London – I Walk Alone

Highgate Cemetery ~ West Side Story

If I hadn’t queued for so long to see Marx’s grave, I’d have had time for more than a quick dash around Highgate West Cemetery. I was lucky they let me in at all. The last entry is supposed to be at four thirty, and I ran through the gate at four thirty-six. The gates close at five. In the twenty odd minutes left to me, I abandoned hope of searching out any of the famous graves, stuffed the map into my pocket and climbed the steep stone steps. What I saw would be whatever I stumbled upon.

An Old Farts London Day Out

On 20 May, one of Commando’s friends was racing at Parliament Hill Fields Athletics Track. A few running friends were going to cheer him on, so it seemed like a golden opportunity for our second Old Farts Railcard adventure. As the track is on Hampstead Heath, not far from Highgate, I was quite excited at the prospect of a cemetery wander. Armed with lots of information about underground trains, cemetery opening times and prices, we set off to Bitterne Station for the first leg of our journey.

London, the old, the new and the curious

The glorious ruined church, St Dunstan in the East, might have been the highlight of our whistle-stop tour of London back in May, but our visit didn’t end there. We found a path to the River Thames beside the church of St Magnus the Martyr. This church, founded in the early twelfth century, was one of the first buildings destroyed by the Fire of London. Christopher Wren rebuilt the current incarnation. With a little more time on our hands, we might have looked inside. As it was, like Nancy in Oliver Twist, we passed it by. Being in the middle of final edits on Seventh Daughter, the connection with the Dickens’ classic my Nancy had read with Sam seemed fitting.

Return to London, a church and a saint

A while ago, I began to tell you about our trip to London in May. Recent events meant I never finished the story, so I suppose it’s time to get back to it. When I left you, it was 4 May. The day before, we’d had a few issues with trains and visited the Imperial War Museum. This was our only full day in London, and I had a long list of things to see and do, most of which I knew we wouldn’t have time for. So far, we’d seen the monument to the Great Fire of London, stopped at Pudding Lane, and walked up a steep hill to look at a church that wasn’t there. After a bit of backtracking, and some grumbling from Commando, we finally found the church down a narrow alleyway I really should have spotted at the start. The alleyway was called St Dunstan’s Lane, and the church was St Dunstan in the East.

London’s burning

We had one full day in London, 4 May, and we planned to make the most of it. I had an overambitious list of things to see. We’d obviously never get through half of them, but we set out full of hope and tiny tingles of excitement. Our first train of the day would take us on the District line to Monument. After that, I planned to walk as much as possible and avoid the underground. On the way to Putney Bridge station, I stopped to look at the bookshop I’d noticed the day before. Never has a bookshop looked so packed or so inviting. The only thing stopping me from filling my bag with all the tomes I spotted was the thought of lugging them around London all day. If I’d gone inside, I may never have left.

A birthday treat and signal failure

For my birthday this year, Commando decided to take me on a mini break to London, and I came up with a list of interesting, non-touristy things to see. To avoid the rush hour traffic, he thought it would be a good idea to catch the train from our local station. They only run once an hour, but it gave us time to have a coffee in the local coffee emporium near Southampton Central Station before our London train arrived. We strolled down the road to the station with our overnight bags over our shoulders, feeling as if we were on an adventure. There was a train on the platform, so we hastily bought our tickets from the automatic ticket machine and ran across the bridge. It looked as if we’d timed it perfectly.

A much needed break

14 December 2018

The last few weeks have been difficult and disappointing in equal measure but I’m not going to elaborate or dwell on them. Suffice to say I felt an overwhelming urge to run away and hide from a situation that was not of my making and a lot of questions I didn’t feel at liberty to answer. Damned if you do dammned if you don’t kind of stuff. Luckily, Commando had just the thing to put a smile back on my face. While I’d been hiding away he’d been booking a weekend in Paris.

Tales from the photo archive – memories

A little peek into the black hole that is my deleted items folder

There always seem to be lots of odd photos sitting in my photo archive that don’t make it into posts for one reason or another and I thought, why don’t I put them together? So I’m giving you a little peek into my archives to the photos that didn’t quite make it… Continue reading Tales from the photo archive – memories

Homeward bound – first published 6 April 2014

Commando had finished the Manchester Marathon before the forecast rain started to fall. Of course, once the rain began it didn’t stop, not that we’d have gone out anywhere anyway. Commando was tired and I was pretty exhausted from all that worrying to be honest. We went back to our hotel room and hardly emerged until we had to check out and head for Manchester Piccadilly station for our journey home. It turned out to be rather more eventful than I’d have liked. Continue reading Homeward bound – first published 6 April 2014

Manchester bound – first published 5 April 2014

April 5 2014 and we left home in fine drizzle, although the morning had started with a promising sunrise. The taxi, driving as close to my river route as a car can, took us past a park shrouded by thick fog. The windscreen wipers slap, slap, slap as we passed through Woodmill then Wessex Lane close to the green bridge, blue bridge path and I could just make out the shapes of half bare trees through the gloom. We were bound for Manchester. Normally we’d leave from Southampton Central Station but weekend track repairs meant we were starting off at Parkway, next to the airport. It might have been easier to catch a plane. Continue reading Manchester bound – first published 5 April 2014

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
					1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31