Day 5 Photos for you finally

Elstree did seem a nice place although the traffic flows near the station need to be sorted. This bit of London is hilly too, but I don't suppose the council can do much about that. There are various display boards commemorating the 'British Hollywood' - not sure what Ealing thinks about that - and a pretty good mural at the station.

Shame about the doorway

I was curious about this and its friend, but found out that they're natty air shafts for the Elstree rail tunnel.

Could have been anything!

Big creatures shall not pass; small ones quite easily

Scratchwood - not just a services on the M1

Some gorgeous houses in Monken Hadley

Always good to have somewhere to keep your Stag

The graffiti made me laugh!

Day 5 Elstree to Cockfosters

Two more places I'd not visited before yesterday (for Elstree). The station toilet had been cleaned since yesterday afternoon, so that was nice. I must admit that I'm tired. This thing of doing miles and miles each day without a support team, no massage of an evening, writing your own blog, taking your own photos, even having to cook sometimes (not always I know I know) and having to fight your way through Oyster land at the beginning and end of each day, it's not easy you know (especially when they set fire to Vauxhall station). I even have to remember if I've got enough of my favourite socks clean and ready. Don't feel sorry, I know it's self inflicted :-) A side effect of the lassitude is that there will be no pictures here today but I'll try to make up for it tomorrow. You can always look me up on twitter @runningwomble where there are some photos from today's meanderings.

The weather was glorious yet again but thankfully not too hot. I ditched the jacket again but carried a light fleece for the journey home, and took a camelbak bladder for the first time to up my fluid intake (orange juice 50:50 with water and a pinch of salt is isotonic and cheap).

Elstree is very pretty and I realised that this trip is starting to serve as a tour of other possible places I could live if they're cheaper than KT/TW/SW. This region is looking jolly nice which probably means it's expensive. Better buy some more lottery tickets, I did have some luck with Ernie this week though. They seem to like their topiary; I found a few excellent examples, perhaps it's the soil or a local club?

More friendly people showed their faces as ever. All this nonsense about Londoners being unfriendly is rubbish. I haven't seen a gun, knife or golf ball as yet. Had a chat with chap who had an aged Belgian Shepherd bitch that he was grooming in Woodcock Woods - to keep the mess out of his house but also because the birds take the fur for their nests. He told me a little bit of the history of the area.

Today's mishap of route-finding was not me getting lost but me not keeping on the right page in the book so royally confusing myself! I managed to keep en route and finally worked out what I'd done. It was then a bit deja vu when I had to cover the pages I thought I'd already done.

There were not as many golf courses as yesterday, thank goodness. Lots of woods and nature reserves and beautiful historic towns and villages. Monken Hadley is definitely in win on rollover week territory. Compared to the first couple of days of this walk though, there's definitely a different attitude to litter and how places are kept. I found some polite graffiti, possibly the first and only! It says "Welcome" spray painted over the arch of a bridge over a stream!

The journey home was interesting. I haven't got to planning these as I know the end of each day is at a station and I exercise my right as a Londoner to be able to get back to my gaff by public transport. Finding out yesterday Elstree was on Thameslink was a slight shock. Planning the trip home today without using South West Trains was a nuisance. Sitting on the Piccadilly line I looked up at the map and realised that, already, I'd been to each of the three extremities since I started this walk! That's if you count Hatton Cross as near enough to Heathrow, and I finished Day 2 in Uxbridge. My mind then boggled at how far apart they looked. I know the maps are diagrammatic, but.

Back to Cockfosters tomorrow. SWT is supposed to have fixed Vauxhall and it'll all be fine again.

Day 4 Moor Park to Elstree

I didn't even take my jacket with me! The BBC weather forecast said it was going to be good and I believed it. Today was a day of sun and scenery, golf  courses and mud, the occasional incident, lots of wandering and the odd wonder-where-I-am. And some nice friendly people. No canals.

Back to Moor Park station, and a traverse of my first golf course of the day. I'm not really used to golf courses, so I was slightly anxious whenever there were people nearby actually threatening to wield a club. Although to be fair, I don't think I saw anyone do the deed. Is it mostly walking and not much hitting? I didn't see a single golf ball all day. Leaving behind Sandy Lodge Golf Course I strode out across South Oxhey Playing Fields. Not only were they pleasant, green and litter-free but two men asked me if I was "London Looping" and made sure I knew the way out of the park! How friendly :-)

Oxhey Woods were lovely, the trees aren't fully in leaf so there's a lot of light still especially on a sunny day like today. I think it was in here I saw something the colour of a red setter but bigger disappear across the path ahead of me. It didn't look like a dog but there was no owner about so I was left clueless. As usual! The usual search engine tells me nothing of any wildlife. What I did like is that the book says "you may encounter mud in places" which seemed to mean "on the paths".

From there, Pinnerwood Farm showed that farmhouses aren't all Home Farm and Blossom Hill Cottage.

Victorian Farmhouse at Pinnerwood Farm

Pinnerwood House a moated farmhouse

Shortly after was the first 'incident'. Followers may recollect some issues last year with over friendly cattle. Today, a "dilapidated kissing gate and footbridge" had transformed itself into a quite new wooden stile complete with a horse facing me on the other side and lots of its friends close by. Helpfully, the London Loop sign confirmed that this was the correct route. The stile guardian shook its head and trotted off but a much larger black horse came over to check me out. All the while two of the friends were eating the grass to the side of the stile. There were 15-20 horses in this field of varying sizes but not calm, they were being active, running around, arguing with each other a little. I didn't know how accustomed to strange walkers wearing bright orange t-shirts they might be. I climbed the stile. A different little horse (pony?) came up and wanted to nuzzle or ask for food, so I patted it, the others seemed fairly disinterested (I'll think about whether that or uninterested is the right word later) and so I slowly but steadily made my through their paddock. A couple of their chums were so nonplussed that they were less concerned than I when I walked between them.

The stile without horse

The friendly little brown horse/pony

The original grey stile guardian & no2 checker

I lived to tell the tale but I did have versions of the local news story going through my head 'Walker found trampled by horses - what was she thinking of  (was clutching book)'.

Onwards through Hatch End and off to Harrow Weald Common, where I misplaced my posts. It did mean that I found a very fine house and took time to take some pictures but I was very confused as to what I had or hadn't done. I was going in the right general direction but the descriptions in the book weren't making sense. The house in question is Grim's Dyke and "was designed by R Norman Shaw in 1872 for Frederick Goodall, painter; and was later home of W S Gilbert, writer and librettist, from 1890 to 1911, who drowned in the lake". The odd thing to me is that the official path doesn't take you to the house, which really is worth a view. It's now a hotel, so not averse to people wandering up and around.

Grim's Dyke

Blue plaque for W S Gilbert

View over one of the gardens

I don't really know this area of greater London at all. It's got a lot of green spaces and what looks like some very nice places to live. Little quirky things of interest pop up too. For example, Bentley Priory house is Victorian and impressive. It was Fighter Command HQ in the Battle of Britain.

Italianate tower at Bentley Priory

Stanmore Little Common was very picturesque, complete with senior couple on a bench as well as a friendly cat. Who knew London could be like this? I'm not sure where Waitrose is though.

Pond

I crossed under the M1 and had to leg it across Watling Street. I finished walking across yet another golf course. How long do you think it is before they hand out helmets for you to wear before you walk your dog or go for a run on a golf course? Arriving at Elstree was fascinating and I've now learned that the tired end of the day is not the best time to make judgements :-) I'll be back there in the morning. I'll leave you with some signs from today.

How do you know if they're telling the truth?

Attendants, staff, personnel but not members....

Day 3 Uxbridge to Moor Park



It was sunny again for my return to Uxbridge. When you consider that I was snowed on last Tuesday, this is quite a result! In my head, I feel that perhaps I was a little unfair to Uxbridge yesterday. It is an old market town and does have some interesting buildings on the High Street and the canal nearby. Perhaps I was just tired yesterday. Sorry. They like their mosaics.



Created by Christine Smith based on designs from local school children



Back to the Grand Union Canal and my first lock amazingly called Uxbridge Lock. I must say that the locks on the Thames Path walk last year all had gorgeous gardens and seemed competitive in their green-fingered-ness. Here on the GUC, it's a lock, you might get a cottage, possibly a bridge, occasionally a tea place, that's it. No garden. This stretch of the canal was definitely developing into the more scenic and civilised variety, thank goodness.

Uxbridge Lock & cottage complete with spare door & window



Denham Lock is the deepest lock on the GUC apparently, I have a picture but there are no flowers in it. However, the tea garden did look really good but I'd only just started out for the day so I resisted Fran's place.



I bet the cake is really good

They did seem to be trying much harder with their canal side gardens though, perhaps to make up for the locks.

To the tune of 'Hanging Gardens'



On this next stretch of the walk I came across two memorials, both for young people. The first is sad because of the age of the child. The second story made me angry because the council originally wanted to remove the simple memorial. When you've seen all the litter and general crap I've seen in parks and countryside over the last three days that makes me mad. Anyway, it's still there after five years so they seem to have seen sense. I should point out here that I have been hyperlinking various things but I don't know how to make it more obvious. I think basically if something looks interesting, hover over it with your mouse to see if a link thing turns up. If anyone familiar with blogger knows the answer please let me know.

 

 

It was actually quite a lovely day's walking today, fewer people and more scenery. And mud. The canal still featured although I did leave it behind occasionally, even so far as to go up and down hills. It wasn't so far out in the wilds for the ducks to not know about being fed though. This swan looked very interested when I stopped to take a picture as did the mallard with her tiny ducklings, until they realised no food was forthcoming!

What no food?

I did see a house where the owners had worked out how to deter burglars and squirrels. And possibly small children, that would be a bonus.

Take a close look at the front lawn

Of course, you don't need a house to be house proud :-)

The bare necessities

After much following of the canal, the path finally went 'inland' and uphill (shock!) through Park Wood, the beginning of which hosts Parkwood Farm kennels and a 'friendly' german shepherd roaming the grounds. It didn't bark so that counts as friendly to me. The woods were very pretty mostly due to the bluebells carpeting the place.

Bluebells

You do come across some funny things when you're walking. For example, a footpath marking the boundary between Hertfordshire and Middlesex. At some point, they thought it should be paved, but they never finished the job. The slabs that had been laid were taken up and all paving stones were left by the pathside to gather moss and lichen. You don't suppose it was one (or two) of those Finance Committee moments where they said "Are you sure [the other administration] is paying exactly half?". It amuses me that they took up the ones that were already laid!

Exhibit A - abandoned slabs

There was lots of scenery and I did discover that Moor Park is very *nice*. Although I couldn't work out why the conservancy area seemed to be full of what looked like fairly new houses. Even the station has had a makeover. I'm almost looking forward to going back in the morning :-)

Grand Union Canal

 

Denham Quarry Lakes

 
 


Nice house but they have a buddha in the front garden



Day 2 Hatton Cross to Uxbridge

This retracing your steps thing is going to be interesting each day. At the end of a day you want to go home, so you might cover some of the same ground. The next day, you have to get back to yesterday's stop point. So I get to visit Uxbridge twice having never been there before. Things to note so far: the toilets are right at the back of the shopping centre and there's a fairly old church bang in the middle of the High Street opposite the station, looking quite out of place.

Anyway, back to Hatton Cross. Sorry to state the bleedin' obvious, but Heathrow is massive, isn't it. Incredible how many people want get from A to B where they are far enough from each other to fly. Does anyone know what proportion of the world's population is in the air at any one time? Of course, there is a huge knock on benefit for the local economy but how awful is it to live in a house where the planes are almost touching your roof every two minutes? And it's still £300k+ for a 3 bed house.

Ok if you're a plane spotter

The first bit of my walk saw me go off path as I was confronted with water and mud. I wasn't ready to submit my nice new Merrells to that just yet! Crane Valley Park continued meandering through scrubby paths with the odd butterfly and a mystery white bird that escaped before I could snap it. Cranford Countryside Park was altogether more pleasant with large expanses of space with the River Crane still along one side. I think it used to be part of the estate of the Earl of Berkeley, bought in 1618 from Sir Roger Aston.

Behind the ruins of the Berkeleys' mansion is a very lovely church, St Dunstan's, which has been there in some form since being mentioned in the Domesday Book. It's a small church with massive memorials and has been well kept and restored over the years.

Sir Roger Aston & family

Having escaped Heathrow you'd think it might get a bit quieter but no, you have the M4 to negotiate (by tunnel) and later the hum of the M25. Finally, I reached the Grand Union Canal which was to provide much of the route for the rest of the day. At times it was really depressing. So much litter and detritus but also signs of people living by the side of the canal and I don't mean in boats. In my line of work you can spot a sleeping place, a bit out of the way, with a few items strewn about, hopefully under some cover. There's been a lot in the news recently (if you're a Radio 4 person!) about canal boats and the rights that people have to live in one place or whether they have to be continuously cruising. However, the bits of the GUC that I walked today were so quiet, and it was a Bank Holiday when you think some pleasure cruising might be going on, that you wonder why a radical re-think of the liveaboard rules might not go some small way to helping people find alternative affordable accommodation. I can't even imagine how busy the canals might have been when they were used to transport timber, coal etc around the country.

I revisited my telecoms days with a diversion through Stockley Park. The site was developed from 1985 and BT took a couple of buildings as it's so handy for Heathrow. Indeed, I used it to host my European meetings (get me!). 250 acres were also 'transformed' into a golf course and country park. It was pleasant and had much less litter than many of the other parks I'd been through so far.

The day had started a bit grey but the sun came out for a while and there were some lovely shots of the canals, it wasn't all doom and gloom!

Cowley Peachy Junction looking back at the GUC

Cowley Peachy Junction looking at the Slough Arm of the GUC

Cowley Peach Junction looking up the GUC

Apparently, the 5 mile Slough Arm of the GUC was virtually the last canal built in this country. By contrast, Slough is now going to benefit from Crossrail and house prices are already shooting up in anticipation of services starting in 2019. This bit of the canal did have its moments though, including a short aqueduct to take the canal over a river! Not far from here were the Little Britain lakes which were pretty.

The Colne Valley Park was long and thin but with a delight thrown in at the end - a pair of swans and five cygnets! I saw the male first, then the female. When I saw the cygnets caution took a grip very quickly. I wasn't right up close but I was within angry running swan distance. Anyway, I managed to take some pictures without any incident.

Proud protective parents and babies

Five cygnets

And finally, art in strange places. I think this was under the A4020 Oxford Road on the GUC.

Inspired by the Young Pavement Artist 2000 competition

Tomorrow, Uxbridge to Moor Park. I might get to see less litter and more of the lovely England that I know is there.

Sunday lunch

I'm really not the sort of person who normally does lunch. Especially not a smart hotel in Richmond. However, when you're given a gift it would be rude not to make the most of it. So, planned in for the re-fuelling part of Day 1 was Sunday Lunch at The Petersham Hotel, Richmond with the lovely daughter. We'd arranged for her to bring some fresh clothes so I didn't let the side down completely and we made it in good time courtesy of a black cab as the 65 bus timetable failed us :-(

The dining room is gorgeous with amazing views out over Petersham Meadows and the river. We weren't right next to the window but our waiter did explain that can be a good thing when it's sunny. We could keep up with the wanderings of the cows and the movements of a dinghy with a very colourful sail.

Faced with a proper long wine list I managed to pick an Australian Cabernet-Merlot which we both liked and it didn't disagree with the tonsilitis. The food was lovely, well presented, not too small, not too big. I had a beetroot salad thing with whipped goat cheese and heritage tomatoes = multicoloured and LD had salmon. For mains, we had polenta and mushroom tart with rocket salad (no parmesan) and beef. The whole experience was delightful. The pouring of the wine was at the right time, we were only asked once if everything was ok and if you needed anything it was very easy to get someone's attention. They apologised profusely for a delay in our desserts arriving. LD had spotted a problem, they'd made the wrong sort of chocolate pud - a delice rather than a fondant - and so had to go away and start again. They noticed before it got to our table but only just!

The hotel is also in a beautiful building and grounds. The clientele was very definitely of the Richmond old school. Plus us, of course.

A very civilised afternoon. When we grow we're going to go there again for afternoon tea. In the meantime I have to write a thank you letter to the people who gave me the lunch voucher.

Petersham Hotel entrance hall

Petersham Hotel

I think it's a bull rather than a cow

Marble Hill House complete with paddle boarders

To round it all off, we walked down the river past Ham House to catch the bus at the end of Sandy Lane. I didn't Garmin it.

Day 1 Berrylands to Hatton Cross

Well, who knew there was a scenic route to Hatton Cross?! Perhaps the glorious, first of May weather made a difference.









I'll be seeing a lot of these









 

The route of the London Loop passes really quite close to my house so I ambled the two thirds of a mile to the first London Loop sign complete with its kestrel. Then on familiar paths towards Kingston but not for long, I was following the Hogsmill and its midges in, under and through the town hosting Surrey County Council even though the county town is Guildford. I never knew there were so many twists and turns and backwaters and I have lived in the area for a while now. I suppose it's because I'm from norf of the river really (an adoptive womble).



Hogsmill has a Community Garden

Approaching Kingston Bridge, I spotted lots of runners on the far shore of the river. It turns out that it was the Ranelagh Richmond half marathon. Good luck to those who ran and I'm sure there were a few nutters who would have done a longer run last week in London or the week before in Brighton too. I was headed to Bushy Park, which although I have visited a few times, I really haven't frequented as much as I might. It's flat, it has deer and, I found, it's bigger than I thought. It has the Diana Fountain (not that Diana), cricket pitches, playgrounds, the lovely Woodland Gardens, a junior parkrun and plenty of folk out enjoying the glorious weather. There were, of course, things I would have liked to investigate further but unusually I did have a time constraint on today's walk. More of that later.





Deer in Bushy Park



 

Out of Bushy Park, a quick foray into some residential streets of Teddington found me on a long straight route down the side of Fulwell Golf Club. Houses, gardens and lots of thinking about house prices :-( After skirting Hampton Golf Course and a David Lloyd club (which hosted my first rat siting of the week!), there was suburban tarmac treading before discovering the River Crane. Not quite so many midges as the Hogsmill, thank goodness. It was pleasant, the river is fairly shallow (at present), there seem to be a lot of barricades in the water, presumably to guide the water flows when it is heavier. The water must flow more at times as from the 16th century there were gunpowder mills that used the waters of the Crane to drive their millwheels. There is a Shot Tower remaining which is now a visitor centre for the local conservancy area. The bluebells are out in force at the moment and look gorgeous.

Scenic view of the Shot Tower

 

Bench by the River Crane

The walking route leaves the river for a stroll along the A314 before turning in to cross Hounslow Heath. From a road I know really well as a route to Heathrow, the Heath is a place I was completely ignorant of. It's a fair size being 82 hectares compared to 445 for Bushy Park but it used to be much bigger at 1600 hectares. And it's historic, apparently. The route in that I took was a tad disappointing with the first stile of the holiday being completely surrounded by litter. The heath itself seemed underused in that I saw few people considering how lovely the weather was. It's not pretty but it is a nature reserve, so it does serve a useful purpose in addition to dog walking. Perhaps if I go back another day with more time I'll discover the nicer bits.

After the Heath, I rejoined the River Crane, found another shot tower this one rather more dilapidated. I then successfully lost my way! At this point local knowledge became a dangerous thing. Usually my sense of direction is ok so when I decide to go off up this road here it turns out ok. But when it turns into a dead end on an industrial estate without even a pedestrian cut-through it's time to retrace my steps. So near yet so far. Garmin showed me how close I was too - parallel to where I should have been! This added a nice level of stress near the end of the walk, an extra 0.8 of a mile or so. I finally got to Hatton Cross and walked straight onto an X26 bus to go back to Kingston.