Britain – Page 18 – Where is Phil now?

The Epping Forest Project, Phase 2–February

February 2018 – Epping Forest.

February was a strange month, we seemed to be really busy each weekend with different activities that allowed me no time for the Epping Forest photography project I started in January. It is also winter, though winter did not fully happen until the very end of the month, even though I was still not feeling as inspired as I should have been. This is not untypical though.

I made two trips to Hollow Pond, a 30 minute walk from home. It is on the southern edge of Epping Forest, a small outpost with a thin link to the larger forest area. I like Hollow Pond, though it has its seedy, sleazy, tree-covered edges that are less attractive and reduce its overall appeal as a place to wander vacantly about. The sunny, open shores are very popular. Families and young and old couples stroll through trees and reeds, feeding the ducks, geese and swans, trying to avoid the marauding , thieving gulls.

Here are the best of the photos from the two walks.

Walk one started sunny, but very windy. El and I were half way around when the clouds started to form in the distance, and we could see rain falling over Woodford. We made a run for the lovely All you read is love bookshop in nearby Leytonstone. Before catching a bus back home.

Walk two was a solo walk starting from Waterworks Roundabout on a gloriously sunny, but cold day. I was aiming for some super close-up with massive of field shots, but there was just enough of a breeze to make them quite tricky, so I went for the loads of intrusive flare instead. Rule breaking by shooting in to the sun. Again.

Epping Forest in snow.

Saturday 03 March 2018 – Epping Forest.

What a difference three hours can make.

The meagre blanket of snow that covered the plain when I arrived on the edge of the forest was all but gone when I left. Arriving with hat, scarf, gloves on and jacket zipped to the neck, departing with all the accessories packed away and my coat wide open to cool down. It was a great morning’s walk between those points.

Three hours later.

The ‘beast from the east’ weather system passed through London, and the rest of the UK, over the last five days. The system brought some terrible weather to many parts of the country, though we in London were unscathed – as usual. What we did have was four days of on and off snow, resulting in the longest period of settled snow in the five years I have lived here.

It has been a really busy month at work so I was not able to take time off to get to the forest, so it was a little worrying to see the snow no longer falling on Friday evening. It was with some nervousness I peered out from behind the bedroom curtains early this morning to see what it was like. Snow on the ground, very flat grey sky and the roads were clear. Perfect!

I am not sure what I wanted to achieve this morning, take photos being the obvious objective, getting some quiet time also appealed. I never listen to music when I am there, one of the few places where I am on my own that I do not. Wandering vacantly appears to be what I excel at.

Chingford Plain

Warren Pond

Butlers Retreat – where I stopped for coffee on my way home. Very nice coffee and cake 🙂

Surprisingly I was alone for most of the morning, only seeing a couple of mountain bikers and a few dog walkers. I saw no-one on the main routes apart from one solitary runner, the dog walkers were all in the trees on what I have considered bike trails. Perhaps they just took the opportunity to roam more freely than usual? There were signs others had been here mid-week.

I was really (pleasantly) surprised how many animal foot prints I saw in the snow, though this is a forest so not sure why I was surprised. Deer, rabbit, fox and bird trails criss-crossed every human marked trail. Great signs for a healthy forest. Apart from birds I saw none of the animals that left these trails, though I was looking.

The snow was very shallow and very light; a foot step enough to disturb it, leaving earthen trails behind. Enough to cover light undergrowth and tree fall. Brambles, nettles and ferns were barely visible and where I would normally walk around the undergrowth I just walked over the top, only becoming entangled the once. It allowed for a more random path though the trees, inevitably letting me get hopelessly lost. As always.

As well as providing an amazing contrasting backdrop for photos and letting the trees stand out from the natural toned background the snow made finding my way around far harder than I expected, I was lost almost immediately I was into the trees and I never found the spot I was at barely two weeks ago. Though discovering this small grove of beech made my morning. The coppery gold leaves just popping out of the background. Humping the tripod around was worth every ounce of extra weight.

Following a bike tyre trail from what I thought was Cuckoo Brook I was aiming to get to a stand of silver birch near the church at High Beech. Silver birch in the snow is a real cliche I know, but then I do love a cliche. I never did get there. I had no idea where I was by this stage.

The morning was getting on and it was time to head back towards the station, with no idea of my location I turned towards the distant traffic noise from Epping New Rd. With the snow and the flat low clouds the forest was very quiet, I could hear the squeak of my shoes on the snow, the occasional bird and a dull but constant, surf like hum in the background. It was almost like being slightly inland from the sea.

I followed one of the main paths for a while, seeing one of the few people that were also out enjoying this rare solitude.

I soon left the main path again and back into the trees hoping to find Connaught Water. It turned out I still didn’t know where I was, though I did find a nice stand of young silver birch to make up for missing the one I was aiming for earlier. It is all a bit Scandi !

Finding another one of the main paths I experimented with a bit of impressionist photography before checking the map on my phone, finally working out where I was and setting off in the right direction.

The paths around an almost totally iced over Connaught Water were almost empty of people, I found this so unusual as this place is normally full of walkers. I had visions of families and young couples out enjoying the snow, tossing snowballs at each other and admiring the dedication of the birds sitting on the cold ice.

The snow was slowly melting away where there was no tree cover and I was quite shocked to see grass that had a white top coat when I arrived was almost bare of snow as I left.

I was really pleased I made it in time, that I had not followed my normal weekend routine and had a lie in.

It was a lovely, peaceful, beautiful morning out, and I hope you enjoyed the photos.

The Beast from the East

Thursday 01 March 2018, London.

Yay, winter is over! Spring officially starts today. the first day of March. The signs of its arrival have been showing themselves anew every day over the past week. On Friday I took a few photos of the daffodils that are popping their blooms out of the grass in the parks on the way to work. In fact it was getting light enough and nice enough that I had started thinking about cycling to work.

With predictable unpredictability the official start of spring was marked by the worst weather Britain has seen in decades. ‘The Beast from the East’, as the weather system was dubbed, arrived from the Siberian steppes over the weekend bringing chaos and heavy snow to the north. For us in the south it was a bitter wind that set the ball rolling, preparing us for what was to come.

I left for work on Monday morning, prepared for anything, a very light snow had started to fall just before I left the house and the forecast hinted that this would be the start of a long week of snow.

I was excited to find when I got to work that the snow was still falling. I do not actually work here, though my office is not far away; and not quite as palatial.

Unfortunately for me, but not so much my work colleagues, or the majority of working Londoners, that seemed to be the end of the snow. There was no layer of white as I walked back to the station after work. Tuesday was equally disappointing. During the day at least, the night was a whole different story!

Peering out of the bedroom window when I awoke on Wednesday I was confronted with a sea of white in the street below me, and to make the sight even more welcoming the sky above was a lovely crisp blue. I was up immediately, feeding the cat and then out to take a couple of pictures in the garden before anything more than the neighbour’s cat left tracks in the fresh blanket.

I am quite lucky in that my commute is quite short and very crowded, it is completely unpleasant. The Victoria Line is fully underground and is not impacted like so many of the overground train lines by adverse weather. I still hate every one of the 25 or so minutes I am underground though; not due to fear of undergroundness, or claustrophobia. I just hate commuting! The only good thing about my commute is exiting the tube at Green Park station, and the 15 minute walk to the office; traversing both Green and St James Parks. I have been waiting all winter for today. Stunning !

Crossing the Mall to take a photo of Buckingham Palace I was told off by the police for standing in the middle of the road. I have been waiting for the right day to take a photo of the dodgy neighbourhood I have to walk through to get to and from work.

St James Park was very busy this morning. At this time of the day it is rare to see more than a couple of tourists, the odd jogger and bunch of bored and tired office workers trudging, head down through the park. Today, there were smiles and ‘good mornings’ and seemingly everyone was taking pictures of the snow and ice. I took a few myself.

The daffodils were looking a lot less happy than they were last week!

That was the end of the sun for a few hours. Lunch time the cloud cover was low, it was grey, bleak, windy cold and snowing. Heading out to buy a sandwich I grabbed the camera to take a couple of pictures as I went. It was not particularly nice, though a large group of tourists were enjoying a snowball fight on the edge of the park. At least the traffic, which plagues this part of London, was light today. A silver lining in every snow laden cloud.

Fortunately it was all smiles again late afternoon, leaving work early I took a few more pictures as I went.

I also tried my hand at a bit more intentional camera movement, impressionist images as I went.

Obviously this weather system was not all jolly japes like it was for me in relatively unscathed London. It has had a terrible impact on other parts of the UK, with roads and rail lines closed, people stuck in cars for many hours and a number of people losing their lives to the bitter cold. The snow levels in some places hit historic levels, and the cold set new records. It was so hard to plan or predict anything, forecasting seemed to have gotten so much better over the last few years, but this week nothing seemed to work as predicted. Snow fell when it wasn’t supposed to and did not when it was. The one thing they got right was it lasted all week.

Thursday was a blanket of grey, it was colder than it had been all week, colder than the rest of winter, crossing the bridge in St James Park the cross wind was savage. I pity the poor pigeons. Brrrrr. There were no smiling, welcoming commuters today.

I left work early for the fourth day this week (any excuse), a break in the snow was a good time to nip off. El has been sick all week, finally succumbing to the cold I had when we were in St Ives, so I had a mission to make to the chemist on the way home. (Thankfully she is over the worst of it as I write this, four days later). I managed to grab a couple of final snowy images on the way through the St James Park.

Friday was bleak, and I was finally over the cold, windy and damp weather. I still love the snow though.

The Beast from the East finally finished in London with a brief but heavyish snow shower mid-afternoon on Friday, and then it was, thankfully all over. Even I had finally got bored with the snow. Bring on the grey slush !

Beach hut heaven.

Saturday 24 February 2018. Brightlingsea, Essex.

A while ago we were thinking of taking a weekend away in Brightlingsea, but as usual, did nothing about it. I cannot remember why. I vaguely recall that El was thinking of it as a possible place to go for a few days, away from the attractions of a larger town, to do some writing. Whatever the reason was, at whatever time it was we never made it there, or anywhere close by. It has been lurking in the back of our minds since.

There is no specific reason why it appeals, it is not really coastal, there are no amazing landscapes, and no castles or abbey ruins to visit. It is just a small rural estuarine town in Essex with a good name and an easy drive from home.

Saturday woke to be one of those great sunny but damn cold English winter days. With threats of pending snowy doom from the ‘beast from the east’ weather front coming on Monday it seemed a shame to waste the opportunity the day presented.

It was also time to take the car for a decent spin, the last time I used it was before Christmas when I was going to drive to Norfolk until I found the flat tyre. When I finally got around to taking the car to the shop to get the tyre repaired I found a second flat (suspicious!) With the wheels off I found my brake pads were knackered so I had those replaced as well. With all the work done the car felt and ran better than ever.

Brightlingsea is about one and half hours north of home in mid-Essex, sitting near the point where the Colne River estuary meets the southern North Sea. Like a lot of coastal Britain, Brightlingsea is a very old town, it gets a mention in the Doomsday Book of 1087. Apparently the oldest wooden framed building in the UK is in the middle of town though I did not know that until now, so we did not go and visit this 14^th century relic.

What we did do was stop for a hearty and nice lunch at a cafe in town before going for a walk around the waterfront and the most beach huts I have ever seen. Surprising because there is not a lot of beach. It is nice though.

It is very windy and very cold, heavy coats, gloves, hats and scarves were on, but the sky was a brilliant blue, a great winter ‘seaside’ walking day.

Beach huts feature a bit in these photos, there were just so many, every nook and cranny seemed to have a beach hut crammed in. The great thing with the beach huts here was there seemed to be no real rules, unlike the tedious line-up of identikit huts on the south coast.

Even with this small amount of skin exposed it was still cold!

Heading back into town I found this nice old boat shed, that I am sure will not last much longer as small blocks of posh modern flats are sprouting up nearby.

We wandered down to where the ferry up the Colne to Colchester would leave in the warmer months.

We stopped in a cafe for a warming coffee before walking back to the car for the journey home.

It is not a town I could live in, there is not a lot there, there is no train and it is a bit remote. Plus there is no proper sea. But I liked it as a place to visit, and lunch was damn good.

The Epping Forest Project, Phase 1 – January

Sunday 28 January 2018 – Epping Forest.

After six months in this job I have now settled into a routine that works well. In the main I do not work outside of work hours (he says sitting down to work on a Sunday morning!) and while I still have moments of being a total stress-monkey, I am much better at being able to relax into a weekend. I have allowed myself the time and head space to make benefit of the non-working hours.

I have been pondering some photographic/creative project for a while, a project that forces me off the couch and back outside. Before we went to St Ives I came up with the plan to complete a 12 month photography project to capture the changing seasons in Epping Forest. The aim is to create one great image each month and combine them into a calendar at year end. Hopefully there will be more than one per month, but there is no point in putting pressure on myself before I even start!

I had planned on spending some of the time in St Ives researching the forest and its history and devising a plan for this project. I want to explore a lot more of the forest, get images from a range of locations and find one unusual spot to focus on. Returning to it each month to witness it change. It requires a bit of research, and I was looking forward to that; and where it led me. I tend to wander off down various rabbit holes when I am on the internet, especially when I am researching places and photography. This is something I really enjoy, but it does add to my already expert levels of procrastination. Sickness ended that plan, spending most of my St Ives downtime curled up in bed gazing vacantly at the wall.

We arrived back in Walthamstow from our holiday on Friday evening, and I was feeling a little perkier.. If I was going to achieve this new photo project then I had to be out today, it is already the last weekend of the month. The sky was a flay grey which was good in some ways, photography would be easier than if the sky was very bright, it was not too cold and not too windy either; though there was enough of a breeze to make close-up shots impossible.

My first stop was the top of Pole Hill. It is not much of a hill, only 92 metres above sea level; but it does have a great view to London city in the distance. Pole Hill also sits on the Greenwich Meridian. An obelisk was built in 1824 marking the exact spot. Sort of. In 1850 they discovered it was 19 ft out of line , so a second and smaller pillar was built. This fact always makes me smile!

Pole Hill’s second claim to fame is that T.E. Lawrence, also known as Lawrence of Arabia, owned some land and had a hut on the hill; now long gone.

I have ridden up this hill on numerous occasions and most of those times I have ridden off down this track that clearly says ‘Cycling’. There is a forest trail that runs close to the edge of the golf course, it is mostly ‘downhill’ and usually a lot of fun. There is a reasonable sized section of forest that I have yet to explore, so downhill I went.

I was surprised at the amount of space there is between the trees, I normally ride through here quite quickly and spend little time in observing my surroundings. Winter has stripped the leaves from most of the trees, adding to the space and light, even allowing for that I found it quite odd. I wonder if the area has been cleared in the recent past. If the ever present, invading holly was removed there would be huge gaps. I hate the holly, but it does provide a solid contrasting backdrop to winter leaves.

There was not a lot that captured my eye in this section, until I came across this manky old football.

As the forest was so open I headed off for a general wander into the trees, skipping the main path, not that I saw another person in this section at all. I did find this small collection of feathers, there was no blood or physical remains to go with them. I initially thought a fox or a feral cat must have grabbed a pigeon or a gull but am now thinking perhaps this was human work…

Crossing Bury Rd I entered the main southern block of Epping Forest, with a plan to do a loop and head back towards the station. As usual I got little lost so that didn’t happen. I did find this small patch of wispy trees with a tiny new silver birch growing in the middle. I do love a silver birch! I spent quite a bit of time here, taking photos from different angles. There was an unusual moss growth on the bottom of some of the wispy trunks that I have not noticed before. I think I have found my 12 month spot.

This was my favourite image from the day. I like the very muted, flat colours, with that thin shaft of white silver birch in the middle.

Four days in St Ives.

Sunday 21 – Friday 26 January 2018 – St Ives, Cornwall.

El and I had been looking forward to this trip away for a few weeks. While we had a few day trips and weekends away we really only had one week away from the city in the whole of 2017. I was especially desperate for a break from work and the bustle of the city.

We are still looking for that perfect place to buy a house, and St Ives in Cornwall has always been top, or near top, of that list. Its downside is it is so far away from our friends and day to day lives, so this week away was another test of that distance, as well as how we feel about the place during a cold wet January.

What the weather ended up doing did not really matter as it turned out. I was sick for pretty much the whole week and spent more time lying down staring at the wall than I did doing much else. It was lucky that El had quite a lot of work to do, so at least she wasn’t left to enjoy the highlights of St Ives on her own. I did feel for her though, as it was not the week away we planned for our fifth anniversary!

I had plans to take a lot of photos, make this a bit of a photo holiday, I packed my big and small cameras and the tripod. A lot of dead weight in the end, and I think I ended up taking more photos out of the train as we went down than I did while we were there.

The first to capture my attention was small flurry of snow that fell as we pulled into Didcot Parkway station. Snow had been forecast and I was really hoping we would see some in Cornwall, but alas; this was as close as we got.

The civil engineering genius Isambard Kingdom Brunel designed the amazing rail line along the south Devon coast, including this section in Dawlish,

and the wonderful Royal Albert rail bridge crossing the River Tamar at Saltash. The coastal route is quite lovely, and would have been an amazing engineering feat when it was built in the 1850s.

The journey through Devon and Cornwall is lovely, we were not blessed with great weather, but the low cloud added to the mystery of the place. There were numerous occasions when I wanted to stop the train, get out and take some photos. One of the benefits, and curses, of being a passenger rather than the driver. I did take some photos at some of the smaller stations on the way!

After almost 6 hours we arrived in St Erth, where we left the Penzance train to catch the small, single carriage train the short distance to St Ives.

A third of that journey is along the stunning Cornish coast, with gorgeous views up St Ives Bay towards Godvrey Head. The view was rather obscured by the very grubby windows!

Finally we made it, 6 ½ hours from London, and I seemed to be getting more and more unwell by the hour.

Luckily the holiday let we had booked was pretty much over the road from the station, so even though it was drizzling with rain and quite cold, at least it was only a short walk to the warm and dry. The view out of the front window was pretty good though, I am sure it is fantastic when you can see the other side of the bay. Though, I think is is actually my favourite photo from the five days away.

After a brief rest we headed out in to the late afternoon drizzle for a walk down the hill into the centre of town. We were quite keen to see what was open on wet and cold Sunday. Surprisingly quite a lot. Not that this photo shows it!

It was cold and wet so we retired to a nearby bar, that had the football on the telly, El’s team were playing, so it was a good excuse to have a pint. Though we did not stay for food, finding a local Italian for pizza instead.

I woke up Monday morning feeling pretty terrible, apart from an urgent work phone call that led me outside to get decent reception I spent most of the day in bed. El and I did venture out for a walk in the afternoon. We stopped for a coffee at a cafe over looking Porthmeor Beach. The first of three great flat whites I had in St Ives; in three cafes. Good coffee is always a bonus for me! There were even a few guys surfing, though I was not feeling up to heading down to the beach to take some photos.

Tuesday I ‘woke’ after a bad sleep feeling even worse than Monday. Apart from no work call, it was almost a repeat of Monday. Instead of going to the same cafe we visited Tate St Ives. It was the only Tate we had not previously visited, it was closed for renovations last time we came to St Ives. I must admit I was not really feeling it, there was some interesting pieces, and I really liked the local focus as well, the Ben Nicholson and Alfred Wallis works were very pleasing. The Barbara Hepworth museum was closed for renovations now, though there were a couple of pieces here at the Tate.

Wednesday had me feeling a little sprightlier than previous days, though when we did get out for a walk, stopping at the chemist for more drugs and tissues was high on the list. We started our walk down on Porthminster Beach, below our holiday rental. I really like this beach!

I particularly like the cafe, and we have a reservation for dinner tomorrow night, our fifth anniversary, we are very much looking forward to that.

We walked along the St Ives waterfront, and out on to the sea wall. Though the town’s main income is from tourism, there is still a small active fishing fleet based out of the bay behind the sea wall.

We stopped in a different cafe again and had a really nice hot chocolate. We were given a glass of hot milk and a small wooden spoon with a lump of chocolate in the end, which we melted into the glass of milk. I have never seen that method of making a hot chocolate drink before. I liked it very much! We went to another pub for dinner tonight, my football team, Arsenal, were on the telly, losing as usual. We met a couple of guys down from Manchester for work who we chatted to for a while – and then the power went out in the block. We hung around for a few minutes and then gave up and went home.

The worst of the cold was over by Thursday, though I was still not anywhere close to being fully well. I still could not be bothered getting the big camera out when we out for an afternoon walk. It was a pretty clear day, definitely the best of the week, though the wind was howling in exposed places and it was quite cold. El wanted to go back to the Tate and I wanted to walk up to St Nicholas Church, and walk around its headland, so we split up for a while and went our separate ways. I had a nice walk, though set a new record for myself by standing in dog pooh twice, one for each shoe. Joys 🙂

The wind over the past few days had created a reasonable swell, and there were a few decent waves lashing the rocks on the headland.

The walk up to the church was a bit of a struggle, my head was feeling so much better today, but my chest was still constricted and I was quite out of breath when I got up there. Sitting in the sun was not much of an option as the wind was very cold, and I was not that well prepared. I rested in the shade of both the sun and the wind until my breathing was normal, and then, cold and with a damp bum, headed back to town.

El and I met for lunch in quite a new cafe. it had a great menu, great coffee, and they were playing some quite dark music; I have never heard Placebo in a cafe before. I loved it. Not sure if the rest of the punters did. After lunch we walked back to our holiday home and crashed for a few hours before going back out for a fabulous meal at the Porthminster Cafe.

As it was time to go home I was feeling much better on Friday morning, I reckon that by work on Monday I will 100% again. Typical. The sunrise was small but stunning on Friday, and I was glad I was actually able to get and out to take a couple of photos from the other side of the road.

IMG_7275-Edit-Edit-Edit-Edit

IMG_7277-Edit-Edit

And that was it, back to St Erth on that lovely little train, followed by five or so hours back to London on a not so lovely little train.

I do love St Ives, it was such a shame, especially for El, that I was sick for most of it. I am very glad I was well enough for us to go out for our anniversary dinner, in one of favourite restaurants overlooking one of my favourite UK beaches.

Even though it has brilliant coffee, some cool galleries, decent cafes and bars, and was not a deserted winter wasteland, in the end we decided it is not the place for us. It really is just too far away.

Taking the camera for a walk

Saturday 13 January 2018 – London.

Happy new year! Welcome to 2018. Year six in my two years away from New Zealand. Day some number of thousands in the blog that probably wouldn’t last past the first day. I cannot believe I am still here, and that I get viewers on a daily basis, thanks 🙂

El was off to the football this afternoon, she now has a season ticket to the club that will not be named by an Arsenal supporter. She also had some work to do this morning and I didn’t (well I did but meh) so I decided to take the camera out for a walk. My plan was to catch the train into the city, find St Dunstan’s Church, walk up to The Photographers Gallery in the west-end to see the Wim Wenders exhibition, buy some new walking shoes, then go home. I am trying to do more exercise than I have been, taking a camera with me meant a meandering two or three hour walk.

Now I had decided to visit St Dunstan’s Church I felt I needed to take the Canon 5d MK 1 rather than the smaller, lighter point and shoot. I keep thinking I need to replace the 5d, it is 13 years old; which in technology terms is ancient, there is a MK 4 version now. It is heavy, unwieldy, and unfashionable, and the view screen is terrible. However, every time I take it out for a walk I just love the images that pop out of my computer screen when I get home. It just seems to suit the way I take pictures. In my bag it went, with a wide angle and a 50mm lens.

On a previous walk with El I had failed to find St Dunstan’s, poor research. Today I at least memorised the address. It is easy to find.

The church has a long history, it has been destroyed and rebuilt many time since its creation in 1100. The ruined version that remains now has a Christopher Wren designed tower built in 1701 that still stands and a pile of ruins, courtesy of Nazi Germany, from 1821.

I always wanted to visit over a weekend, as it is a popular lunch and contemplation spot for city workers during the week. At the weekend it is just busy with photographers. It is a very cool spot.

The trick is take a photo that shows off the ruined church; the vines, the moss and mould, but hide the newer post-war buildings that surround it. Avoiding the fashion photographers and their detritus was far harder.

Leaving St Dunstans I started a very meandary path towards the west. I wanted to stay off the main roads and explore the smaller, less known streets, avoiding the worst of the people and finding things I have never seen before. Like St Mary Abchurch.

The churchyard led me up to the intersection at ‘Bank’,

where I headed off bank down the lanes towards the north bank of the Thames.

Walking towards St Pauls I found this rather forlorn looking closed outdoor cafe area outside a church.

There is an interesting mix of old and new buildings along Queen Victoria St, this used to be my ‘patch’ when I was a courier driver for DHL back in the 1980s, not a lot of has changed since then.

I headed back up into the lanes around St Pauls, passing the lovely St Andrews of the Wardrobe church, hidden away from the worst of the rush.

I stopped for a light lunch, coffee and a rest in a cafe on Blackfriars Rd, before crossing over, finally heading down to Thames side.

Though soon after I was back up off the main road and strolling through the peace and quiet of ‘Temple’ , one of my favourite weekend places in the central city. It is pretty much deserted at the weekend, most of the entrances are closed and unless you know how to get in, and more importantly out you would never know it is there. I was looking for some of the small flower gardens, but it is the wrong time of the year for flowers, and the few that were there were blowing around in the quite strong wind. I decided to find the exit on to Fleet St, which is not as easy as it sounds on a weekend as a lot of the place is locked up.

One of the great aspects of London, that does go a bit unremarked upon, is the vast number of trees scattered all over the central city, trees both ancient and new, near buildings both ancient and new.

Crossing back down to the river again I came across No 2 Temple Place. The building is slightly off the Thames and I must have passed nearby without actually spotting it before. It is a gallery though it was not open when I was there. I had been planning on taking a few photos using a very shallow depth of field of any flowers I found, not having found anything suitable I decided to experiment with these two small statues marking the entrance to the gallery. I liked them both.

I took the stairs up to the top of Waterloo Bridge.

Making my way through a very crowded Chinatown and Soho, I went to The Photographers Gallery to see the Wim Wenders Polaroid exhibition, which I very much enjoyed. It was quite busy as well.

My final mission for the day was to buy myself a new pair of trainers for walking the streets, I have worn out another pair with all my walking around, mainly, London. I was surprised to find this a successful, and not too stressful event. I headed home with purchases, and a what I hoped was a bunch of photos I would be happy with.

One of the things that I love about, and am frustrated with, when using the old 5d is that it is so old it is does not have an active rear screen. There is a screen and I can see the image I have taken, but the screen is small, has a very low resolution, is a bit worn and quite faded. I do not get much of an appreciation of the image I have taken. I sort of like this as it means I do not ‘pixel-peep’ every shot I take, so I tend to take less shots and use the camera almost like it is loaded with film. The downside is I have no idea how good, bad or indifferent my photos are until I get them loaded on to my computer.

I am going to say I was pretty pleased with what I got today. Going on a photo walk was a really good idea. I need to do it a lot more!

A brief moment of solitude – Beachy Head.

Saturday 23 December 2017 – Eastbourne and Beachy Head.

Not having had a weekend away on my own for months I booked a couple of nights in a bed and breakfast in the coastal town of Cromer in Norfolk. I had a full day of photography planned; sunrise at Cromer Pier, some nice ruins scattered around the county, sunset back at the pier, followed by some long exposures of the sea and clouds. A drive and walk on my own. Sea air to clear the head and a couple of days with my own thoughts; not having to speak to anyone, unless I was ordering food or drink.

It was a good plan. A shame it did not happen!

To reduce the stress of travelling on what was being billed as the busiest travel day of the year I had taken Friday off work. A bit of a lie in and then on the road for mid morning, allowing myself plenty of time to get to Cromer. There were a couple of interesting places on the way I was going to stop at to take some pictures.

I loaded up the car and headed off just before 11:00. I made it approximately 100 feet up the road before stopping at the top of the hill to change a flat tyre. Bugger! Not the stress free start I planned.

Luckily the spare was not flat and all the tyre changing bits were in the boot, it was my first flat in this car and I had brief moment of panic when I could not find the jack. Tyre changed and I was on the way. The car felt fine, even at 70 on the M11 it was running straight and true. However, as I approached the inevitable tailback at the junction with the M25 I tapped the brake pedal to shave a bit of speed off and the steering wheel kicked and bucked like a wild beast. Brake off and it was fine, back on and wildness. It was too unsafe to drive any distance, so reluctantly I turned round and headed home.

The weekend was over before lunch on Friday. Not admitting defeat I spent the rest of Friday sulking at home. I did, however, book myself a return to ticket to Eastbourne for the following day. Today.

I was up early, fed and on the tube to Victoria by 8. ‘Early’ Saturday morning is an eye (nose?) opener on the tube, the carriage stank of booze, there was a dozing rough sleeper and a well dressed woman conversing loudly with her invisible friend. A fully immersive experience.

I dislike Victoria Station, it is my least favourite of London’s mainline stations. With two concourses it is big and confusing and always seems to be manically busier than the other stations, even, like this morning when it is half empty. Drunk youths staggering around on their way home to provincial towns after a night out in the city mixed with wealthy looking tourists lugging heavy cases looking for trains to the airport. Everyone looked dazed and confused, I just felt it.

The ride to Eastbourne was uneventful. I read, listened to music, drank the coffee and ate the sausage sandwich I bought as I waited for the train. It was overcast, but was not supposed to be too cold, too windy or to rain, I was only moderately prepared for all three of those things.

A five minute walk from the station got me to the waterfront. Christmas is approaching and the shopping streets were busy. The town is nicer than I expected, and that niceness is reflected in the property prices I noted when I got home, it is more expensive than its neighbours to the north.

I took a quick look at the pier, I thought about walking to the end, but the winter days are short and I had a bit of a walk planned, so I moved on.

I have been wanting to come here and walk the South Downs, past Beachy Head Lighthouse and on to Burling Gap for quite a long time, but never managed to get around to it. The walk along the front is really nice, and it was surprisingly busy this morning. The hills of the Downs were looking a little murky, and slightly intimidating under that low cloud.

Arriving at the foot of the cliffs I found a sign pointing to the South Downs Way and its 100 miles to Winchester. I wish I had the time, fitness and the will to do a long distance walk. I fill my head with so many ideas and plans, some get started, most do not. I blame time and work, needing money to do things, my age and my sometimes aching body. Maybe I should fill my head with only one idea and see it through to completion. I still have 500 or so miles of the Southwest coast path to do, I should not be thinking about other walks.

I started up the short, steep grassy climb, glad I had worn proper walking shoes, it was pretty slippery after all the rain. A teenage break means my left ankle hates these steep climbs, if I do not stretch it, which naturally I don’t, then it loses its full range of movement after a few weeks. I struggled up, knowing tomorrow it will ache like hell.

It was windy and quite cool, very damp, and there was limited view out to sea, but what there was was glorious. There are a lot of bent and twisted hawthorn trees, providing a clear indication of the direction of the prevailing wind.

Ahead it was looking a little less enticing and as I walked I wondered if that was going to be the end of the view for the day. I was quite surprised by the amount of scrub and wildness on this stretch, in mind the walk from town to Burling Gap was almost manicured lawn, the result of mis-seen photos. Those photos led me to believe it was always sunny here too. Maybe just mis-remembered.

After walking through the edge of a scrubby wood I was out on the cliff tops and the first view of Beachy Head Lighthouse. I took a lot of photos from various angles, so if you hate lighthouses, and Beachy Head in particular you should look away now. It is a spectacular piece of coast so your turning away would just be wrong.

The chalk cliffs look amazing in any light, though they seem dirtier than they were in older photos. At this point, which is roughly the highest, the cliff top is 162 metres above the sea. Given the cliff edge and the popularity of the area, I am surprised there are few fences, only where there have been slips is the edge closed to the public. I guess you cannot fence off the entire coast. I now see there are two people ahead of me. It almost seems a shame that I appear to not be alone, that I have passed through the dull low, damp mist and can see and hear further; and that people now occupy that new space.

Further out of the cloud I can see Belle Toute Lighthouse in the distance, at least there does not appear to be any more people than when I emerged, nor am I catching up on those ahead.

From Belle Toute I looked back up the cliff line towards Beachy Head.

There are more people here, even though Belle Toute is a privately owned B and B, it attracts visitors from the car park at the bottom of the short climb on the east side and a lot more from Burling Gap on the west. I was really looking forward to seeing the tiny community of Burling Gap. It features in numerous images of the area, though none of the ones I have seen feature a large orange crane and a large car park. I was a little disappointed!

There is a National Trust Cafe and I was pleasantly surprised to find it was open. It was a good excuse to stop for lunch and a coffee, though I did not linger as it was after 1 pm and I had taken almost two hours to do the 90 minute walk. If I took the same to return after eating it would be almost dark by the time I arrived. The view along the chalk white cliffed coast is breathtaking and I will certainly be back to walk more of it, perhaps on one of those blue sky days I see on the post cards.

The walk up to Belle Toute was the busiest it had been all day.

I want to know what this is!! Why is there hatch with a padlock? There are other concrete pads where I am guessing lookouts, gun emplacements and other wartime things were located. Though this was the only one I saw that appears to have something underneath. Are there tunnels?

I took a few more photos of the lighthouse on the way back to Eastbourne, and I saved my favourite photo to share last.

The walk back was a lot quicker, the cloud seemed lower, though with the wind in my back it was not as cold and mist no longer formed on my camera lens. I did walk a more direct route, further away from the edges, though the mist was never that thick to be unsafe. I ventured almost alone back into the cloud. There was a walker behind me and I caught glimpses of him as I walked, seeing him for the last time on the train back to London.

As the light was so dim I decided to experiment with a bit of intentional camera movement (ICM) photography, something I did a lot of back in NZ in 2008/09. I have dabbled with it a little in the past couple of months. I am trying to achieve an impressionist painter effect; a work in progress.

As I returned to the top of the hill overlooking Eastbourne I could see the sun trying to work its way through the cloud, though it never quite managed to.

I made it back with plenty of time before darkness started to arrive, so took a round about way to the waterfront, strolling through the gloomy Italian Gardens,

before heading back down the beach. I love the way that over the years (decades?) the tide has finally overcome the steps, and every other set of steps along the front. I really want to know how deep they are and when the council gave up resisting the relentless move of the shoreline.

The waterfront was even busier than late morning, there were a lot of family groups out walking and a lot of older folk walking dogs. In fact there are a lot of dogs here, mainly small dogs. A heck of a lot of small dogs. So many I took no pictures of them. I did take a picture of a large building, a hotel I am guessing; and a street light.

As I said before, I really liked Eastbourne, the waterfront is decaying less than many of the other coastal towns, especially in the south east. It is clean and tidy and most of the shops are open and active. There seemed to be a pretty good feel in the air, though so many bloody smokers!

It does have damn good pier !

I arrived in the small station about 40 minutes before the train I had booked was schedule to leave. I was going to sit in a pub over a quiet pint, but found there was a train leaving sooner, so I grabbed a bag of crisps and a small bottle of red wine and got on the earlier train.

The ride back to London was good, I read a book and then relaxed in my seat, Mogwai playing in my headphones and reflected on what was a really pleasant day out on my own.

Hollow Pond

Sunday 10 December 2017 – Walthamstow.

The snow continued to fall throughout the morning and into the early afternoon. By the time we returned from our morning walk the footpaths either side of our road had mostly been turned to grey sludge, though the footprints I had made in the garden were slowly being buried under crisp new flakes.

I was itching to go out again, and by mid-afternoon that itch had proven unscratchable, so I donned jacket, hat and gloves and went back out into a very light sprinkling of snow. I had initially considered taking the car up to the forest, but was a little concerned about the roads. Less about my driving, more about some of the pillocks out there roaring up and down the icy main roads! It was a decent, if not cold and wet day for a walk.

Hollow Pond is a far corner of Epping Forest, not far from where we live. It is an interesting place. There is a small boating lake, an area of clear heathland, and some scratchy forest. It is mostly surrounded by busy roads. It is hugely popular with local dog walkers and families; lots of places for children to run, kick and throw balls, fly kites and do big outdoorie type things. It also has a dark, dirty and sleazy side and is a well known location for dogging and men wandering around in the forested areas looking for sex. There is a strange mix of people and uses. It was here I decided to walk to; I was hoping for solitude.

I was wearing my trail running shoes, they have great grip in slippery conditions, but they are not really waterproof, mildly resistant is an apt description. The footpaths were really slushy, so lack of grip was not really the issue, wetness was possibly going to be though. I decided to walk in the road, tyres of passing cars had cleared two nice, reasonably dry lines. There was not a lot of traffic on the side streets and bizarrely I could hear the water from the melted snow rushing through the drains beneath my feet. There must been a heck of a lot of water.

Passing through St Mary’s churchyard I stopped to take my first photo, I was hoping for some interesting churchy/graveyardy covered in snow scenes, but nothing much really caught my eye. Though I do like the door and the cracks in the wall and the snow in this, the only picture I took.

There was not a lot of people out on the streets on a snowy Sunday afternoon, enough to mush things up, though not as many as normal, I suspect a lot of people had been out in the morning. With the low sky and the falling snow and the lack of people it was surprisingly quiet, even with the traffic noise. I liked it. The first scene that caught my eye was a small copse on Whipps Cross Corner, a small scruffy stand of trees between the roundabout and the hospital. There was just enough colour in the remaining leaves to attract my attention.

Crossing the road I found a small trail between the snow loaded and bent brambles and the, thankfully, buried nettles that led into the tree line. Given the time of day I was surprised at how much snow was left, the well walked paths were worn and muddy, but snow lay to the sides and I managed to avoid the worst of the mud.

I found my way to the edge of the boating lake and to my favourite tree skeleton. I have taken a few photos of this tree, none successfully, and I am not overly happy with this one either. But it was the best I managed today.

The lake was half iced over, there were a large number of gulls standing on the ice, though the moored boats seemed to be in free water.

I drifted back into the trees for a while, randomly following short narrow pathways running between the road and the major paths, the little bits of the forest I do not normally venture into. Not that there was anything much that caught the eye of my camera. I continued on a fairly random path out of the forest on to the heath, back to where the larger trees had space to grow, clear of holly and bramble. I love scenes like this, living in London with its lack of snow I so rarely get to see them, when I do I appreciate them even more.

There were a few more people on this side of the lake, I could hear families playing in the distance and sign of their earlier presence was everywhere. Away from the road, my own presence is all I noted, I could hear my footsteps, see and hear my breath, and when I looked behind I could see, even mixed with other prints, where I had been. I must be utterly fabulous to be out in the wild on a day like today.

The day was drawing to a close, so I started to end the loop around the boating lake, coming across this large gaggle of geese. A man had arrived with a bag of bread and they seemed to be familiar with him and his gift.

Following the lake I stopped to take a last couple of photos of the boats, and my favourite tree before starting the schlep back home.

I had not noticed but the snow had stopped falling while I was in the trees, there had been no wind all day so it was not particularly cold now, though a very light rain had started to come down as I walked. I made faster steps home than I did on the way.

That was pretty much the end of the snow, there was not a lot left when I went to work in the morning. Hopefully we will see some more this winter! Next time I will get up earlier, wrap up very warm and ride my bike up to the forest, get into the areas less travelled and wander around leaving my own print on the land.

Yay! Snow in the ‘Stow.

Sunday 10 December 2017 – Walthamstow.

A couple of days ago El and I were visiting Liverpool and it was absolutely freezing, culminating in a small sleet/snow flurry as we were on our way to the station to catch the train back home. London seemed almost tropical by comparison.

El had just gotten up to make tea, I was planning on a decent lie in after a couple of nights of poor sleep, when she called out from downstairs that it was snowing, and it had been settling. I leapt up, looked at the window, and YES. SNOW!

I love snow. Just the fluffy white stuff fresh on the ground, not the grey dirty muddy trampled slush that it turns into once it has stopped falling and humans have traversed it. Living in Auckland for so long and being too lazy/busy to make the trip to the mountains in the centre of the North Island, I hardly ever saw it. This is my fifth winter in London and I have only seen snow once in that time. There was a scant fall last year and in previous years it waited till I was out of the country to pay a visit.

A quick coffee followed getting dressed and we were out the door fairly quickly. I could already see local kids playing in the street, as it was not particularly early we were keen to get to Lloyd Park, near the end of our street, before too many people arrived to mess up that lovely cold white blanket. Wrapping up warmly, as the snow was still falling, I popped the little camera in my pocket and we were out the door. Slipping and sliding down the hill.

The William Morris Gallery sits just inside the entrance to the park and was our first stop. I love this building at the best of times but with snow falling and a big Christmas tree out the front, it looked magnificent today.

As did this nearby tree. I could see we were early enough to find the snow untrampled, and to hear the crunch and squeak of the snow underfoot as we walked round the gallery into the park itself.

I ended up taking a few photos as we walked around the park, though a lot of them were quite smeared and blurred by falling snow. I did not think to bring anything to clean the lens as we walked…

The park was gradually getting busier and busier as time moved on and more and more families arrived with young children in tow. Quite literally in some cases, there were a few plastic sleds on display. Though Lloyd Park could not be any flatter!

This is my favourite photo from the short outing. I Like that the scene is mostly monochromatic from the bare trees and the snow, but human intervention has added a smattering of colour. This is largely unedited by the way.

After completing a full circuit of the park we passed the back of the gallery, and headed for the warmth of home.

It was still snowing a couple of hours later, leaving a good covering on some old garden furniture. I popped my head out the bathroom window and took this photo, which I may well print one day.

I will sneak out again a bit later on in the day…