Where is Phil now?

Saturday 16 February 2013 – East Grinstead

Last Saturday the running club I am a member of had another social run organised, this time in East Grinstead in West Sussex – almost directly south from me and an hour out of London on the train. Fourteen of us met at London Bridge station on another stunning clear English winter day and were soon on our way out of town.

There were a couple of guys on the train who have done and are training to do some serious multi-day off road ultra-marathons, one of the guys is training for the Marathon de Sables, a six day race in the Moroccan Sahara desert. The run is self supported so he was running today with ten kilograms of barbell in his pack. I struggled just running with half a kilo of water !

The first mile was through East Grinstead town, and Alan our guide pointed out CJ’s cafe where we were to meet after for refreshments. Soon enough we were at the trail head, the run was pretty straightforward – a there and back jog along an old railway line through some nice Sussex country side.

This was a great run for me, an out and back meant I could run at the pace I wanted to and if I was dropped then I could just turn around and head back until I was picked up again. Which is sort of what happened 🙂

I ran with the faster guys for the first couple of miles and then started to take a few photos of the old road bridges that crossed the path and soon got too far behind to catch up.

This allowed me to run on my own for a while which I really enjoyed as I got to settle into a nice pace that suited me and I enjoyed just being able to run for a while. Yeah some of you know what I mean !

At the hour mark I just turned round and headed back the way I came and picked up one of the stragglers heading back to the start. I ran with her all the way back to the cafe and to be honest I needed it. I was knackered, a two hour run after not doing anything more than fifty minutes for weeks was a big ask… I appreciated it when my companion wanted to take a couple of wee rests on the way back 🙂  Not sure what it was but my feet really did not enjoy running on the harder surface, give me mud !

It is hardly art, but someone has been using paint cans –  even out in the country.

Back in East Grinstead town I stopped to take a few photos of some of the lovely old buildings, pity about the parked cars !

After a very nicer lunch at CJ’s cafe we all caught the train back into town and a couple of us stopped for a couple of pints at the historic George pub in London Bridge.

It was a most enjoyable day.

Tuesday 19 February 2013

I have had a fairly hectic few days; in between the long lie-ins I have been out and about and seen a few of the things I have on my to-do list. I have been really lucky in that the weather has been very kind to me with almost no rain for most of the last few weeks, though there have been some cool days.

Last Friday I finally got around to visiting the British Museum. I have fond memories of the mummies and Egyptian collection and was keen to go back and have a look. Of course any visit to the British Museum is tainted with knowing that a lot of the exhibits were dubiously collected and really should belong in their country of origin. While I do like seeing these lovingly cared for and well displayed exhibits in one central location, a part of me would like them to be returned home.

The museum itself has changed significantly from when I was last there – I think. I certainly do not recall this amazing roof.

I really liked this crystal skull, it is a semi-famous as it was found in Mexico and supposedly pre-Columbian. However, tests proved that it was probably made in Europe in the late 1800’s. I love an artefact with a bit of a dodgy history.

As I mentioned earlier I do love the Egyptian collection.

And these bits stolen legitimately acquired from the Parthenon are very cool too.

Saturday I went for a trail run and I will write that up in a separate post.

On Sunday I was very excited to be able to go and see the Man Ray photographic exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. As you will know I am not big on portraits, but I do like the work of Man Ray, especially the things he did in Paris in the 1920’s. An incredibly influential and innovative photographer. Living in 20’s Paris as an artist must have been incredible. The exhibition was fabulous, covering work up to his death in 1976. I really enjoyed it and if I had the time I would go back on a quieter day.

After the exhibition my friend and I had a couple of quiet whiskies in a whisky bar on Trafalgar square. Kilchoman is the first distillery to open on the isle of Islay in over seventy years and this was their first production, a six year old single malt. It was a lot lighter than a typical Islay malt, but very very nice…

Monday was a glorious glorious day and even quite warm in the sun!

I had coffee with my old NZ buddy John near where he lives in Earls Court and then took a two hour meander back to my place in London Bridge, it was a great day to be out walking, but it definitely got cool out of the sun.

Tuesday started off very foggy !

So I went back to bed !

As the sun started to peek through the clouds I decided I would head off and walk one of the parts of Regents Canal that I have to walk, the middle section from Kings Cross to Camden Lock. To make the walk more interesting I decided to walk to Kings Cross as well, naturally I got a bit mis-placed on the way so it was a longer walk than planned, but another great day for it.

I really like walking the canal, I would love to live near it, but man, sooooo expensive…

For a country that is in the economic doledrums, building is booming in London, there is mass construction everywhere, it will be a different city again in two years time.

I just loved this simple addition of “Roger” to this sign, some times graffiti can be extremely clever. – I accept not everyone is going to agree with the sticker though.

I had lunch by the canal in Camden, a Thai chicken curry – the first meat I have eaten in the best part of a month, I think I needed the protein. I have not consciously chosen to go almost fully vegetarian, I was always partially so, and the horse meat scandal was not a factor, I have just not bought any lately.

Amy Winehouse was a regular in the Camden area.

And the day ended completely differently to how it started.

Wednesday 13 February 2013 – London Bridge

Awesome sunrise this morning !

I have spent most of the past few days coming up with a plan that eventually gets me back to New Zealand. A plan that I can afford; a plan that has some interesting and challenging things to do; and a plan that has some relaxing under the sun. After a few iterations I am very happy with what I have organised for myself and I am now committed as most of the flights are booked and paid for!

I leave London on March 9 and spend almost a month in Sri Lanka; I will get my fill of Buddhist and Hindu temples as well as elephants and other wildlife. I am really looking forward to re-uniting myself with some temples!

On April 5 I fly to Singapore where I meet the 36 metre yacht Infinity. We sail from Singapore to Semporna in Malaysian Borneo arriving there on May 10; visiting a load of amazing dive spots on the way, hopefully this will include a dive at Sipidan, as I have been dying to dive there.  From there I fly to Sydney and eventually on to Auckland some time in mid-May.

With a departure date in mind I will now try and see as much of London as I can.  I will have to leave the rest of the UK until I come back, and I will definitely be back, probably sooner rather than later. There is unfinished business here.

So, with my leave date in mind I finally got around to visiting North Cheam in the London borough of Sutton. I lived in Windsor Ave in North Cheam from the age of two until my family emigrated to New Zealand in 1973. The last time I did a walk by was in 1986, so it was time to revisit. I have really good memories of living here.

The internet has made ad hoc visits to places like North Cheam so much easier, maybe less fun – jury is out on that one. Transport for London has a fantastic website for working out how to get places by all manner of transport and from the final bus stop I GoogleMapped the way to my old home and school and drew myself a map on a piece of paper. I am not all technology…

North Cheam was pretty much as I remembered it. It has not gone up or down market, just a typical lower middle class London suburb, clean and tidy and lived in.

I do not really remember what 177 Windsor Ave looked like in the 1970’s but I doubt it has changed a heck of a lot since then, maybe a few licks of paint.

One of the great things on being a sixties kid in the suburbs was being able to play in a local cul-de-sac and Frogmore Gardens was mine, only a few metres from my front door, this was my after school and weekend football field and games area. Too many cars for street ball games now !

I did remember the alley at the end of the street that led back to a side street cut through to the main street, and I even remembered a lot of the old street names. I surprised myself.

The one thing that had changed was my school, Cheam Park Farm. I recall it was all brick and the white extensions on the front were not there – along with the big fence !

The one thing that had changed from when I was a child was how long it took to walk from home to school, I was sure it was a lot longer !!!

Sunday 27 January 2013 – North Downs

I have not done a heck of a lot in the past week; had a few coffees and the occasional wine with friends, went on a couple of walks around town, applied for a job or two and took virtually no photos. Nothing I wanted to blog about anyway.

I did take some photos of some street art and have really started to be intrigued by the work of Sheffield artist Phlegm, his work is amazing and always fresh.

This one is part of a larger piece that I could not photograph as there was a van in front of it. In Shephered Bush.

And one off old Old St in the city.

I was expecting to be moving out of Kensington this week as my friends arrived home from Sri Lanka late evening on Thursday. However they are going to hang out in London Bridge for a few days so as of writing this post I am still here in Kensington and am unsure of when I will actually move, not that I am in any sort of rush.

I am also no closer to finding a job so decision time on what is next is looming closer and closer. The amount of cash I allocated to this job hunting period is dwindling now so I either throw more money at it or I head home and hope I can find something there more easily. Decisions, decisions – but not quite yet anyway.

Just before Christmas I joined a London running club as they did the occasional social trail run. I started off with the club with good intentions and ran with them a couple of times a week but in the past two weeks I have gotten very slack and not been out at all. It has had nothing to do with the snow on the ground either! Just laziness and a lack of motivation.

Today was the first social trail outing and we were off to run a very small section of the North Downs from Guildford – forty minutes away by train.

It had rained for most of the night, at times quite heavily and there was a strong cold wind blowing as I walked up to catch the tube to the meeting place at Waterloo Station, so I was not expecting how the day turned out and was wrapped accordingly. There was a pretty good turn out; with nineteen of us running. I was a wee bit nervous as I arrived, wondering if there was going to be a group of elite ultra-runners and me. As it turned out some of the others were also thinking the same thing and in the end there was a good mix of experienced and novice trail runners that boarded the 9:30 to Guildford. The clouds all cleared as we rode the train and we arrived in Guildford with blue skies overhead, perfect conditions for running. Cool and clear – with mud on the ground!

We ran (some walked the first hill !) from the station and there was only a kilometre or so of road before we hit the start of the downs.

The first section was along the side of the some rolling farm land, there was a bit of water on the ground from all the rain with a nice bit of mud on the track – I have missed running in the mud 🙂

We ran up St Martha’s Hill to the church at the top with its great views out over the downs. The tracks are quite well sign posted but I would not run here without a map, the downs are huge…

I also took the obligatory selfie on the cellphone, I meant to take some photos of the trees behind me as well, but forgot – too carried away with getting my own mug on the camera. The day was really bright so most of the photos were quite overexposed, the poor old Galaxy couldn’t cope with it all.

We ran back down the hill to the river and split into two groups, one doing a seven mile loop and the other doing ten. I decided to do the longer as I was feeling good and the pace wasn’t killing me, plus I wanted to maximise my time on the trail : ) We took off up another hill which was quite slippery in patches and I was so glad for the trail shoes, remarkably I did not slip over once on the trails, though a few people did. I actually really enjoyed this climb, it wasn’t long or technical, a nice gradient till the end when it got too steep, but nice and muddy and greasy, plus I did it at my own pace rather than someone else’s.

From the top of the hill it was pretty much road all the way to town and The White House pub for a pint, I am sure they loved us dirty runners.

It was a good day, I met some really good people and some very serious ultra distance runners, they weren’t serious, but their running was ! I cannot wait for the next one.