Where is Phil now?

My Grandson….

Friday 18 July 2014 – Auckland, New Zealand.

I am going to act like some large multi-national corporations do with UK tax law and act within the wording of the rules, but ignore the spirit of them. Just like Amazon doesn’t pay tax in the UK because it does not sell anything there – all 7 billion pounds of UK sales come out of Ireland**, I am going to put some photos of my new grandson here, which will be linked to FaceBook, though no photos will actually be on Facebook 🙂

His name is yet to be officially recorded in the book of births, but I have been assured it will not change (probably) so here is Luca Ken Platt, born on 19th June, two weeks early.

I am going to say I was not overly excited about the prospect of being a granddad at only 51, but my heart melted when I had my first cuddle and looked into his blankly staring little eyes. He is really lovely and I am very proud of my son Aiden and his partner.

These photos were taken over a few days during my ten day visit to Auckland. I am writing this at the airport as I wait for my flight to Brisbane to see my other son, Dom, before heading back to London on Monday. I miss them all already !

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Luca and my mum.

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Aiden and his sister, Mel.

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I had forgotten what it is really like to hold such a small, vulnerable life in my hands, the little wriggly strength, the squishy faces they pull and the strange rumbles as they fill their nappy. It is pretty magical, and I look forward to holding him again.

He is not really ginger – not of course there is anything wrong with that ! I have finally got sick of my Lumix Gx1, was disappointed with the quality of the shots of Luca so went out and bought a new Canon G16 yesterday and I will sell the Gx1 when I get back to London. Too late for baby photos this time!

** The numbers may or may not be fact…

A Mt Te Aroha micro-adventure.

Friday 11 July 2014 – Te Aroha, New Zealand.

When I decided I should visit New Zealand a couple of weeks ago I also decided that I would try and squeeze one day of adventure into a very tight time frame. This is not something I would ever normally say, but I was sort of sick of the Waitakeres, so I was looking for somewhere I would not normally go to. I floated a couple of ideas over my friend Vicki, and as she was not working today we decided to head south east and walk/run or ride the Karangahake Gorge. I love K Gorge, I did not go there that often when I lived in New Zealand, so it is always fresh. It has a nice mix of rock strewn stream, native bush and some ruins left over from New Zealand’s ‘historic’ mining past, so is great for walking, riding and photography – all things I love.

That was the plan anyway. Once I arrived in NZ I discovered that I could not find any of my riding or running gear, except my bike and my trail shoes. The plan was then changed to walk K. Gorge and explore the open tunnel networks, I did find my head torch – bonus !

That was the plan anyway…. On the way down, Vicki floated the idea of doing Mt Te Aroha instead, as it was a similar distance away. She had never been up it before, though most of our running buddies had. I suspect that that was her plan all along, knowing I would agree very quickly – and she was right. I had been here once years ago and had ridden some newly open mountain bike trails in the lower slopes of the hill so was keen to revisit, and head to the summit.

Mt Te Aroha sits at the far southern end of the Kaimai Ranges, where the hills meet the Hauraki Plains, it does look quite bizarre, shooting up so abruptly from the flat expanse below. Sadly the top of the hill and its mast was obscured by the clouds.

We drove down to the small Te Aroha town-ship and parked just outside the domain area, the walking and mountain biking trails are quite clearly marked though I had to ask someone where the trail to the summit started. It was quite a windy day and we were advised it would be very windy and cold at the top.

As the sign says the hill is 950 metres high, but what it does not tell you is that the trail is just over 4 kms long… That makes the walk quite steep !

The trail started off with a fairly gentle gradient, and it was warm under the trees as well We soon reached a reasonable height and the view over the planes was long and reasonably clear. We could feel the wind a little bit on this side of the hill, and as we were standing taking photos of this rainbow a rain squall past round the side of the hill, we could see it but not feel it , and we stayed perfectly dry.

Vicki is the New Zealand editor for a trail running magazine and was looking for some action shots for a trail review, not that we were really running anywhere – especially up hill, I am way too unfit at the moment and long pants are not really conducive to running. Where ever there was an opportunity to grab a couple of actions shots we did – I used the opportunity to take a rest!

As we got further up the hill, the gradient got steeper and steeper and as we drifted further round the hill the wind got stronger and stronger. We were a little nervous of some of the large trees that were creaking very loudly – and with the amount of trail litter – including some quite large branches, it was a well founded nervousness. There was also another rain squall that blew past by the side of the hill, but again we were sheltered from the worst of it.

The only bloke walking up Mt Te Aroha in an old Ramones t-shirt 🙂 (Tommy Ramone, the last remaining original member of the Ramones, passed away last night)

As we approached the summit we could hear a roar overhead, it was incredibly loud and sounded like a jet engined plane just sitting above the top of the trees – though we could clearly see there was nothing there – intriguing! Just before the final push to the top there was a small ridge where there were no trees to provide shelter from the wind, as it was so strong we ended up sort of half crawling half stumbling across to avoid getting blown off the top – or that is what it felt like anyway.

Naturally the last section was steep! My legs were pretty shot by this stage and I was glad to stop and take photos every now and then, and even gladder to get to the top.

Wow ! The wind was incredible on the summit, and we found what was making all the noise, the wind through the mast was just incredibly loud. You can see how strong the wind was, not often you see hurricane fencing blown over. It was a lot colder on the top, though it was cloudy up there it was not really wet, though we put coats on for the wind.

We took turns taking photos at the trig, we were both hanging on in the fear of being blown over – I have never ever felt wind that strong before, it was incredible – and it had calmed down a bit from the previous days as well.

I think this advice should have been posted at the start of the trail, given today’s conditions!

We did not stay long on the top before heading back down into the relative shelter of the trees were we took a snack as we started on the way back down. As we were reasonably high the trees were very different to what we get in the Waitakeres, short scrubby trees covered in ferns and moss, it was a lovely section of bush and I have failed to capture it very well sadly.

Once we were clear of the steep, rocky, rooty, slippery section closer to the top I managed to break into a light jog for most of the rest of the way down to the bottom. Needless to say it was a short trip back down ! I slipped over once on the way down, my leading foot hit a large leaf and shot out in front of me, over extending my leg. I had a small flash of pain and really thought I had pulled my groin muscle. There was a nervous limp for a while, but it soon worked its way out, much to my relief.

I felt good after the walk, and only seized up a little on the drive back to Auckland. The next three days however….. lets say I avoided walking down steps!

We were lucky with the weather, a couple of strong squalls passed us by on the hill, but we managed to stay dry both times. It was drizzling as we walked back to the car, but stopped as we did a quick change into some clean clothes on the road side. In the domain there is a thermal spa and some thermal swimming pools, with naturally heated water. If we had known we were coming here before we left Auckland I would have brought some swimming gear and dropped into a pool after the run to soak the legs.

I am so glad we did Mt Te Aroha rather than Karangahake Gorge. The gorge would have been fun, but Te Aroha was an adventure, a microadventure, especially in that wind ! Thanks Vicki 🙂

I bought the book ‘Microadventures‘ by Alistair Humphreys to read on the plane and to get some adventure ideas for when I get back to London, a great read so far.

Donnington Castle.

Saturday 05 July 2014, Donnington Castle, Newbury.

All of a sudden July has become a very busy month, with me not being home for more than a couple of days. With a full on fourteen day trip to New Zealand starting on Monday it was nice to have a bit of a relaxing weekend away before I went.

With school exams now over El decided to take her sons away for a weekend to celebrate the end of another school year, so she booked us to go to a golf based hotel near Newbury in West Berkshire. Neither El or I are golfers but one of the boys is keen so as it was their holiday this was where we went. We all had a good time, though I must admit I did eat way too much – good food!

Once the holiday was booked I had a look around for things interests to check out in the area and found Donnington Castle was within walking distance. A castle – YES !!

Like so many castles, Donnington has had a complex history and a broad range of owners and residents. In 1386 the lord of the manor of Donnington, Sir Richard Abberbury was granted permission by King Richard II to build the castle, and the tower that remains is from that period. In 1398 the castle was sold to Thomas Chaucer, the son of the famous poet, who gifted it to his daughter. It was later taken from the family by the Tudors after the family fell out of favour. It was returned years later and swapped owners from then until its destruction after the English Civil War as the owner at the time, Sir John Boys was on the losing side. The gate house and tower that are standing now are as it was left in 1646 – over 350 years ago, that is so cool. The castle has been under the governance of English Heritage since 1946 and what remains is in great condition.

It was only a ten minute walk from the hotel, so even though there were some clouds looming on the horizon we decided to take a risk and head out there soon after we arrived.

As with most castles it was built on the top of a hill, albeit a rather small one. I am always bubbling with anticipation when I approach a new castle or other ancient ruin. In this case I was really hoping that we would be able to go inside and walk up to the top of the tower, but alas it was gated off and access was not allowed. There were some great wild flowers on the road up the hill.

The towers were in excellent condition and it was interesting walking around them, I am constantly amazed at how these castles were constructed so long ago, from such a diverse range of stone and other material. It was obvious from the boarded up windows and the mast on the top that the roof was accessible, I guess it was just not considered overly safe.

The clouds started to come over as we were rounding the castle so we decided to beat a hasty retreat back to the hotel before the rain set in for the afternoon.

The following day this balloon drifted over the hotel, it was great timing as I had been looking for an excuse to take a photo of the fields over the road from our room, and it just was enough to make the shot more interesting.

It was a good weekend away, nice to spend some time out of the house before I left for New Zealand the following day.

To the manor born.

Saturday 21 June 2014 – Weston Park, Staffordshire.

As part of her job in the publishing world El gets invited to a few events, launches and openings throughout the year. Most of which she cannot attend – some just would not work for the magazine readership and some are just not timed right. Occasionally there is one that meets all the needs of her publication and is on a date that she is free and even more occasionally there is one where I am invited as well. This was one of those occasions – and what a lovely occasion it was too!

Weston Park is an old English manor house set in a thousand acres of lovely Staffordshire countryside in the English midlands. The park is open to the public and already has a popular cafe and restaurant. They are planning a proper English afternoon tea offering in the manor house soon, one of the reasons for the press event. A proper English tea is not just a cuppa and a biscuit; it is a real event with sandwiches, scones with jam and cream, little cakes – and of course there is loads of tea (no coffee !!)

Weston Park was gifted to Britain in 1986 and is now run by a private trust, it is not part of the large National Trust estate, though it is run on similar lines and is largely open to the public. The main manor house itself is not often open to stay in – though it is available for weddings, parties and corporate events, so it is a rare opportunity to be able to stay there the night.

Weston Park is now most famous for being the site for the massive V music festival, though in the past it has held rounds of the Northern Ireland peace talks and the G8 summit.

We left London a bit late after some faffing on the platform at Euston while a train driver was found, though we did arrive reasonably on time at Stafford station. El and I were collected with five others by a taxi-van that took us out to Weston Park, about a half an hour drive from the station. The park is surrounded by five and half miles of wall, and we seemed to drive round all of it in the journey, it just kept on going and going ! But once we got there is was pretty wow ! While I have visited a few manor houses and small castles on my travels I have never had the opportunity to stay in one over night so was quite excited about the prospect.

Construction of the main house was started in the 1670’s, under the design and guidance of the lady of the house Lady Wilbraham and built in the popular restoration style. The house has been changed significantly over the years with the front door and reception area being moved and a whole new wing added from the 1860s. The last major changes to the structure of the house.

The house was open to the public when we arrived and as we are staying the night we were allowed to cross into the roped off area and head upstairs to our room.

We stayed in the ‘Church’ room at the back of the house with a view to Weston Church next door as well as out over one of the gardens – and the roof of the Orangery.

The room was massive and the bathroom was almost the size of my flat ! It was comfortable, though the bed was a bit short for me.

After settling in we had canapés and juice by one of the gardens outside the orangery and met the other guests, mostly similar to us – a writer and their partner.

We also met the people who ran the house who soon took us on an interesting tour of the building and told us about the history of both the area and the families who lived there. This included a walk through the old stables building and on to the main public areas outside.

After a very nice afternoon tea we were allowed to wander around the house and gardens and have a general explore on our own. As this was after the public opening times all the rope barriers had been removed and we could go where we liked. It was very interesting, and quite different to be able to look and touch things that are normally out of reach.

The library – though the books were all locked in, some are incredibly old – and very interesting looking.

The drawing room. I had not noticed on visits to other houses, but the library was very masculine and the drawing room very feminine. I had not realised there was a clear definition between rooms before.

The dining room, where we had our evening meal. As part of the major refit in the late 1800s the dining room was created by removing the first floor and a load of walls to create this lovely large space. I ate my dinner sitting in front of an original Van Dyke portrait of Sir Thomas Hanmer from 1637. I have never eaten a meal in front of a masterpiece before ! It is the bottom left painting.

Dinner was preceded by bubbles outside in the sun over looking another of the gardens as well as an interesting event where we were all 360degree scanned so a 3d model can be printed, though these were not printed on site as they take a long time and we are waiting to see ours.

The meal was fabulous, five lovely courses, matched with lovely wines. Heavenly! This was followed by coffee and port in the library and then sleep.

After breakfast El and I went for a walk around the back of the house, through a small gate.

Into one of the free public areas. This used to be a working farm and I liked these derelict sheds we found,

Before walking back to the house around a small pond.

After our walk it was time to go on the official walk with the head gardener. He is the third generation of his family to have worked on the estate, so he knew it pretty well. He was a very interesting man, and has a major passion for the estate and ensuring that the vision of the original developers is maintained. The core of the estate was planned and built around a design by ‘Capabilty’ Brown in 1765. Capability Brown is a famous (I have discovered) gardener and landscaper and was involved in some of the most famous gardens in England.

We walked up to the temple to Diana – the goddess, not the late princess !

After lunch at the public restaurant it was time to catch a ride back to Stafford and jump, heavily with full bellies after thirty six hours of eating, on to the train back to London.

The following day was an Audi hosted function and as we were leaving the Audis were starting to arrive. I was hoping they were going to be a parting gift !

It was a great night away, the house and gardens are beautiful and the people who run the show are very knowledgeable and engaging. Thanks 🙂

A brief update !

Monday 30 June 2014 – London.

The last few weeks have seen a few changes for me, though much remains the same, so I it is time to put together a brief update post.

This time next week I will be winging my way to New Zealand for a two week family and friend catch-up. I will only be visiting Auckland, arriving on Wednesday 9th and leaving late the following week to go and see my oldest son, Dom, who has just moved back to Queensland in Australia.

The main thing that hasn’t changed is that I am out of work, I have been looking fairly solidly for an IT management job since El and I got back from New Zealand in February. I have been close on a number of occasions, have had a few interviews, but have yet to actually land a job. I have been thinking about looking for any old job to tide me over, so I will see what happens when I am back at the end of July, though I suspect I will be reinvigorated after a break from the job hunt. Having said that I do have an interview lined up for the end of the month, so all is not lost, and I remain positive. My travelling is being held against me to a degree – though I did expect that when I left my job all that time ago, so no real complaints (OK, to be honest, it really pissed me off !). It has been a frustrating process though – and one worthy of a blog post, but not until I am well into a job and do not need the recruiting industry.

Partly as a way to save money for both of us, partly as a test to see how it works but mainly because it seems like a good idea I am going to leave my flat in London Bridge and move in to El’s place. I spend over half the week there anyway so it just makes sense. I have been slowly moving my stuff in over the past couple of weeks and will complete the job before we go away this weekend for a trip with her sons. It is a big move that we are both looking forward too. The plan at this stage is for me to find my own place once I land a job – a place for us to both escape too when we need a break.

Big thanks to Kevin for letting me stay for so long, I have loved living in London Bridge and I will miss the flat and its stunning view !

The really big change that has happened in my world is that I have just become a grand dad, my youngest son Aiden is now the father of a beautiful baby boy – currently known as baby as a name is yet to be decided.

I had been very undecided on whether to take a trip back to New Zealand when the baby was born, but as soon as he arrived my mind was made up – he is very cute. With no employer to haggle leave days with I decided to go between weekends away with El, booked my tickets and am off next week.

I had a look at taking a side trip somewhere on the way or the way back, but flights and costs did not make any sense so, while I would love to have had a wee adventure while I am away, I will save it for another time. EL and I are going to Copenhagen a few days after I get back, so I have nothing to complain about and lots to look forward to !

E17 Art trail

The annual E17 art trail has been going since 2005 and has been growing each year with this the tenth anniversary being the biggest yet. This year it ran over three weeks from the beginning of June with over one hundred and sixty locations showing art, holding performances or learning experiences. All by local artists, fabulous !

For those who do not know what E17 is, it is the postcode for an area in north east London, around the suburb of Walthamstow, where I mostly live – and one the many good reasons to live in the area!

I was not able to, nor to be fair, interested in going to every event that was included in the program, but El and I did manage to squeeze a fair few of them in and I took a few photos as we went. June was a bit of a mad busy month for some reason – SUMMER I guess, so here is a quick summary of the things I liked best.

There was a huge range of exhibits from the large mural by Stu Lee on the side of a house down by Blackhorse Rd tube station – which was my favourite single piece from the trail, I guess with my love of street art, there are few surprises there.

To the small knitted figures from the Howard Rd garden.

Unsurprisingly my focus was primarily on looking for photographic based exhibitions and the two I enjoyed the most had photography as the key visual element, though the stories behind the photos were the more important aspect. I didn’t get photos from the first.

The Ex-Warner Project is a photographic and oral history project recording the stories and histories of the people who live in the old Warner houses near Lloyd Park. The Warner houses were built at the end of the 19th century and into the early 20th century as social housing, they are quite distinctive small terraced houses, which are now mainly privately owned. I really enjoyed listening to the stories and looking at the images. An interesting project.

The second project I liked was on display at a newly opened coffee shop Bygga Bo, which just happens to be at the end of El’s road and serves great coffee and really nice cinnamon buns… This project had stories and photos of people who are of mixed-race, sharing their experiences of growing up. Again it was really interesting to read about people’s experiences in this, very multi-cultural piece, of London.

In the grave yard of St Marys Parish Church was a cool little exhibition from Whitefields school of small sculptures made from found items, I really liked it.

There was also an exhibition inside the church. I am going to visit the church properly soon as it has an interesting history!

There was a load of stuff happening in Walthamstow Village including Breaking Bard, a collection of sayings from Bill Shakespeare posted in the windows of houses in a few of the streets. It was quite amusing.

And in the streets of the newly named “Poets Corner” – so named as the surrounding streets are named after poets, were a collection of verse.

What I liked about these, and the whole art trail in general was that it gave all residents an opportunity to participate and share in the event.

There was some interesting work in the Winns Gallery from Waltham Forest College, including this interesting sculpture from student – Simona Pesce.

Even the underground station was in on the project with a couple of walls holding some quite interesting prints.

There are a few small galleries in Walthamstow and we visited a few of them, including the Pictorem Gallery way up by the Bakers Arms, which had a show by a range of artists. El even bought a small piece!

I am not sure if this was part of the trail or not, but it was on the way , and it looks like it has been left for a reason – maybe it is art ?

Separate, but sort of part of the art trail, is a new project called the free library project that now includes Walthamstow. There are a number of small library boxes around where people can exchange, take or leave books. A very cool idea – one that should be taken up everywhere ! This box has been painted by street artist Hannah Adamsezek – who I last found here, a slightly different environment !

I missed a whole load of things out due time and missed a bunch of photo ops as I didn’t always have a camera.

It was a truly awesome event, and I am looking forward to 2015 – I may even join in as well !!

Hadleigh Castle

Monday 02 June 2014 – Hadleigh Castle, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex.

Way back at the beginning of April I took a walk along the Thames Estuary from Leigh-on-Sea to Southend, and just before we entered Leigh-on-Sea on the train I noticed a small ruined castle on a hill and decided that I should make a visit there soon. Once home I discovered the castle was Hadleigh Castle and when a quite day and a dry spell arrived at the same time I took a trip out there.

Hadleigh Castle is on a small farm gifted to English Heritage by the Salvation Army in 1948 and is in turn surrounded by the Hadleigh Country Park, which is owned by the Essex Council and was the venue for the mountain bike event at the 2012 London Olympics.

The building of the castle started sometime in the early 13th century when the land was gifted to Hubert de Burgh by King John I for favours rendered. A few years later the de Burgh family fell out of favour with King Henry III and they were stripped of the castle and land and it became a royal palace for a while before falling into disrepair in the middle of the century.

There was a revival of its fortunes under Edward II and III in the 14th century but after that there was little interest in the castle by the royal family and it was finally sold to Lord Richard Rich in 1551 and it was dismantled so the stone could be sold.

The castle is built on a low clay hill over marshes and farmland over-looking on the banks of the Thames Estuary and has been subject to much subsidence over the years. I saw a piece of the castle lying in a ditch as I was walking across from the coastal path.

After a few nice days, with me getting all excited that summer was on the way and I could get out and about again, we then settled into almost two weeks of off and on rainy weather. When the forecast suggested a few hours of sun and high cloud before a late afternoon of rain I thought sod it, grabbed a ticket and jumped on a train from Fenchurch St to Benfleet. I decided to walk from Benfleet up to Hadleigh Castle and on to Leigh-on-Sea where I would have a coffee before heading back to London. In theory I would miss the rain.

The train journey took about forty minutes and then it was another ten minutes of “thinking I know where I am going” walking until I reached the gate of Hadleigh Country Park.

The path took me along the bank between the estuary and the flat lands of the park,

And away in the distance the gentle hill of the Olympic mountain bike course, which I think is open for the public to ride. As a side note I have now bought another bike, a year after my last one was stolen, it is a mountain bike and once I get my fitness up I will see if I can ride here, once I have a couple of test rides under my belt. I am soooooooooooooooooooo not ready to do any decent bike rides right now.

I crossed the railway lines that I would travel on later in the day when I return to London on the train.

A glimpse of the only remaining tower of the castle in the distance.

The path up to castle from this side is surprisingly steep!

There is not a huge amount left of the castle, some of the outer wall is passed through on approach.

I was surprised with the number of visitors there, at least a dozen other people were visiting or relaxing in the grounds – I fully expected to be the only person there. The view to the south and over the Thames is quite impressive – as were the clouds moving in from the west…

The remains of the kitchen.

The last remains of one of the towers built under Edward III.

This tower, also from Edward III is the most preserved piece of the castle.

With the rain pending, I took a last look around and then started down the much gentler path towards Leigh-on-Sea, turning back for a couple of last shots.

I was walking fairly fast down the path back towards town, and once there decided to flag the extra walk from the station to the cafe area about a kilometre away. I jumped on the next train and headed home.

It was a good few hours out, I explored another old castle and got to see a bit more of the area close to London – an area that most Londoners will never see themselves!

Of course it never did rain at all 🙂

Gods Own Junkyard

Saturday 31 May 2014 – God’s Own Junkyard – Walthamstow.

God’s own junkyard has been a feature of Walthamstow for many, years and amongst other things is a place to store the neon signs collected by its owner. Last year the site it was on was sold so the ever pervasive building of flats could spread there. At the time it seemed to be the end of God’s own Junkyard and there was a bit of a local hue and cry about it – it even made the national papers, so maybe it was bigger than local. Luckily a new place was found and God’s Own Junkyard can now be found inside at the small industrial estate on Shernhall St, and still in Walthamstow.

Chris Bracey who owns it has been in the neon-sign business for many many years, originally working with his father who also made neon signs. The “Junkyard” is a massive collection of signs made by and collected by Chris, his work has been seen in loads of major motion pictures and videos. It is also frequently used as a location for photos shoots and videos. Some of the work is for sale, though I suspect a lot of them are just too good to let go.

It is great place to visit, for a look around – and from this weekend (hopefully) there will be a cafe opening for coffee and food. I really enjoy visiting there. The photos will give you some idea of what the place looks like.

There is a small garden out the back, where coffee can be drunk and food eaten. It is almost as quirky as the inside and I really liked the subliminal message here…

One of the other great things about an afternoon visit to God’s own junkyard – is the factory over the way – a new East London brewery – The Wild Card Brewery. It was too early in the day to be open when I was there, but I have been for a visit and a taste before and the beer is brilliant.

For a good afternoon out, check out Shernhall St Industrial estate….

And now for something completely different – ComicCon 2014

Saturday 24 May 2014 – ComicCon, London.

I cannot believe it has been over a month since I last wrote a post, I also find it hard to believe that I have not done anything in that time that I found blog-worthy – though it must be true as there are no posts. I have been pretty busy though, there seems to always be a lot happening. I did start a project to photograph all the remaining sections of London’s Roman walls and thought I had finished until I found a blog post that showed I had missed a fair few pieces. If it stops raining in the coming week I will get out there and finish it off before I start the next project on my list.

A few weeks ago my mate Steve asked me if I wanted to go to ComicCon at the ExCel Centre and take some photos, I have never been to a comic festival before so immediately said yes, something completely different to my normal activities.

I have been suffering from some minor back pain for a while so decided I would not take the big camera as I get a sore back from lugging it around. I took the small Panasonic, which was a decision I really regretted at the end of the day. I took a lot of photos and deleted most of them as the focal point on the camera was not in the centre where I thought it was, I had knocked it out to one side. This meant that virtually all my photos were badly out of focus – gutting ! It was my fault; I have never really gotten into the habit of closely checking photos when I take them – “chimping”. I glanced at them to see if I had exposure set correctly, but without my reading glasses on everything is sort of blurry anyway. Mistake – oh well. Lessons learned – when taking photos of people in low light environments use the Canon, or learn how to take photos properly with the Panasonic first.

Steve and I had arranged to meet at the ExCel at 10:00 but I got there really early as I badly over-estimated how long it would take me to get there. The train ride in was interesting as the carriage was jammed, with half the people in weird and wonderful costumes, some I recognised – most I didn’t. It must have been a surreal experience for those on the train who did not know what was going on.

I grabbed a coffee and stood on the concourse from the station and watched the crowds go past.

Slowly and surely I was forced further and further back by the crowds as I tried to maintain a position where Steve could easily find me, until finally I was right back at the end of the concourse and just waited in the crowd. I was really surprised at the amount of people here!

Steve arrived on time and we slowly made our way into the venue, past some pretty serious security.

We finally made through the front gate into the centre itself, where we split into two groups, those with priority tickets, like us – and those without. Those without had to queue downstairs.

While we went into the exhibition centre itself – into another mass of people waiting to get their tickets checked.

Once through the ticket barrier I assumed it would be all go. No – there was the wrist band barrier to go through next.

Finally after an hour and a half of queuing we were in !!

I had no idea what to expect inside, I knew there would be stands and normal exhibition type stuff and I knew there would be people dressed as their favourite character, but I was surprised at the amount of people in costume – and I thought it was all rather cool. Most people would pose for photos if asked and there were (I am assuming) a number of professionals posing in all the well lit locations. There were a lot of photographers!

The exhibition itself was not that interesting for me, I am not a comic guy or gamer, so a lot of the references were meaningless, though of course there was still plenty of familiar things – like Cyanide and Happiness – I like how “The Joker” is buying something…

There were stands from some of the big boys in the genre, like Transformers and Dr Who.

Along with live comic drawings.

Gaming

Loads of large weapons – luckily there was no bag search !

And weird stuff for sale.

After walking round, the rather disappointing, exhibition areas for a while Steve and I hung out in the couple of locations were the light was good and took photos, which in my case were mostly rubbish, though I saved a few for the sake of documenting the event.

Yay – R2D2 !

Even evil gods like Loki need some time out to keep their social media feeds updated…

I left just after 2:00 and headed outside and was completely surprised to see hundreds of people out there. I had read on the event program about loads of meet-ups for the various fan clubs and here there were in the all their costumed glory. Perhaps we should just stayed outside !!

It was a fun day out, I was disappointed that some zombie facial close-ups I took were just terrible, along with a load of other out of focus shots. You would think I would have learned this lesson before now, but no – I haven’t!

I will definitely go again, but will just hang out outside – where the real action is.

Thanks Steve, I look forward to seeing some of your photos – no pressure 🙂

I made it home just before the rain hit!

Following the Ching.

Good Friday 18 April 2014 – River Ching, Chingford to Highams Park.

Last weekend El and I took a walk up to Highams Park, which is two train stops north of where she lives in Walthamstow. There is a lake (read large pond) in a small woodland extension of the much larger Epping Forest and as it was a nice day it was a good place to walk to, and around. Plus El got to show me where she used to live – in a house long knocked down to allow a part of the North Circular motorway to be built.

When we walked around the lake we saw a track heading off into the distance and decided that we should come back and have bit more of an explore – but armed with a bit of information as to where track was likely to go. Not that you can get too lost in this section of the forest – it is completely surrounded by suburban streets. I have been keen to explore a bit more of Epping Forest and had bought a map of the area a while back, so after a map referral we decided to catch a train to Chingford, head up to Connaught Water and follow the River Ching back down to Highams Park Lake. It was not a long walk, only a few kilometres, but in theory it should all be off road and maybe in the trees – it sounded pretty damn perfect to me.

We arrived in Chingford late morning and found Connaught Water fairly easily, it is only a km or so from the station which is on the southern edge of Epping Forest. It was a reasonably sunny day, but there was quite a cold wind blowing and out on the open areas of the forest park it was quite chilly – so we were looking forward to getting into some shelter from the trees, plus a forest walk really should have trees!

Connaught Water is called a lake but really it is just a large pond, but it has fishing and boating and at twenty five minutes from Liverpool St station on the train – it is pretty damn cool !

It also appears to be the source of the mighty River Ching, and this is the headwaters… It is hard to believe that when this flooded back in 2009 it actually caused damage!

The river flows from here down to the River Lea closer to Walthamstow, though we were only walking the forested section.

The first section of the path was well formed, though there is absolutely no signage at all at any stage and this was a bit frustrating, especially matched with a map last printed in 2010. Things had changed a bit since then.

The path is shared with walkers, runners, bikers and in some sections – horse riders, we saw a few of walkers, runners and riders on the way, though once we were out of the main section of the forest it was very quiet. The path was pretty dry, but you can see where it has been heavily cut up in winter by bikes, horses and loads of runners from the nearby Orion Harriers. Some parts look like they could be quite fun to ride on as well – unlike this open and smooth trail.

After crossing the main road north from Chingford we were off the clearly defined path and followed the river more closely.

The forest was really nice here, though we were really in a small section of parkland in the middle of suburban London it was beautifully quiet and there was an amazing amount of bird song to provide some background.

We crossed another road and the track followed the edge of a golf course for a kilometre or so, crossing the fairway at one stage, which was a bit disconcerting as it was not sign posted, we were not really paying attention and there were people were playing the hole. Fortunately they must be used to walkers as they waved us through without any aggravation.

We got a bit misplaced at the end of the golf course, but with a quick look at the phone we found the entrance to the top end of Highams Park, and a nice little area full of late spring blue bells.

Again the forest here was really nice, some lovely spring foliage on the trees and a nice windy and clean ‘river’ to follow.

At one point there was even a rope swing, though I am assuming you are not supposed to drop into the river from it !

After an hour and half of walking we popped out on to the ‘lake’ at Highams Park.

We could have continued on for another couple of kilometres of forest through to Hollow Pond** but finished the walk here and headed to the nearby supermarket (they had Picpoul de pinet wine on special) and then caught the bus home…

It was a really nice walk, and hopefully the start of a summer of Epping Forest walks.

** Hollow Ponds is the title of a new track by ex Blur and Gorrilaz vocalist Damon Albarn who was brought up in nearby Leytonstone. I like the song and it is cool that something as small and local as Hollow Pond gets name checked by a fairly big star.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwfsV50m7Dg