walking – Where is Phil now?

St Magnus House

Saturday 07 January 2023 – London.

London, London, London. I do love you so. Sometimes I question that love as it’s very one-sided, and, though today wasn’t the best outing, it also wasn’t a day to be questioning how I feel about this magnificent, crowded, dirty, occasionally smelly and deeply frustrating city I have chosen to (mostly) live in. I wonder if you can have a truly bad day here; other than something untoward happening, which I guess is always a possibility, however unlikely it seems. Of course, if I lived in Paris, Rome, New York or Berlin or any other major city I’m sure I’d feel the same way there as well. Much as I love the wilderness. if I’m honest with myself cities are my real habitat. I should just embrace that more. You can be alone in a crowded place if you want to be, and today I was after a little solitude.

It’s cloudy and grey and cold and windy and rain is threatened, there’s also a train strike affecting all the mainline services into London, though thankfully not the tube. It sounded like a perfect day for a random street walk photo mission into a Saturday deserted city. I had a loose plan, walk about a bit and then take some photos of St Magnus House on Lower Thames St then cross London Bridge and take some photos of Colechurch House on the direct opposite side of the River Thames. Both brutalist buildings. The owners of Colechurch House appear to have big plans for a renovation which I suspect will lead to the destruction of what is already there so it would be nice to capture a little bit of its brutal loveliness.

I have been wanting to take photos of Colechurch House for a couple of years. It is directly opposite the always busy London Bridge Station which is where I leave the train when I go to St Leonards and it’s always busy with far too many people hanging and basically getting in the way of my image taking. I was hoping that with a train strike today it would be quiet. I was going to be disappointed.

Popping out from the tube into the ‘London fresh’ air at Liverpool St Station I was pleased to see it was pretty quiet on the streets with only a handful of people on the ever crowded footpath. I usually come to this part of the city on a Sunday morning; this is the business area so there is little need for anyone to be on the streets, the shops are closed and other than a few stumbling zombies heading home from the Shoreditch clubs the whole area is quiet. I crossed the road and went straight into the back streets and the private Devonshire Square.

I took a couple of photos here, nothing worth sharing and carried on walking through, with no real plan other than ending up by the Thames near London Bridge. I was happy to be aimless and let my camera lead me around.

On the far side of Devonshire Square to Liverpool St is the Middlesex Street Estate, built between 1965 and 1970, with the 23 story Petticoat Tower as the centrepiece, it is named after the much older and world famous Petticoat Lane Market which crowds Middlesex Street during the week then explodes into many of the nearby streets every Sunday. The estate was an unexpected brutalist bonus.

The walk took an unplanned turn for the negative once I left the estate and discovered to my horror there were loads of people about, not thousands but enough to put me off, there didn’t seem to be any reason for the volume of strollers, maybe everyone else thought that a random stroll around London on a train-strike day was a good idea?

I crossed Whitechapel and plunged into the back streets, usually the best bit of any city. I have no idea of the names of the streets I actually walked down as I looped back and forth towards the river. I took a turning here and popped through an alley there though found very little that piqued my photographic interest.

I ended up much nearer Tower Bridge than expected and walked down the riverside towards London Bridge, capturing this reflection of The Shard on the way.

St Magnus House, it appears, was built in 1984 though has the look of classic late 60s brutalism, though missing some of the flourishes. It’s a tough building to photograph as it rubs up closely with its neighbours.

There is a dance school in the building and a number of young dancers were eating lunch and practising on the balcony between the building and the river, prowling around taking photos felt a somewhat inappropriate so I took a couple of images from other sides of the building and then left, hoping for better luck on the other side of the Thames.

For a strike impacted city and train station there were loads of people milling on the streets outside Colechurch House. The roof bar was unexpectedly open, it’s late morning, and there were two bouncers minding the door on the walkway outside; a graffitied area I wanted to take photos of. I left without getting the camera out of my bag, crossed back over the river and walked up to Chancery Lane where I caught the tube home.

it was great getting out for the first time in a while and I really enjoyed the walk, but was ultimately disappointed that I didn’t get to take many photos; however, as I said at the start it’s hard to have a really bad day walking in London.

Hollow Pond in the snow.

Monday 12 December 2022 – Leytonstone.

The temperature has taken a turn for the cooler in the past couple of days, though I was still surprised last night when Eleanor called out from the kitchen to tell me it was snowing. I jumped out of a slump on the couch and stood watching a decent fall out the window for a few minutes. I love fresh snow fall and was a little disappointed that it was coming down in the dark of a late December Sunday afternoon, never the best time to be going out to take photos. I was even more surprised, pleasantly so, to see the snow was still coming down when we went to bed a few hours later and there was already a good layer on the ground. I got the camera and some clothes ready for the morning; just in case.

Which as it turned out was very wise. I was awake early (as usual) and a quick peer out the window showed the snow had stopped falling but there was a good solid four inches on the ground in the garden. The most I’ve seen since coming to the UK ten years ago. I had to be patient as it was still dark and there wasn’t sufficient light and it’s Monday so I’m going to be a little late for work; oh well.

I waited till there was enough light to take photos and headed out the door, given how much snow there was on the ground it was surprisingly warm. Or rather it wasn’t that cold and by the time I got home I had my beanie off and my jacket mostly undone, the gloves didn’t even make it on to my hands.

I took a photo of the front of the house before I left.

I’m not writing much these days, nor am I doing much photography, or much of anything else either if I’m brutally honest with myself. Due to this lack of writing I have failed to mention that we have moved house. Eleanor sold her house of 26 years in Walthamstow and has bought slightly further east, in nearby Leytonstone. We moved in early November. The ‘new’ house is 150 years old, doesn’t appear to have any 90 degree angles inside it and is very charming and we are quite happy now we have fully moved in and unboxed our stuff. Though I must confess to not yet putting my records into any sort of order; and I hope they all made it to the new house.

The walk from the new house to Hollow Pond is about 10 minutes, significantly less than the old house. Once I get back on my bike, which I promise I will do in the new year, I can easily ride from Hollow Pond to Epping Forest, though there will be a few shorter rides to be made to get my legs and lungs back into shape. Unsurprisingly the streets were quiet for a Monday morning, it was slippery. Suburban London looks lovely on the first morning following a night of snow.

I was surprised to find there was hardly anyone at Hollow Pond, I expected it to be busy with people experiencing the snow or like me and taking photos, I guess many have to go to work and perhaps schools were open, I don’t know. Maybe folk just don’t like the snow as much as I do. I like it on day one anyway, London snow on day two and onwards is more a grey icy slush than a pristine cold white blanket.

I took a few photos as I gingerly walked around the outside of the lake; it is beautiful.

I’ve tried to take photos of this tree on numerous occasions in the past, it’s my favourite dead tree, though I’ve rarely been successful enough with the images to share them here. I liked both of the ones I took today.

This is a Monday, a work day, and while I was happy to be a little late to the ‘office’, I didn’t want to linger too long, though I could easily have wandered for much longer and tried to get a few more photos in the trees. I did take a lot of photos though and was very happy with my work and with getting out of the house.

I’m hoping for more snow as the winter progresses, though I guess I ‘m happy there was at least one good fall that I managed to experience.

A brief moment of solitude.

Saturday 26 November 2022 – Epping Forest.

There was a moment this morning when I had no idea where I was; I mean I knew within a few hundred metres where I was, I was in Epping Forest somewhere roughly around Loughton Camp. What I didn’t know was where I was in that bit of forest, or to be perfectly honest, where Loughton Camp was. This bit of forest has changed since I was last here and I was discomforted by this, normally I know exactly where I am and which direction is home. What was worse was I knew I should walk towards the sun, it had been behind me on the way in, but it felt wrong, and it was an effort to ignore the wrongness and keep walking into the low-cloud covered sun. I ended up back at the broken chair I’d photographed 30 minutes before. I never did find Loughton Camp. Next time I will take the path straight to it.

It’s been so long since I was last in Epping Forest proper that I had to do a blog search to find the date; 23 May 2020, over two and half years ago. This would have been inconceivable a few years back when I was going there almost weekly. Admittedly I’ve walked in the forest fringe, in Walthamstow Forest and Wanstead Park since returning from New Zealand in February, but today was the first venture into the main forest. Once back under the tree canopy I realised how much I had missed it. One of the prices I pay for trying to live in two different places.

This trip was made specifically to take photos so took a couple of lenses and the tripod, which for a change I made extensive use of. I chose Loughton Camp as the first section of the forest to visit after my absence as it is reasonably easy to get to from the new house in Leytonstone; Loughton Station is only two stops up the Central Line from home, and it’s a only ten minute walk to the forest from the station.

I took a lot of photos in what was really only a sort visit; a couple of hours spent wandering and snapping. It was extremely enjoyable, for a change I hit autumn just about dead on.

Amsterdam

Wednesday 21 September 2022 – Amsterdam, Holland.

Amsterdam. The final city in our three city whistle-stop holiday, which sadly was all over far too quickly; both the holiday and our stay in this wonderful city of canals and cobbled streets.

I deliberately chose to go to Amsterdam on a Monday rather than over a weekend, I’m not a party person and the thought of a city full of stag-dos and hen parties was horrifying. I want some semblance of peace and quiet while I holiday and don’t want to be lumped in with the louder drunken English tourist.

All our inter-city travel has been via train, it’s long been my favourite form of travel. Headphones on and gazing out the window as we move through the world is one of the true joys of travelling. I like to take photos through the window as we go, mostly unsuccessfully; a lot of attempts went into a virtual bin to get a couple that I liked. The countryside is mostly flat and rural, I was looking for olde worlde windmills but didn’t see anything other than large modern wind turbines; though there is a beauty in those as well; I’m glad I don’t live near them though.

We loved Amsterdam, as in Brussels and Gent we stayed outside the centre but within easy walking distance; though we really didn’t do much in the centre, a quick walk through and that was it. We missed all of the central city attractions, mostly deliberately. I’m not that sort of tourist.

We walked past Rembrandt’s house, I knocked, though he wasn’t in.

The view from our hotel room in the Jordaan.

We spent most of our time walking around the canals that fringe the centre of town. Canal side walking was such a joy, just like Gent the inner suburbs were dominated by cyclists and pedestrians. There were cars, but few and they all seemed to give way to those not in tin boxes, it was quite civilised. I don’t recall the constant blaring of horns at any minor inconvenience caused by someone cycling slowly up a cobbled single lane road. The Heineken sign is above the door of my favourite bar of the whole trip.

20220920_125305

20220920_105057

One of things that I found very amusing was the number of (often white) vans parked on bridges, I have so many photos with unexpected and unwanted vans in them.

I took a lot of photos of canals and bridges. Did you expect anything else?

There were some great houses here, though not all of them were straight. I like the variety of residential architecture in the different European towns and cities I’ve visited over the years; different weather and environmental conditions has led to a different style of building. This makes urban walking so much more interesting.

I loved these tiny cars, there were a lot of them about, some powered by cranky old petrol engines that sound like they’re held together with gaffer tape and ancient congealed grease and street dust, the newer ones are electric and silent; neither seem to move very fast. I’ve not seen these anywhere else.

20220920_100025

20220920_112829

As in Gent and Brussels we found a number of quite chilled cafes and bars (not the ‘special’ kind’) to hang out in, mostly out of the main tourist areas. There was a bar round the corner from the hotel that I spent a couple of hours in over a couple of small beers while I read my book and listened to the dub reggae they were playing. It was the local bar I dream of having where I live but have never found. I guess everything looks better through the rose-tinted glasses of a holiday. On our last night we found a whisky bar that had a nice range of whisky based cocktails, we stayed for a couple; the music was good and they place felt nice; admittedly there weren’t many other customers. Like the gin bar in Gent on our first night this place also had ladderlike stairs going to the toilet, not a place for cocktail wobbly legs.

20220920_201025

When we planned the trip we intended to visit the world renown Rijksmuseum art gallery, but wow, it’s expensive!

We decided we would visit the MOCO Modern Art museum instead, it was a bit cheaper and was focused on street and pop art rather than the classics. Amongst the Banksy and Warhols they were exhibiting a couple of Stik paintings, the kind of thing you normally see painted on city walls.

20220921_105354

20220921_111040

MOCO was in the same precinct as the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum, another nice part of Amsterdam about 30 minutes from where we were staying. There were quite a few people here, probably the largest volume of other tourists we’ve seen. A lot of accents and languages being spoken around the coffee and waffle cart tables. It was nice and I miss that sort of thing quite a lot; I find a joy in being amongst strangers, who have all come to somewhere else to gather a drink coffee. Of course I don’t talk to them, that would be madness.

All too soon it was time to head back home; a week away was enough to refresh, and enough for a taste of the low countries, but I left wanting more; which is a good thing. Like most other places I’ve visited, I would willingly come back.

The train back to London was really busy and I really should have checked out seats before we left, our view was, um, limited. At least we were near the bar.

20220921_184755

Gent, Belgium.

Friday 16 September 2022 – Gent, Belgium.

There won’t be a lot of text in this, nor the following couple of posts, though there are quite a few photos in all three. Gent, Brussels and Amsterdam are photogenic in their different ways.

We loved Gent, I think we possibly could have done with one more day, though we saw most of the things we planned on seeing. The main thing we missed was the ‘Adoration of the Lamb’ altarpiece in St Bavo’s Cathedral. Something for next time; I like to think we will go back one day, it is a place to return to.

Gent is a medieval town surrounded by canals, very similar to the more classically beautiful Bruges. Gent had the edge for me as it has a student population and is a little more ‘grunge’ than Bruges; there is street art and some graffiti and student type bars with decent music. It’s not just a tourist town, though tourism must be one of its primary income sources, it’s a lived in and loved place. For an ancient town it is young and it felt right.

Some highlights.
Gin.

Le Alchemist. We popped in because it was raining and stayed for two very nice, and expensive, glasses of gin and tonic each. They had a nice range of different gins and tonics, the music was great and we were the only customers for a while; it was mid-afternoon. The steps to the bathroom were not for the faint hearted; nor the drunk.

t’Druepelkott. A number of people advised us to visit this tiny canal side bar in the tourist area, and all those people were right. What a place! The (I assume) cigar smoking owner only serves hots of flavoured gin, poured into a large or small shot with a shaky hand. The glass is filled to brim and you have to sip from top before lifting it from the bar to take back to your seat. 70s and 80s funk sound tracked our couple of drinks and it is up there with the top moments of the trip.

20220915_181148

20220915_180522

20220915_181751

The food was great as well, vegan food is common, we found a couple of places that were 100% vegan; it’s not overly cheap, but it was very nice and we ate well.

Walking.

Gent is an easy town to walk and cycle, there were definitely fewer cars than most other places. The narrow and cobbled streets twist and turn and cross the canals that edge the town. We walked a lot, an awful lot. It’s the only way to see and feel this place.

I took a lot of photos. Castles, cathedrals, wonky ancient houses and street art from throughout the ages, who could ask for more?

Street art.

Castles and cathedrals.

Streets and canals.

S.M.A.K. The museum of contemporary art is lovely gallery with a great exhibition featuring some small works by Derek Jarman part made from items found around his Dungeness Beach home. As a recent Jarman convert these were the first pieces of his I had seen up close.

20220916_113900

20220916_113936

Walthamstow Forest

Saturday 20 August 2022 – Walthamstow.

The thrum hum of cars moving along the A406 was broken by a solitary helicopter passing overhead. I’d taken my headphones off as I entered the forest at Beacontree Ave, planning to use the underpass to get to the other side of the motorway. I expected to hear some birdsong, but other than an occasional and seemingly half-hearted tweet the birds were quiet; either that or they were non-existent. I was on my way to the supermarket; the long way.

I haven’t walked here for over a year, in fact I haven’t been near this distant corner of Epping Forest since we returned to London, and Walthamstow Forest is only a 15 minute walk from home. The cloudy light filtered through the yellowing leaves was excellent and it felt like a good day to be wandering aimlessly (in the general direction of South Woodford Waitrose) and taking photos.

I was a little surprised at how many leaves had yellowed and were falling from their tree, it seems too early in the year, it could be the fault of the drought we are experiencing, or the early start to summer, the trees may well be thirsty and are not being satisfied. It’s far too early to be autumnal and temperature wise it is still in the high-mid 20s.

I walked here once during lockdown to take photos of a couple of pieces by street artist, Phlegm, and they have taken a bit of a battering from the weather.

Once in Walthamstow Forest proper I put the headphones back on again as the traffic noise was so constant and so irritating and with so little forest sound I may as well listen to music. I’ve a very good playlist for this kind of day. I don’t usually listen to music in the forest, perhaps some primeval defence mechanism requires me to be listening out for danger, though the only probable danger in London’s edgeland is accidently coming across some low-level drug deal.

I bumbled around in circles in this small section of wood, I wasn’t in any great rush and the forest has changed shaped inside its borders so for a while I had no idea of what direction was what. A reasonable summary of my life at the moment; bumbling, aimless, directionless and a bit, but not badly, lost.

Other than the traffic the forest was very quiet, I barely saw another person until I starting trying to find the path that would take me towards the tunnels under Waterworks Roundabout, which will get me back on the streets and on to the supermarket.

The shedding and browning trees, grasses and ferns made the forest a lot more interesting than the summer normally is; summer is my least favourite time in the forest, it is just too green. I like the variety of colour and textures that autumn and winter brings.

I found a neat little grove of silver birches, one of my favourite trees for photography, especially in a dense green forest. I took a slow walk round and though the trees; though the forest floor was densely overgrown with brambles, making walking in shorts a very irritating, if not painful process. Worth it though as the last of these three is my favourite image of the day.

I came across about twenty of these small, brightly coloured plastic balls near the silver birch. They were scattered over a small area, and I had no idea of why they were there.

This part of the forest was subjected to a lot of mis-aimed or dumped German bombs and V1 and V2 rockets during the Second World War, leaving a number of bomb craters here and there. It is good that these reminders of man’s recklessness and greed are there for all to see, perhaps a lesson is to be learned.

I had used a tunnel crossing below the A406 to enter the forest and it felt almost symbolic to use a tunnel to cross back into the real world of houses, people and cars. Reality in other words, this moment of idyll was over.

Scorched Royal Parks

Sunday 7 August 2022 – London.

‘Imagine your favourite city as a wasteland’ opens the final chapter; ‘Coda’ of ‘Shadowlands’, Matthew Green’s excellent book about disappeared UK villages and towns. I finished the book this afternoon (Friday 12 August) accompanied by a glass of red wine after a busy week of work, a decent way to unwind.

Looking back at the photos I took on Sunday, it is quite easy to imagine London as a wasteland. The green spaces are bone dry and there have been a number of grass and scrub fires around the fringes of the city already. It’s been over a month since there was any substantial rain and we are a small number of days away from a drought being declared in large parts of England and a hosepipe ban in London. The use of hoses is already prohibited in St Leonards, where we are now which is a shame as the car is in desperate need of a wash.

After a sustained period of no rain a few days ago and a drought now predicted to last at least until the end of October, the UK recorded the highest day time temperature; in excess of 40 degrees. It’s hard to believe that some among us deny there is any sort of climate emergency.

After Eleanor and I walked through Kensington Gardens a few weeks back we arranged with some friends to come back for a picnic lunch and take an afternoon stroll through the park. At the time we were not expect this ongoing heat-wave, nor expecting to see the parks looking so dry.

We found some shade from one of the many wonderful of trees in Kensington Gardens and unloaded the bubbles and food we had carried with us from home. It was a very enjoyable lunch.

The walk was not as long as we would have liked, it was too hot to be out for long. We stuck to the shady paths were we could, but that was not always possible.

I had brought the camera along, though I wasn’t really feeling it that much, which has been reflected further as I write this very short post. I’m going through a very demotivated period at the moment, possibly due to my pending 60th.

There were the occasional, heavily watered oasies,

and some of those bloody parakeets.

We walked through Hyde Park, then onto Green Park to get the tube home. Hyde Park was almost desert like in places.

I’ve not seen the parks as dry as they are now, and with no end in sight, I hope they get a chance to recover. Much as I hate the royal family the royal parks are a wonderful part of London.

Docklands

Sunday 24 July 2022 – London.

Empty boulevards, blown desert dry by a Saharan-like wind, sand dusted cars and relentless heat from a clear blue sky. A young woman walking in the opposite direction scurries past on the far side of the weed-edged footpath. She’s wearing a mask and black sun glasses under her hijab and though I can’t see her eyes I can tell she looked at me like I was mad. “Mad dogs and Englishmen”, as the old saying goes. I suspect few people walk these streets at any time, let alone on a windy day under a strong mid-day sun. This is not really a walking place at the best of times.

I pass through a wind-tunnel created by poorly thought through blocks of flats, my hat is blown off twice in a hundred yards. Emerging onto one of the older streets, I catch, then pass a young couple taking photos of each other on a shared mobile phone; they laugh. I guess they are visitors too, the area seems devoid of residents. I see windows wide open, washing drying on balconies and bikes changed to fences, so there must be people here, somewhere. It feels lifeless, soulless and other words ending in ‘ess, it’s not the place for me.

Surprisingly I’m in Docklands, east London, not the back streets of Dubai, or some other desert state where the non-billionaire classes are moved out to the fringes. I’m walking from Canning Town Station to Trinity Buoy Wharf and man has it changed since I was last here.

There was an article in the Guardian by Ollie Wainwright (my new favourite feature writer) a few weeks ago exposing a (so far) failed Chinese funded office development in Docklands and it sounded just like the sort of thing I should see for myself. This is a bit of London I’ve visited on occasion, but never properly explored, so the article was a good prompt to get out for a photo walk. Sadly these days, I need reminders to get out and do the things I enjoy.

I’m going to say I was a bit shocked, maybe even a little upset by what I discovered while I was out as it’s all a bit of an urban planning disaster. I guess the area was never going to be beautiful, not without major surgery. Carved up by the River Lea, empty docks, crossed with A roads and with City Airport in the middle of it, this was designed to be a commercial and industrial zone; which it was until time ran out for the docks that supported London for decades. Now it is a bit of a wasteland, and with an urgent, if not desperate need for more housing in London then logic says build houses; which is what is happening, just not very well.

This was highlighted as I crossed the pedestrian bridge from Canning Town tube station on to the small isthmus formed by a tight loop in the River Lea/Bow Creek just before it flows into the Thames. I walked straight into a new housing estate that seems to be called City Island (City Isthmus doesn’t have the same ring to it). In some ways it is an island I guess, river on three of the four sides and a flyover crossing the fourth which makes it feel disconnected from the its neighbours.

It wasn’t an unpleasant looking area, The National Ballet is homed here and the apartments are not unattractive; but it was so empty of life and the buildings had created an artificial canyon which the wind howled through, I had to put my hat in my bag as there was no point in attempting to wear it on my head.

Once through the estate and under the Lea Crossing Flyover there were some familiar old Docklands buildings, though I’m not sure how long they will last as more flats are, or were being built.

I walked around Trinity Buoy Wharf, it was good knowing that this tiny bit of land was largely untouched, and the café is still open. There was a large group of artists sketching and drawing in notebooks, this place still attracts the art community at least. I wonder what they think of the changes?

To get to the rest of Docklands I had to leave this small area and use the Lea Crossing bridge, it was pretty unpleasant. It feels like these new micro-communities are being dropped into little bits of old London, then deliberately kept disconnected from neighbouring communities by the major roads that proliferate away form the centre. These roads are unpleasant to walk alongside and in some cases difficult to cross. You almost have to have a car to get any enjoyment from living in some of the places, and that joy is to be found in getting out. Though to be fair the Docklands Light Rail (DLR) system runs through here and it is a great piece of public transport investment.

I walked past the Excel Centre, I should have stopped for coffee and some lunch, but thought I would find something further along my walk. Though there was nothing on in the conference centre the place was fairly busy, the buzziest place I passed as I walked.

I crossed the Royal Victoria Dock using the quite fabulous footbridge (I regret not taking a photo), though the steps didn’t do my knee any favours. I took some photos from the top, the view is pretty immense from up here.

I’ve always wanted to visit the Millennium Mills building, but was never able to get tickets to the rare tours to the site, sadly those days are past and this huge, ugly/beautiful building will be converted into expensive flats to go along side all the other flats that no-one who lives now here can actually afford. I sense another residential desert coming. The building is magnificent, especially now as it slowly decays.

My next stop was Thames Barrier Park, for it’s view of the barrier built to save parts of London when the floods come. Like Millennium Mills I’ve long wanted to come here, but haven’t managed to in the past. Getting there was the tricky part, there was another road to cross and a long line of barrier fencing preventing crossing.

I made it over eventually, passing under the DLR and yet another place I should have stopped for coffee at but didn’t. I never did get that coffee.

Thames Barrier Park is really nice, a lovely green and shaded oasis in the sea of apartments, it was quiet and cooler than the heat attracting/reflecting streets. There were quite a few people here enjoying the peace, you can see that the council look after the park well. Other than Trinity Buoy wharf it was the only place I visited today that seemed to be loved by the community that lived nearby.

After almost ten years of construction the Thames Barrier was completed in 1982, it’s a retractable barrier designed to close, blocking the river to protect the centre of London from flooding due to tidal surges on the river. I am assuming the water that doesn’t go up river is then forced into the streets of working class outer London, but at least the banks in the city centre will be safe. It’s a remarkable piece of engineering and looks amazing. I will try and come back one day when it is closed as I’ve no idea what it would look like then.

Athena by Nasser Azam is on a roundabout at the entrance to City Airport, at 12 metres it is the tallest bronze sculpture in the UK, I’m ambivalent about it, but it is huge!

After saying farewell to Athena I approached Connaught Bridge and was horrified to see there was no footpath on the side of the road. I quickly discovered, to my relief, that I could walk underneath, but this was not immediately obvious as a newly visiting pedestrian, for a brief moment I saw myself backtracking all the way back to the Excel centre to get to the other side of the dock.

Given my antipathy to cars and roads I actually quite like being underneath these vast concrete constructions. There is something simple and practical and almost beautiful in the design and build of a flyover; clean lines, gentle curves and huge amounts of pale and austere concrete. From beneath they are cathedral-like, some have tables and chairs, almost like an altar, created by the homeless, street drinkers, graffiti artists and other street dwellers who congregate in these drone filled shelters.

Arriving in Royal Albert Dock I was surprised at how big it was, the runway of City Airport runs down one side with a long concreted promenade down the other. Like Royal Victoria Dock, there are small scale leisure activities on or in the water at one end. I’m not convinced that an airport runway provides the cleanest air for boating activities, but a least there are some activities for the young from the surrounding suburbs.

This area, between the railway and the dock was I guess an empty, fenced off wasteland for a number of years. Under Boris Johnson’s mayoralty there was a drive to open up a new commercial zone in Docklands and there was some logic to this, the airport is here, the huge Excel Convention centre next door, there are hotels and bars and restaurants nearby. The supporting infrastructure was largely in place and business would generate loads of new jobs, though possibly not for those pesky working class folk who lived in the 50s and 60s housing estates that surround the area and whose work ended when the docks were closed.

Sensing opportunity Newham Council joined the bandwagon and they now part occupy the first building I come to in this new utopian, ‘third business centre’ of London. It’s pretty bleak, what grass has been left in the sea of concrete is a sun scorched yellow brown, weeds grow through the pavers and for some reason this section of walkway is taped off. There is no-one around so I cross the tape and walk along the side of the building, looking in the windows as I go, some of the offices look occupied, most appear to be fitted out with workstations that no human has yet worked at.

Finally I arrive at Advanced Business Parks’ (ABP) failed venture to build something of lasting value, and the reason I left home this morning with my camera in my bag. Touted in 2013 as a new start for this bit of Docklands, the massive investment (tax break?) by ABP was to lead the way for Chinese and pan-Asian business investment in London, a new 24 hour business precinct giving opportunities to overseas companies to use the best British workers to service their needs in local time.

200 yards multiplied by two of empty low rise office space. The boulevard of dreams, not turned into the boulevard of reality when it all came crashing down; starting in 2018 and ending when Covid struck in 2020. At least the road leading to the locked road gates sees some use.

The site is open to pedestrians so there was no fence hopping to get in. I saw a couple of people walking along the side of the dock, but there was no one walking between the buildings other than my refection in the clean office windows. The site is obviously being secured and looked after, there were no smashed windows, no graffiti and no sign of anyone squatting.

The only life being a few forlorn trees; though most of the trees were dead.

Mandarin Street is the single main thoroughfare between the four buildings; in two rows of two blocks. One of the buildings seems to house a small local gallery; though it was closed when I was there. Most were just empty. It was weird walking around where there was even less signs of life than in City Island.

I wonder what will happen to this place and it’s big wide promenade, looking over an empty expanse of dock to an airport. Plenty of real-estate companies though.

Hungry, hot and a bit dehydrated I caught the DLR and then the Overground ending the afternoon in a bar in Shoreditch drinking a couple of beers and eating a burger with Aiden. Three hours of walking in the sun pretty much did for me so a seat, some food, cold beer and relaxing chat with my son was a pleasing way to end an interesting and not entirely uplifting day. it was nice to see there is still some street art to be found in Shoreditch.

I read the other day that London is a city containing a million smaller cities. Today I visited more than one of those smaller cities and next time I’m here they will be changed, or gone completely.

Sir John Soane’s House

Saturday 2 July 2022 – London.

As I have alluded to on a couple of occasions recently, life has been very busy. Work has been hectic for most of the past month as a work-mate was on leave; I’m not sure how he coped when I had seven months off. Alongside this I’ve been trying to get the possessions we sent back from New Zealand (things we sent to NZ in the first place) from the shipping company without paying hundreds of pounds in unnecessary tax due to being poorly advised. Thankfully, I managed to achieve an acceptable tax result and expect to see the stuff that was pick up in January delivered shortly, six months after it was collected from us in Auckland.

Last week I finally had confirmation that scaffold will be going up on the rear wall of the block my flat is in so a significant amount of maintenance can be done. As a member of the residents association for the block I started work on this project two years ago and it has been a constant thorn in my side, creating a large amount of unnecessary stress. Hopefully the four months of actual work will pass smoothly and the scaffold will be down on time, and my view to the sea will no longer be compromised by bits of steel pole. I haven’t been at the flat enough this summer.

Running alongside this Eleanor has sold her house. She has accepted an offer on her house at least, fingers crossed all goes according to plan. It was a great reward for the amount of cleaning, tidying and decluttering we have done in the past month. The housing market is hot in London and she was very happy with what the purchaser offered, and it sold immediately. Phew, now the constant tidying can stop and I can hang my towel on the banister again.

I probably should have mentioned in a prior post; but my youngest son, Aiden, has come to the UK from New Zealand for a few months. Though since he’s been here he’s barely stayed with us; there are festivals to attend and friends to see, and to be fair, if it was me, I would be doing the same. His timing wasn’t great with the house sale going on, though he stayed for a couple of days soon after arriving and repaired and painted a couple of walls in the conservatory which was much appreciated. Then he buggered off to do fun things and I’ve barely seen him since; till yesterday.

Eleanor is at the flat for the weekend, we spent a couple of days there together this week and I came back to London last night. I met Aiden at Eleanor’s when I got home and we went to the Bell, the pub at the end of the road for a burger and a beer for dinner.

Today Aiden wanted to do the tourist thing and visit the Tower of London, something I was very up for as it is a favourite tourist attraction of mine, so we left home mid-morning with that intent. We took the tube to The Barbican so I could share with him the last remains of the Roman wall that surrounded the city and was built about 1800 years ago. I’m still amazed that things this old still exist; we live in such a throw-away society; built-in obsolescence is the norm now. Use it and bin it. One of the things I appreciate the most about living away from New Zealand is the sheer volume of fabulous history that you can see and touch and it is seemingly everywhere.

I took Aiden past St Pauls Cathedral. He was amazed at the size and detail of the building, we all are, and there’s nothing like this in downtown Auckland.

I’ve never seen this worn and damaged statue, it’s a little disturbing; like his face is melting under the pollution and vile fug atmosphere of the UK in 2022. I digress…

We crossed the Thames on the bendy bridge and walked along the Southbank, past the new old Shakespeare’s Globe, the new old The Golden Hinde, (the ship Sir Francis Drake sailed around the world) and the new newer Borough Market. I should have seen the warning signs as we walked the Southbank, particularly when we got to Borough Market, but I was too busy telling Aiden about London and talking about the things we walked past; there are a LOT of tourists about. There are few things in life I enjoy more than walking the streets of the centre of London with someone unfamiliar with the city and showing the bits I love; and there are a lot of bits I love.

I took Aiden past the even newer Shard, waved in the general direction of where I lived not far from the Shard for most of 2013 and half of 2014, now mostly obscured by other buildings. Then back to the side of the Thames at City Hall, the ultra modern precinct next to Tower Bridge and over the river from the Tower of London. Our destination for the morning.

Walking the cobbled way between the outer wall of the Tower and the river we (I) realised that visiting the Tower on a warm and sunny July weekend and the first summer since the pandemic ‘ended’ was a stupid idea. There were a lot of people about and when we discovered it was going to cost £32.90 each to visit we agreed a mid-week in autumn would be a better time.

I was tempted to get tickets to the Superbloom event in the dried up moat outside the walls of the tower, but that was too busy. I took a couple of photos instead. Maybe this is something Eleanor and I can do together? it looks quite spectacular.

Aiden and I agreed that the next best thing to going to the Tower was to go and have a beer. Though it was a bit of a walk away, and on the other side of St Pauls Cathedral, almost where we had come from, I chose Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese for a drink.

We took a slightly meandering walk to the pub. I tend to avoid the busier streets, not so much because they are busy with people and cars, which they are, but because the back streets are far more interesting, especially those streets in the older parts of the City of London. There are numerous narrow roads and lanes and not quite hidden alley-ways linking even quieter lanes all over, and very few are travelled much outside of working hours. There are plenty of Wren designed churches as well. I must do a Wren photo walk one day.

One of London’s older pubs, Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese was first opened in 1538, then completely rebuilt in 1667 after the great fire that devastated London in 1666. It is a very old pub and a great spot to take a visitor, especially from New Zealand where an old building is anything over 100 years old. we sat in one of the cellar bars and got listen to a very loud American telling his friend about all the drugs you can buy in California. We only stayed for one.

While we were having our pint Aiden got a message from some friends about a gathering in Lincoln Inn Fields, which is a five minute walk from the Cheese. Rather than take the main roads we took the alley in which the pub entrance sits and walked past the statue of Hodge the Cat. Hodge was owned (are cats ever owned?) by Dr Samuel Johnson, whose house is nearby. It’s the small things in London that are the best.

Aiden’s friends had yet to arrive when we got to Lincoln Inn Fields so we took the opportunity to visit the free Sir John Soane’s Museum. A place I’ve thought about visiting for ages but never have, and I’m definitely going back again. Born in 1753 Sir John Soane was one of England’s premier regency architects and a wealthy man. Between 1782 and 1823 Soane bought three houses on Lincoln Inn Fields, demolishing and then rebuilding all three, he lived in one and used the other two to house his ever growing and extraordinary collections. In 1833, four years before his death, he had a private act passed in parliament turning his houses and collections over to the people of Britain, to be kept as they were at the time of his death.

The collections are completely bonkers, vast and varied and very interesting; the highlight for me being the sarcophagus of the Egyptian King Seti who lived between 1303 and 1200 BC. It was incredible to see something like this, in what was once a private collection. We were free to take photos, though no flash was allowed, so a few long exposures were taken, meaning a lot of images were consigned to the bin.

Most of the rooms are filled to the ceiling with interesting things to look at, in places the space between exhibits is quite narrow, care needs to be taken as you walk around and limited numbers are allowed in the building at any one time to minimise risk. It’s (supposedly) exactly as it was when Sir John passed away in 1837. Our bags were put into clear plastic bags that we had to carry in front us as we perused the collection; I was grateful for this as I’m a little clumsy, and I could imagine me toppling some valuable art work.

The collection contains a number of original pieces Soane’s discovered on his travels, there is a Greek urn from around 4bc (I recall); hopefully acquired legally and morally! There are also a number of plaster casts made from original Greek and Roman sculpture. I learned that casts was a huge thing in the early to mid 1800s when we visited the Victoria and Albert Museum last week.

I really enjoyed the museum and will hopefully be heading back there with Eleanor sometime in the not too distant future.

Aiden and I walked back to Kings Cross Station. We stopped for a beer on the way, or intended to but the prices were mad so we left before buying anything and had a can when we got home.

The River Lea

Sometime around late May 2022 – River Lea, London.

I actually can’t remember the date I did this walk. I know I could walk upstairs and find the hard drive with the images on it and they would tell me to the second when they were taken, but that seems like a lot of effort right now. I’m tired. It has been a madly busy almost two months since I last wrote anything and my head has not allowed me any space to put fingers to keyboard and come up with anything vaguely intelligible. More on those last couple of months in the next couple of posts, it’s all pretty good stuff.

I got a really bad head cold a couple of weeks after the Gnod gig and then Eleanor got Covid; along with her son and his partner who were still living with us at the time, though they have moved out since. I tested myself five times during that period and was negative every time, I’m not certain I believe the tests.

Eleanor was working, and I had a day off, so, as I’m enjoying taking photos again and keen to keep that roll going for as long as possible, I decided to walk the River Lea towpath to Stratford. I needed to pick up a couple of things from Marks and Spencer’s and a two hour walk sometimes beats taking the bus. I need the exercise too.

After saying that, I cheated and got the bus to Walthamstow Wetlands, a wildlife reserve that is next to where I was joining the Lea towpath. The walk along Forest Rd from home to Blackhorse Rd just depresses me, so many cars and so much pollution; best to get to the good bits feeling more upbeat than I would’ve been if I had walked.

My walk was off to a good start, I saw a (grey?) heron between the Wetlands and the towpath.

Though the next scene wasn’t as good.

The first kilometre or so of path, from Tottenham Hale to Walthamstow Marshes runs alongside residential streets and housing estates, with a view over the river to the raised banks of the Wetlands reservoirs.

This section of the Lea has always been busy with houseboats but with austerity on the increase and the cost of living going up seemingly daily there are more boats than ever. Some of these riverboats have had a lot of money spent on them, others less so.

And others; even less.

Once past the housing estates and parks of Tottenham and Stamford Hill the walk gets a little more interesting; a little darker as the overgrowing foliage narrows the path and pushes walkers closer to the boats. The grass is longer here, uncontrolled, the weeds more feral and the brambles and thistles are close to head high.

There are few places to stray off the path. Though there are fewer people walking here to stray, the boats seem deserted and derelict, it felt like London was turning into some post-apocalyptic dead-zone as I walked. Maybe I slipped through a portal into a quieter, darker universe. The Lea can do that to you; this is an old waterway and there have long been stories and rumours of mysterious and unusual goings-on; have you heard about the headless corpse of a bear found floating…

Anyway, on the other side of that thin line of trees are sports fields and houses, and on weekends loads of people. Reverie over, normality returns. The cycle path has been resurfaced since I last rode along here.

I stopped for a much needed coffee at the far edge of the old Olympic Village before heading in, going to M and S and jumping on a bus back home. It was a nice walk.