walking – Page 2 – Where is Phil now?

A brutal weekend in Norwich

Sunday 18 June 2023 – Norwich.

I haven’t gone away by myself for quite some time, and now I’ve a tenant is in my flat the option for a weekend or a couple of days away with little cost has also removed itself. I like some time to myself so decided I’d go to Norwich for a night and spend the two days walking about looking for and photographing the brutalist architecture the city is known for.

I used to really enjoy taking weekends away in random places before I bought the flat and have visited a few places around the south of England, mainly walking and photographing things. I was sitting in a pub on Saturday afternoon sheltering from a brief, but heavy shower on the way back from walking around the university when I realised that I rarely go to countryside/beach places anymore and most of my walking trips are now urban. I barely even walk in Epping Forest anymore and that is 10 minutes from home. I’ve become almost exclusively an urban walker.

I took a train from Liverpool Street Station arriving in Norwich 100 minutes later. Time that disappeared in a blur of bad station coffee and a terrible fruit muffin, music and gazing wistfully out the window. I love train travel.

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I walked around for a bit looking for a record shop that might have some keen local enthusiast who could advise if there was any gigs on tonight, the internet was telling me nothing other than dire cover bands were performing in a student orientated city, something I found hard to believe. I got misplaced and couldn’t find the street I was looking for so walked to my hotel instead. The city centre is busy but like a lot of city and town centres it’s looking a bit sad, especially with large chain stores like Debenhams closing down.

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I needed to dump my backpack and work out how to get from the hotel to the University of East Anglia (UEA) campus, the site of some very good brutalist buildings and the main objective for the weekend. UEA was only a 40 minute walk from the hotel so I walked there though it was a bit warm out.

I have to say right up front that I totally loved the brutalist bit of UEA, it would have been so much nicer if bits of it weren’t covered in scaffold and if there were less students behind the huge slabs of glass that make up the front of their flats in the Norfolk Terrace building; though I guess they are more entitled to be there than I am. I took a lot more photos than those below.

I’m a big fan of concrete brutalist stairs and UEA had some great examples.

I was also really surprised when I arrived at the top of a set of stairs and was confronted by an Antony Gormely statue. There are three of them on the campus, and they’ve not been without controversy. Which is good in some ways, art should be talked about.

The highlight of the visit is the student accommodation block, like the rest of the interconnected brutalist part of the university it was designed by Lasdun and construction was finished in 1970. The site is true brutalist megastructure and the student block is the crowning glory. I tried to get up close but there were too many students working away in their lounge spaces behind those huge windows.

Leaving the university I caught a bus most of the way back to the hotel, stopping for a rehydrating pint at a decent pub on the way. I’m glad I stopped as the rain came in a sudden and heavy downpour just as I sat down. I waited out the rain before carrying on my journey. That evening I walked into the centre and found a not too bad tapas bar to sit down for some food and a glass of wine or two while I read my book.

Sunday I got up lateish after a lacklustre sleep, my room was warm but otherwise comfortable but I drank that frustrating amount of red wine that had me too drunk to fall asleep quickly but not drunk enough to drop straight off. I had planned a walk around central Norwich to look for some of the brutalist era buildings that fringe the old city centre.

There was plenty of concrete about and some classic late 60s/early 70s buildings that may take the fancy of a brutalist purist, but my god they were photographically dull and I pretty much spent two hours walking round the city with a backpack of clothes, laptop and a novel and bag with camera and a spare lens and a bottle of water.

I got hot and wished I’d had an open return train ticket rather than the significantly cheaper booked service at 14:00. I did find some great bits of city wall down a dusty and overgrown path which was nice.

My main objective for the day was a visit to the Anglia Centre which sounded like it was due to be bowled over any time soon. The Anglia Centre was in the north of the city and on the far side of the river so I took a slow and enjoyable walk along the bank, looking for shade where I can.

I had kinda hoped that any shops that were still there would be closed on a Sunday morning and it would be a bit deserted, though annoyingly that was not the case. It had the right rundown feel and was nice and grey and concrete but there were too many people about and it’s a bit run down and it felt wrong to be taking photos; I’m not into poverty porn.

I walked through the shopping area to the carpark at the back and took a couple of photos of the graffiti covered tower above the centre and briefly wished I could go inside then realised I’m on my own and a chicken.

I wandered back through town and up to the castle trying to find coffee that wasn’t from a chain. I found a place in the mall, but the coffee was pretty bad, I should have a gone to a chain. I took a photo of the original and most brutal building in Norwich, the castle, and then carried on to a pub near the train station where I had lunch and a cooling pint. It was hot out and I’d earnt it.

That London

May and June(ish) 2023 – London.

The last couple of months or so have been a bit of blur; mainly a happy blur of family and friends from New Zealand and excessive eating and drinking. I’m pretty sure I’ve added more weight and gotten slower in the last two months than the preceding two, and I thought those were bad. Much as I’d like to break the cycle it’s going to last until the end of summer. I’m not complaining. I like eating and drinking with friends.

May was a mad busy month, I’d started a new job and it’s been pretty full on, but so far I’m enjoying it and it’s been good being back with some familiar faces in a department I’d worked in before. My Auckland sister came to stay with us for a couple of weeks after attending a conference in Valencia. She timed it perfectly to arrive between the kitchen being renovated (contents of the kitchen stacked in the dining room and dust everywhere) and the bedroom she is staying being converted into a bathroom (contents of the bedroom/bathroom stacked in the dining room and dust everywhere).

I have been reading Tom Chivers’ book about what lies beneath the feet of Londoners, ‘London Clay’, and he mentioned the Mithraeum Museum, a small, free museum in the Bloomberg building near Bank station. It seems that very few people know of it’s existence, which absolutely adds to its allure… It was the perfect place to take my sister to. History mixed with something underground; in both sense of the word.

In 1954 while digging the foundations for a new construction on one of the many World War Two bomb sites archaeologists discovered the ruins of a Roman temple. It proved to be a temple to the Roman god Mithras. The ruin was moved to a nearby site so the construction of the building could be completed. This was subsequently demolished in 2014 for the Bloomberg Building to be built. Archaeologists we given access to the site again and hundreds of artefacts we found. Bloomberg had the temple moved back to its original site, now the basement of his modern building. It was very cool.

There was an installation on the ground floor above the Mithraeum; a bunch of small vessels, such as jugs, vases and small barrels, hung from the ceiling with microphones in them, created a weird drone as we walked around them. I really liked it. Definitely a hard recommend for something to do in London that is slightly different to the norm.

After the Mithraeum we took a slow stroll along the north bank of the Thames then up to the National Galley where we saw a post-impressionist exhibition which was quite interesting, though impressionism remains my favourite period in European art. We had a walk around the gallery’s impressionist collection as well.

This was followed by an even slower stroll through China Town and Soho where we had an early dinner booked at the utterly fabulous Gautier restaurant. The food was amazing, as was a remarkable red dessert wine we had.

In an attempt to bring my sister back down to reality we decided we would go back to North Cheam, in the south London borough of Sutton and do a walk-by of 177 Windsor Avenue; the house we lived in before we went to New Zealand in 1973. I had visited in 2013(ish) but my sister hadn’t been back since we left. I lived there for three months or so when I came back to the UK in 1985 and stayed in a shared flat with some old school friends and I often wonder if they still live in the area and if they are still friends. I guess now I’m over 60 I should wonder if they are still alive.

It was an interesting experience, and I enjoyed more than I did ten years ago; maybe because I was visiting with family and maybe because it was sunnier. North Cheam was seemed less rundown than it did then. We did a short loop walk, past Allerton Gardens where I stayed in the 80s, past my old primary school and then on to our old street and house.

177 Windsor Gardens.

We then looped back to the high street where we stopped for coffee and a wee in McDonalds; the other option was the Nonsuch Inn, which was the pub we frequented in 85, but is now a Wetherspoon’s pub and I won’t give their scumbag owner any of my cash.

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The following day my sister attended evensong at St Paul’s Cathedral, not something I wanted to attend at the time, but hindsight is a wonderful thing and it sounds like it was a magical and uplifting experience, even for those who don’t believe. It’s a beautiful building and I’ve never really explored the inside. I must add it to my to-do list.

While my sister was singing songs to someone’s Lord, I took the opportunity to drift around the streets around Smithfield Market. I had no plan, just wander where the streets take me and grab some photos on the way if I saw anything interesting. I have yet to explore the Clerkenwell area, but with only 30 minutes available today I didn’t get far.

My sister was here for two short weeks and it was great having her stay with us while she was in London and her visit was over all too soon. Before she had even left some friends from NZ arrived in London, though they were staying with other friends for a few days when they arrived. Two days after my sister left I took one of our friends on a walk from Camden, down the canal to Kings Cross for lunch at Spiritland, then further down the canal to Shoreditch; stopping for beers on the way. Out first stop was the Hawley Arms, where Eleanor and I had our first date ten and a bit years ago; not that we have been there much since Eleanor stopped working in Camden. The Hawley is a rock n roll pub and was a hangout of Amy Winehouse, The Clash, The Libertines and many others.

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It was a good walk. I’ve not done the canals in a while and it was a nice reminder of how many nice places there are to walk in London.

It was a really hectic couple of months, with visitors and work being done on the house, but it was fun and I’m grateful we had visitors from NZ over to stay. I’m writing this in mid-July, a month after our friends have left and since then we have had a bathroom fitted, but the work is almost over.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.