Travel – 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.

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.

Its all in the name, Hailey

Time was always going to be against us on our whistle stop tour of Witney but we packed a lot into our one afternoon. The one thing we hadn’t managed to do was visit Hailey, the place where my great great grandmother, Mary Ann Beechey, My great grandfather Elijah Haley and my grandfather’s brother Harold were born. It is also the place that gave us our family name, Haley. The spelling may have changed over the years, although many of the old records are spelt Hailey, like the place, but this really was where my family story began. Commando had a trick up his sleeve though. As Hailey was less than four miles from our hotel, he decided to make a little detour on our homeward journey. I was unreasonably excited when I saw the sign saying we were entering Hailey but traffic meant we couldn’t stop for a photo. Undaunted, I whipped out my phone and took a rather blurred and wobbly picture through the windscreen. It would serve as proof that we had actually been there.

St Mary’s church Witney, an angel and a cursed stool

They say there has been a church in Witney since the tenth century but St Mary’s, standing at the far end of a long, wide expanse of grass called Church Green, is not the original church. In fact it was built in the twelfth century on the site of previous Norman and Saxon churches. It has also undergone many changes over the years. The tall spire, rising one hundred and fifty six feet into the blue sky, was added in the fifteenth century. It dominates the Witney skyline, so it was hard to miss, even for strangers like us. Such a large and imposing church shows that Witney was a wealthy and important town in medieval times. This was where many of my Oxfordshire ancestors were baptised, married and buried. As we walked towards the church I was hopeful that I might be able to find some Haley graves.

SS Shieldhall

14 September 2019

As a reward for all the long walks, or maybe out of guilt for having signed me up for a marathon without my knowledge, Commando arranged a little treat for this afternoon. This came in the form of a cruise, although not the kind most people would imagine when they think of the port of Southampton.

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.

Winchester, the last of the parkrun tourism

1 September 2018

We ended our month of parkrun tourism with a trip to Winchester. The original plan had been to run every August parkrun somewhere different but we squeezed an extra one in to help a young lad called Leo celebrate his hundredth run. As usual, getting to Winchester involved an earlier start than normal but we parked up close to Winnal Moors with enough time for me to dash past the Willow Tree pub, along Durngate Terrace to the High Street and grab a coffee and croissant to make up for missing breakfast. Continue reading Winchester, the last of the parkrun tourism

Setting up camp at Thunder Run

20 July 2018

Frankly, a three hour drive to Walton on Trent was probably not the best thing for my back. Two or so hours in, when we reached Warwick Services, I could barely get out of the car. There was some hobbling around, a loo stop, some much needed food and coffee and then it was back to the car for another interminable, painful hour. At least there was a hotel at the end of it and a chance to walk around, albeit like an old lady who’s lost her walking frame. No photos were taken, apart from one of the hotel door so I’d remember the number when I came back from my hobbling. All this, was yesterday and it was just the precursor to Thunder Run, a twenty four hour endurance race. As far as I could see, at that point, I’d already endured quite enough and it hadn’t even begun yet. Continue reading Setting up camp at Thunder Run

Parkrun tourism, Lakeside

30 June 2018

There was no parkrun on the Common this morning because the Pretty Muddy Race For Life 10k was going on. This meant it was time for some parkrun tourism. With so many parkruns within a few miles of home we were spoilt for choice but, when Teresa and Gerry said they were going to Lakeside in Portsmouth, we decided to tag along too as we haven’t been to the parkrun there before. Continue reading Parkrun tourism, Lakeside

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