1866 the writer, Thomas Hardy worked for the railways moving gravestones around St Pancras Cemetery as some of it had been purchased to build a new train station. Hardy supposedly stacked gravestones around a tree in a section of the cemetery that was to remain in use. This image is from when I visited in 2016.

Sadly, it’s now just a sad looking collection of headstones buried among a dense clump of bramble and weeds. Apparently a new tree has been planted, though I imagine I will not get to see it in its full glory. At least the stones are still there.

We walked back towards the British Museum as M and B were staying nearby and said our goodbyes, then Eleanor and I headed back to Holborn for the tube back home.

It was a great day out. The walk was a success. it was fab spending some time with M and B. I love showing visitors, and myself, bits of London that are slightly off the beaten track.

Oxford, the old bits

Oxford – Saturday 15 February 2025

I started this post soon after I visited, but am finishing over a month later, lounging on my bed in Delhi as I wind down an afternoon and await feeding time in the hotel I’m staying in. There will hopefully be a lot of Delhi, and other holiday, related posts over time, though I’ve lost the blogging urge.

In the last couple of posts I’ve touched on getting myself ready for the few days I spend in Delhi and I think it has paid off to a degree, I’ve coped well so far (day three), we’ll see.

I’m sort of just posting this for the record.

Oxford is a university town. While I’m sure many of those who have lived in this small city for generations will disagree with me to some degree, but, the university is Oxford and for this reason alone it is a hugely popular tourist destination. It was busy, and I’m glad I chose to overnight on Friday rather than Saturday. I almost had to battle against the stream of visitors coming from the station to the old town in the wind and rain late on Saturday morning as I headed home. Friday was less frantic and the weather was significantly better.

There are records of teaching in Oxford as far back as 1096 making it the oldest English language university in the world. It expanded rapidly in 1167 when King Henry II banned English students from going to Paris University. The university comprises 43 ‘colleges’, some of which I visited today. All students must belong to a college. Some of the colleges are incredibly old, for instance Balliol was founded in 1263 and claims to be the oldest college in Oxford, and the world.

A number of the buildings date back to the 1400 and 1500s, many constructed from yellow sandstone and they all look lovely. The old, university bit of town, is a great place to walk around, even though it was somewhat busy there were little oasis(es?) of peace if you wanted a moment of solitude.

Getting to the old town from the station, and the ‘hotel’ I stayed in nearby, you pass through some of the newer parts of Oxford, and it was looking a little sad to say the least. There are a lot of boarded up or otherwise closed shops and a few of the buildings look like they’re patiently waiting for the demolition that will put them out of their misery.

Once in the old centre I walked in many different circles and took lots of photos, and here they are. Sadly it was too long ago for me to actually remember the names of the buildings and colleges. At least in Delhi I’ve been keeping a rough record of what I’ve photographed! Oxford id lovely though and I’m really glad I finally spent some time there, it was long overdue..

To finish, here is a stuffed kakapo found in the Pitt Rivers Museum, and a hand segue to the next post which will about New Zealand.

Oxford Brutalism

Oxford – Saturday 15 February 2025

A couple of posts ago I noted that I’m going to ‘practise’ being on my own before I spend solo time in Delhi as we make our individual journeys home from New Zealand. Eleanor and I fly to Auckland on 5 March and spend a week there before we’re joined by a London friend, Paula. The three of us will road trip down New Zealand to Dunedin, where we then separate. I fly to Brisbane for a night to see my family before going to Delhi. Eleanor and Paula spend a few more days in New Zealand then go to Sydney and Tokyo. I have 10 days on my own; and most of that will be spent somewhere that is different to the London I call home. Very different indeed.

I’ve not done the solo travel thing in a while and know I’m going to find aspects of life in Delhi challenging. I want to avoid finding aspects of being on own challenging while I contend with the challenges of Delhi. If I can manage the things I can control then I will be better positioned to manage the things I can’t. That is the theory anyway. Understanding more of what I feel I can control has been an objective of the last few weeks.

To help this I decided to taking a night away by myself and I chose Oxford. It’s not too far from London, it’s always busy with students, their visiting families and other tourists, and it has a good mix of historic architecture with a tiny bit of mid-century concrete mixed in. Other than its cold right now in the UK and Delhi will be hot, I’m going to find the Oxford experience will be just like Delhi, right?

I travelled up on Friday and though it was quite cold the sun was shining and it was a nice day to walk around semi-aimlessly taking photos of buildings of various ages.

Overall, it was a successful couple of days and I enjoyed myself and learned a more about how I react to being by myself and working with crowds and busy tourist venues. I will cover more of the two days in the next post, along with photos of the ‘proper’ Oxford. Today, I’m going to share photos of the limited number of 60s and 70s brutalist buildings to be found amongst the ‘old shit’.

Hilda Besse Building, aka the Common Room and Dining Hall at St. Antony’s College, was the most visually interesting of the brutalist buildings I wanted to see. A number of the concrete buildings, and seemingly a third of Oxford were surrounded by scaffold. A full refurbishment of Hilda was completed in 2021, and thankfully the building has remained true to John Partridge’s original 1971 design. The interior is supposed to be lovely, but like everywhere these days you need a pass to get through the security barriers. I love the window frames and have not seen the like before. They look so much like wartime bunkers I expected to see gun barrels poking out of them.

Just around the corner is the Denys Wilkinson Building, the astrophysics department of Oxford University. Its neighbour, the Thom Building, is being renovated and there was scaffold all over the place and a number of the paths around the building were blocked which was frustrating. I’m learning to accept that not everything is going to go to plan when I travel, so this was good. I also was trying to memorise directions between places, a ‘skill’ I feel I’m losing as I’ve become reliant on my phone to always be there to give me directions. This worked well so was I pleased to find I can do it with little effort, and getting slightly misplaced is often part of the enjoyment.

The Philip Dawson design Nuclear Physics Building first opened in the late 60s and was renamed The Denys Wilkinson Building in 2001 to honour the famous physicist, (and no, I don’t know physicists, famous or otherwise; being interested in brutalist architecture teaches you many things). The fan building houses a Van de Graff Generator.

I know nothing about the Oxford Centre for Innovation building other than where it is, and that it was difficult to photograph as it’s partly wrapped around Oxford Castle Mound and the castle butts up against the back of it.

It was raining on Saturday, and windy, cold and quite unpleasant, so after photographing the innovation Centre I took myself to the Ashmolean Museum, stopping for an excellent coffee in the most unfriendly and pretentious café I’ve been to, and I’m unfriendly and pretentious so have some expertise in this field!

I arrived at the Ashmolean soon after it opened and it was nice and quiet. I had a look around most of the galleries; there is a lot of pottery, something I have very limited interest in. I was seeking out galleries that housed North Indian and South East Asian collections as I’m still fascinated by the complex ancient history of these places as well as the religions that were so key to the buildings and art that were created hundreds, if not thousands of years ago. I was momentarily distracted in the Egyptian collection and this magnificent relief on the side of the tomb of Nubian King Taharqa who died in 664BC, he is believed to have been the last black pharaoh of Egypt. The detail is stunning!

The Indian and Asian galleries were interesting, with some lovely Buddhist and Hindi artefacts. I was especially interested in this beautiful 16th bronze of Saint Tirumankai Alvar which is soon to be returned to it’s home in the Tamil Nadu region of India. While it’s not know whether this statue was stolen, it also can’t be proved that it wasn’t so the museum is returning it. Much as I like to see these lovely objects in UK museums they should be returned to their traditional homes.

As the weather hadn’t improved while I was in the museum. I caught the train back home to London where Eleanor and went to a fantastic restaurant in Stoke Newington to not celebrate Valentines Day.

The next post will be all about the Hogwartsean, Disneyesque Oxford we all know and love.

A walk in the park

Wanstead – Saturday 08 February 2025

Every great adventure starts with a train journey. Though, it’s fair to say today’s adventure wasn’t great, and neither was it that adventurous, but it did start with a train journey. All 15 minutes of it.

For the past few months, I’ve had some discomfort/mild pain in my groin. I thought it might be a hernia so my doctor referred me for a scan at the Loxford Polyclinic in Barking, 15 minutes along the Suffragette Line from home followed by a 10 minute walk from the station. There are an awful lot of signs advising that the reception area I was sent to (1b) didn’t have a receptionist; this didn’t stop every person who arrived after me asking if there was a receptionist on today. I did get seen quite quickly.

I wanted to make this visit a little more enjoyable and “adventurous” so mapped out a walk home via the large heath/common area that I just lump into the generic name of Wanstead Flats, though there are official names for all the chunks of open land that is carved up by busy edge of London roads. One of those bit is Wanstead Flats, I just have no idea where is starts or ends.

I was expecting a grey old day but I wasn’t expecting to walk for 90 minutes with cold drizzly rain as my constant companion. However, the rain and very low cloud kept the people away and muted the noise of the traffic to a dull hum. It also blanketed any buildings on the flats’ edges making the walk feel endless and isolating and I really enjoyed the solitude. I walked without headphones and just ‘was’. It was nice. Cold, wet, but nice. My working week just seems so full of noise and I’m starting to appreciate quiet when I can get it, and this means listening to less music than normal. I’m finding this change quite liberating. Music has been with me for decades, and is critical to my wellbeing and I’m not giving it up, just slowly releasing it as a crutch, and allowing myself time in my own head has it’s own rewards.

Other than getting some miles into my legs before we go to New Zealand in four weeks (less three days; and I’m very excited), I’ve been wanting to photograph some garage doors that back onto a dirt path on the edge of the health for quite some time. I know that ‘garage doors on the edge of a heath’ is quite a ‘Phil’ thing to want to photograph, but I’m interested in these luminal spaces where human-made things butt up against natural things. Admittedly, the heath is hardly natural, particularly at this particular point as it’s just football fields, but you (hopefully) get what I mean.

On Thursday I bought myself a new 27mm lens for the Fujifilm xt2 camera I use and wanted to test it out before we go on holiday. It’s a very small lens and makes the camera a little less obvious, something I wanted for when I go to Delhi where I hope to try some street style photography.

Many of these garage doors are blocked by scrub, some are graffitied and some are pristine and obviously used. It’s also kinda weird that these garages back onto parkland that is part of Epping Forest, I’ve no idea how that happened.

I started the nicer second half of the walk just inside the A406, the dreaded North Circular road that slices through a large portion of northern London and is just a constant traffic jam. I’d just walked from Barking to Ilford so it was a relief to not be walking on the pavement of a busy road. I entered the ‘flats’ at the end of Forest View Rd, and it must be the most southern point of Epping Forest. There is not much forest at this point.

I walked past Alexandra Lake before cutting around a couple of football pitches with kids’ matches going on before I headed north west towards the ‘garages’.

I kept local landmarks Fred Wigg and John Walsh Towers as an earthly North Star as I walked. I’m trying to plan walks before I leave home so I rely less on the maps app on my phone. I feel like my memory is waning rapidly as I just rely on technology too much another thing I want to practise before I go away; though I suspect mobile phone theft is less endemic in Delhi than it is in London.

The heath is a mix of football pitches; mostly unused today, and small patches of bramble and scrub, with the occasional clump of trees tossed in for good measure. It’s criss-crossed by roads though both the heath and roads were quiet today.

It took about 40 minutes of weaving and wandering to get to the ‘garages’, and to be honest I was a little surprised I found them, my vague plan had worked! I’ve only ever walked to them from the other end and then taken a sort of random path back towards home. I’d never approached from this angle before so it was a confidence boost to know that my brain hasn’t fully atrophied with constant mobile phone use.

The new lens was perfect for these conditions; a narrowish tree and scrub lined path between fields and houses, the low, dull sky and drizzle needed a crisp and ‘fast’ lens and I’m happy with the results. The weather suited the subject material as well. This is a not-quite grotty bit of east London edgeland, it shouldn’t be photographed under a warm blue sky. Today’s conditions were perfect.

Fred and John stayed as my marker beacons as I cut across the deserted football pitches back towards a warm and dry home. It’s hard to believe it’s only 1pm.

When I woke up this morning I’d intended on making a full day of today, Eleanor is out with friends and I’d wanted to get a really long walk in, but after two hours out I was cold and my trousers and boots were wet from the long grass so I went home, put music on, edited photos and wrote this instead. No regrets, I’d had a good day, and not just because I bought chips from Leytonstone’s best chippie on the way home

St Leonards for the day, yay

St Leonards/Bexhill – Sunday 26 January 2025

It was with some nervousness that I asked Eleanor if she wanted to do a weekend away in St Leonards, I knew she would be up for it, but I wasn’t sure if I was. I haven’t visited since I rented out my flat in April 2023 as I like St Leonards and miss having somewhere to go when I occasionally want to escape London and not pay £100 a night for the pleasure. I love my flat but I think I’m going to sell it when we come back from New Zealand in April. I want to find somewhere a little bit cheaper to make the mortgage more affordable, and I’d like somewhere not on the third floor. My knees aren’t getting better with age.

In the end we agreed it was the right thing to do and here we are a few weeks later, on a train heading back to London from Bexhill as the rain pours and the wind howls outside. We did have a nice time though.

Yesterday was the twelfth anniversary of our first date so it was just the weekend to go away, except that there are no trains running to St Leonards this weekend (the usual ‘engineering works’) and as it was a special weekend for us we wanted to somewhere nicer to stay than was on offer in St Leonards or Hastings. I booked a nice boutique hotel in nearby Bexhill, there is a direct, albeit much slower train, from London Victoria to Bexhill, and at least the service was running. Though the idea of cleaning windows is something that has not, apparently, occurred to Southern Rail.

Miraculously, yesterday was a glorious sunny and still day, seemingly the first of the year; and lordy it has been a looooooooong slow leaden sky start to 2025. We arrived in Bexhill at mid-day and were fortunate to be able to check into our room early and dump bags before taking lunch in a local pub.

The walk from Bexhill to St Leonards is one we’ve done many times and I’m sure I would’ve written about it in the past. It’s mostly a nice walk, especially on a sunny and still day, though the railway yards and commercial buildings that line the inland side for a section of the path aren’t exactly attractive. Luckily there is always the sea to look at.

I’d arranged to collect some mail from the flat, and snuck in and out without seeing any of the neighbours, and without taking a photo of the place. There are enough on here as it is.

We walked though Bottle Alley, one of St Leonards architectural highlights, to Hastings, then turned back to St Leonards as we were meeting the neighbours I didn’t want to avoid for a pre-dinner drink. It was fun, as was dinner where we unexpectedly ran into some other friends and ended up staying out to midnight.

Sunday was slow, which suited us fine. The weather turned overnight and it was incredibly windy. Windy enough to change the train booking to an earlier one, which worked out well as heavy rained arrived soon after we started the journey back to London. Between breakfast and the train we walked west from Bexhill towards Cooden Beach. I like this walk, it’s so different to the eastbound walk to St Leonards which is much more open, this way we pass the back gardens of the large houses that follow the coast and a strange array of beach ‘huts’. It’s very WW2 bunker and there is so much concrete and brick and so little wood and grass, it’s like these beach huts and houses are still fending off the Hun, 80 years after the war ended. It’s mad and I love it.

Back in Bexhill we stopped for coffee in De la Warr Pavilion with it’s magnificent curving concrete staircase before catching the train back to London.

I had missed St Leonards and it was lovely to spend a day there, and yes I loved it and now I can’t wait to come back. x

Five photography exhibitions

London – Friday 17 January 2025

With the trip to New Zealand and India now only a few weeks away, I’m doing a bit of practice, but what for I’m less certain of. My world has become quite cocooned since Covid and the eight days I will spend in India will be the longest I’ve been away by myself since a solo trip to New Zealand in 2018.

Eleanor will hate me saying it aloud, but I have become quite dependent on her for company and emotional support over the past few years. She has been encouraging me to get out more, do things and meet people and I have bursts of enthusiasm on occasion, but there is a way to go yet. I’m capable of entertaining myself, but eight days away is a long time, so I want to practice independence at least.

Eleanor is away in Bristol visiting one of her sons for the weekend and I have time at home so I plan on getting to some photo exhibitions today and then finding a pub to sit in to read my book over a pint and some food. Practise eating with only a book for company. Not wanting to be seen eating alone is definitely a ‘thing’, and it is a ‘thing’ I’m uncomfortable about. I don’t like being noticed, and of course the stupid thing is other diners/drinkers don’t really care, if they notice at all. It took a while, but I got comfortable with solo life when I travelled all those years ago so I should be able to do it for eight days, and practise makes perfect, apparently.

I also need to get some leg miles as there is a lot I want to see in Delhi and Chandigarh. I nailed the leg miles today with over 15km of walking done, the most for quite a few weeks, though I was getting a bit leggy by the end. I aim to get another 10-12kms done tomorrow and a few more on Sunday if I can. The final thing I wanted to practice today was just walking slowly, without headphones in and just enjoying the moment while it exists, good or bad. I need to stop needlessly rushing everywhere. This final thing will take some work I think.

I had a good go at practicing all of those things today. I got to five photography exhibitions across three different London galleries. All of them were different and all of them were brilliant in their individual way. Some of the images were quite sad, a small number were disturbing and an even smaller number were humorous. There was a decent balance of colour and monochrome.

I was inspired to visit all these galleries by a recent Substack post from fellow New Zealander, and Lynfield College alumni, Garth Cartwright, though he was not in my year.

My first stop was the Saatchi Gallery and ‘As We Rise: Photos from the Black Atlantic’. The images come from the Canadian Wedge Collection and showcases work from black artists from Canada, the US, UK, the Caribbean and Africa. The space is gorgeous, large, light and airy and I was surprised to find myself largely alone in the galleries. Friday afternoon is obviously a good time to go for peaceful and solitary contemplation.

I followed this with another show in the Saatchi, ‘Adaption’ a collection of work from Russian/American photographer Anastasia Samoylova. These were the most ‘fun’ images of the day, with a mix of reportage and some interesting photo collages mostly taken around Florida. As with ‘As we rise’ I was almost the only person viewing in the vast rooms the work was hung in.

I walked 50 minutes through Belgravia and Mayfair, two very expensive parts of London, neither of which I know well, to Goodman’s Gallery, for a major exhibition of work by Earnest Cole; ‘House of Bondage’. A collection of monochrome photos taken in 1960 of impoverished black communities in South Africa. Most of these images provided the content for a 1967 book of the same name. The images were heartbreakingly beautiful, with my ‘favourite’ being a lesson in a school where girls learn to scrub floors on their hands and knees. The images are beautifully lit and printed and Earnest who grew up in this community obviously had a lot of love for his home, hard as it was.

There is some irony with these images being hung in a very expensive Mayfair gallery, admittedly it is a South African gallery and primarily hosts work from that country. Other than the staff, who mostly ignored me, I was the only person there.

It was a short hop over Regents Street to The Photographers Gallery for the final two exhibitions. The first by Letizia Battaglia; ‘Life, Love and Death in Sicily’, a collection of reportage images showing the impact the Sicilian mafia had in the 70s and 80s across the state. Like House of Bondage, these were powerful, often brutal pieces of documentary making. Letiza was not afraid to use her skills as a photographer and her position with the daily paper to show how these criminal organisations were destroying community and family. There were many images of the victims of mafia shootings and the their shocked and bereaved families.

Finally, also at Photographers, I saw the photo collage works of the late fashion and art photographer Deborah Turbeville, which were beautiful and a more joyous way to end my viewing day. I particularly liked that some of her works were deliberately out of focus, giving a ghostly ethereal quality which a style I enjoy. Technical perfection can be dull.

I had a small slice of delicious pizza and a glass of wine in a Soho cafe, which was bustling and busy and a little noisy and I should have stayed for a second and attempted the book reading thing, but it was uncomfortable – intentionally I think, to stop people lurking at tables. I spent some time trying to find a pub that looked welcoming to a solo traveller and found one, but the wine was pish and again the seat was awful. I didn’t stay long and meandered to the station for a tube ride home.

I bought myself a new winter coat in the New Year sales to replace three I’d given to a local charity shop as winter set in. This new coat has pockets big enough to take a medium sized paperback as well as glasses and a phone. This meant I could ditch the bag I’d been carrying all day with a camera I didn’t use (all these photos were taken in my phone) and go to a local pub for dinner with nothing to worry about. Those extra large pockets weren’t planned but they are a proper bonus.

We’re off to St Leonards for a night next week and then I’m planning on a night away in Oxford around the middle of February to do a ‘two days in Delhi’ trial run, taking in ancient and brutalist buildings and the odd museum.

A walk from Canary Wharf to Liverpool St Station

London – Saturday 28 December 2024

With the March trip to New Zealand and Delhi largely booked and rapidly approaching, and with the largess of Christmas just gone and two New Year feasts pending, we’ve decided we need to return to the good habit of getting out for a walk when we can. It will be good to walk off some of the food and wine (and gin and brandy and the occasional Old Fashioned) and get some walking miles back in the legs before we go on holiday. I don’t like to say I’ve been lazy since we were in Berlin, but, to be honest to myself, I have.

At just over 15km the walk today wasn’t huge, but it was a good start and with aching knees and hips I’m not really convinced I could do much more than 25km in a day anymore; not without some practice anyway. Other than a couple of frustrations, it was a nice walk. Eleanor and I do walking together well.

I’d completed the bulk of this walk before, though hadn’t realised it was just over 10 years ago until I checked back through some old posts to find what I’d thought back then. I had a good time then as well, though it was a lot warmer than today.

I will get the two frustrations out of the way early; both of which I firmly lay at the door of ‘the authorities’. One should be nice and easy to resolve, but I’m sure it isn’t as it requires a bunch of people from different organisations agreeing with each other, and I know that just isn’t going to happen any time soon.

The walk we did is a section of the well established 298km ‘Thames Path’, so you would think that being a part of a well established route that there would be consistent and constant signage. I can say that there is reasonably constant signage, it’s not brilliant but there is at least some. I can also say it is not consistent at all; I counted six different types of sign in the section we walked. That is ridiculous and confusing.

PXL_20241228_120237726

PXL_20241228_120420809

PXL_20241228_115312987

PXL_20241228_120231126

PXL_20241228_120433898

Constant and clear signs should be THE bare minimum for something like the Thames Path. My favourite sign was this one, that just points at a blocked off building site. Which leads me to frustration two…

PXL_20241228_115017057

Bits of public London are slowly disappearing under private management, and as more construction happens around the city, more public access is disappearing or being restricted as the image above shows. Who knows how long that building site has been blocking access to the path or for how much longer, I have no idea.

PXL_20241228_130744150

That this city is being gifted to developers to do what they will in the name of progress (and council tax) is just so unfair on those of us who live, and the visitors who come to spend time and money, here. There are just too many places that are either completely closed or that come with so many restrictions (no photography being a favourite). That this is acceptable will mean that we can just expect more and all of a sudden the public will be squeezed out and the nice places will be the domain of only those can afford it.

Another classic example is this closed gate.

PXL_20241228_125806818

We came across it from the riverside where the path beyond was blocked by an old rivers edge warehouse, at first we thought it was locked and would have to back track to get back to the road, though fortunately it was just closed and we could get out. There should be clear rules insisting that gates on the path should be open to send a clear message that the way is open and all are welcome. To be fair, at low tide you can walk along the riverbank and there are a few access ways down to the river.

DSCF4755

I accept that there are parts of the Thames Path closed to the public due to the small number of Victorian era warehouses that line the riverside, albeit they’re all blocks of flats now. What I am unhappy about is new construction being allowed to get away with blocking access; either by building right on the river’s edge or by failing to leave open gates on the section of public path they were ‘forced’ to create as part of their permission.

DSCF4759

Even with both those moans, and as I said before, I enjoyed the walk; it was a still and cold day, with a nice bit of low cloud and there weren’t too many people about until we got closer to the city. It was quiet on both the footpath and the road which allowed for a leisurely pace and quiet conversation.

DSCF4743

DSCF4747

DSCF4751

DSCF4749

DSCF4757

DSCF4752

We stopped for a nice pint in one of London’s oldest pubs, ‘The Prospect of Whitby’, which for some reason I was too scared to ask about in case I didn’t like the answer, had a noose hanging from a gibbet over the river.

PXL_20241228_125109956

PXL_20241228_121746763

Not taking the opportunity go for a wee after the pint while we were still in the pub was either a bad mistake or a work of genius as we were forced to stop for another drink at St Katherine’s Dock. This time we added a burger to each of our drink orders and stayed inside for a warming and revitalising lunch (and wee) before partly walking them both off when we walked to Liverpool Street station to get the tube back home.

PXL_20241228_132345670

DSCF4762

The Imaginary Institution of India

Barbican – Friday 21 December 2024

After a sustained period of talking, followed by an equally long period of procrastination and then a short period of faff I’ve finally booked flights back to New Zealand in March 2025, stopping for eight days in Delhi and Chandigarh on the return to London. I will be away a month, which is all I can really take as annual leave. Eleanor is coming with me to New Zealand, where a London friend will join us for a few days before I go to India and they return to London via Sydney and Tokyo. With today being the shortest day of year and constant grey skies, drizzling rain and cold it is properly nice to have something to look forward to.

Ever since the aborted trip to India in 2016 I’ve been determined to go back and see some more of that fabulous, maddening country. When starting to think about this trip I’d planned on spending some time in Delhi before heading south-west, returning to the state of Rajasthan to visit some of the historic towns I didn’t get to in 2016. However, I recently discovered the town of Chandigarh in the Punjab to the north of Delhi. Chandigarh was planned in the 50s as a new town to replace Delhi as India’s capital city and move the country on from British rule after independence in 1947. Renowned French architect le Corbusier was engaged to draft a plan for the entire town and the delivery of that plan was eventually entrusted to English and Indian architects (more on this when I visit). It didn’t become the capital, much as Prime Minister Nehru wanted it to, but it is, apparently, a wonderful modernist town and I’m very much looking forward to visiting.

Conveniently, soon after I decided on Chandigarh as a place to visit, the V&A Museum had a small, though perfectly formed, exhibition – ‘Tropical Modernism’, which addressed the idea behind the building of Chandigarh and the city of Accra in Ghana and the importance of modernist architecture to the story of both India and Ghana’s independence from Britain. I bought the book.

PXL_20241220_130832774

The Barbican is currently holding an exhibition of Indian art from 1977-1998, ‘The Imaginary Institution of India’ which I went to visit today, a non-working Friday. I took the camera with the intention of doing a walk around the Barbican estate before my 3:00 o’clock booking at the gallery. It was drizzly and cold out and I wasn’t in the photography mood so after a desultory and largely uninspired wander I had a glass of wine while I waited instead.

DSCF4722

DSCF4739

DSCF4741

I enjoyed the exhibition, particularly the photographic works, though some of the paintings were fabulous, with my favourite being the second piece you see when you walk in. The space is fabulous, it’s my first visit to the Barbican Gallery, so wasn’t sure what to expect from the venue; I will be going back.

PXL_20241220_145018409

DSCF4737

Gieve Patel – Two men with a hand cart.

DSCF4727

Gulammohammed Sheikh – Speechless City (my favourite).

DSCF4728

The exhibition documents one of the many periods of upheaval in Indian history, between 1977 and 1998, a period of massive social change in the country with a burgeoning middle class and rapid urbanisation as rural incomes dropped and people flooded into the cities. Heightened awareness of social issues and demands for fairness and equal rights for women and the LGBTQ+ community are out in the open and these were captured in the art of the time and well represented here. I loved the photos on show, particularly a series from Delhi in the 1970s of members of the artistic community. It isn’t how I saw India in those days. One of the things I love about art and travel is having my perceptions challenged and changed.

DSCF4730

DSCF4731

DSCF4733

It was also a time of political unrest (again) with violent clashes between Muslim and Hindu communities in the north of the country and the unlawful killing of political activists including Safdar Hashmi in 1989, painted by the artist M. F. Husain, who had to flee the country in 2006 after threats on his life.

DSCF4734

Ending on that happy note and with a date with Eleanor and some friends ahead I left the Barbican and walked the hour to Soho where we had a quick early dinner before going to see comedian Stewart Lee in Leicester Square, something that is becoming an enjoyable annual event.

PXL_20241220_211323238

PXL_20241220_184702826

PXL_20241220_164146271

It was a lovely day and evening out and something I should do more of, more often.

DSCF4724