Sorry, it would appear to be anniversary week this week. And I'm not finished yet.
It's 40 years ago today since my very first day at school. Not nursery school, because I'd been going up the road to play in the sandpit for a couple of years before that. But proper big school where all the old kids went, some of them even six or seven years old.
To start with I was only invited to go into school for a couple of afternoons a week. There was no mass enlisting of the nation's pre-infants into full time education in those days, oh no, we were generally left free to toddle about in the garden and go down the shops with our mums. But I was permitted admission a few months earlier than most because I was a precocious little thing, and going to school meant I could ask lots and lots of questions to somebody who was actually paid to answer them.
It wasn't far to walk, just a minute up the road and a couple of minutes down. Obviously on that first day I was taken by a parent, but within a few years I'd be allowed to walk home at lunchtime all by myself. You allow a six year-old boy in shorts to do that today and social workers would be down on you like a tabloid headline writer.
My teacher was called Carol, although I only ever knew her as "Miss" at the time. She welcomed me to the school and led me past the coathooks out of sight of my anxious parent. Had I realised what my mum was thinking I'd have turned round and said "Don't worry, I'm not planning on bursting into tears the minute you've gone, although obviously I still love you very much" but I didn't.
My new classroom was big and broad and tall. They no longer build classrooms like these Victorians spaces, all echoing chambers with tall windows, and hard to keep heated during the dark days of winter. There were lots of drawers around the edge of the room, some for scrap paper, some for scissors, and one of which was destined to be mine. I was a bit miffed that Miss had already written my name on it in chunky bold marker pen when I was perfectly capable of writing my own name unaided. Precocious, yeah.
I was taken over to sit next to a girl called Marianne. Such a very 1960s sort of a name, not that I realised this at the time because I was into nursery rhymes and not waspish folk singers. I wasn't initially very chatty with my new friend, sitting there in her polyester blouse and grey skirt, but within a year she'd be inviting me to her birthday party. We spent much of the afternoon bonding over a jigsaw. It wasn't the most academic start to my formal education but, despite this early setback, I still managed to knuckle down and gain a place at university several years later.
My teacher didn't attempt to teach me phonics, or assess my nascent ability against centrally prescribed Early Learning Goals. However, I was given my very first maths exercise book, which was slim and yellow and ruled with chunky squares inside. Miss personalised everybody's book by writing a selection of digits and symbols on the front cover in coloured paint. I remember being distinctly unimpressed by her choice of numerals, and insisted that she give me an out-of-curriculum 'zero' as well. I think she smiled as she painted it, but that may have been a fixed grin.
I later made acquaintance with the class guinea pig, or at least the straw-filled cage in which it supposedly lived. We didn't do pets in my house, what with my dad being allergic to all things furry, so this close encounter was quite a revelation. Several months later I'd make the mistake of convincing my teacher to let me take the cage home for the weekend, which would lead to an impromptu science lesson when an entirely predictable itchy rash broke out.
During afternoon break I learned from my new classmates that there was to be a very special Guy Fawkes treat the following day. Every child in the school was going to be given a sparkler, a whole entire sparkler of their very own, and then allowed to wave it around in the lower playground as it flashed and spluttered and fizzed. There were no nannying health & safety risk assessments in those days - teachers simply stuck a lethal weapon in our hands and let us get on with wielding it. I was extremely excited, until I remembered that tomorrow was a Wednesday and I didn't yet come to school on Wednesdays. This was undoubtedly the day's low point.
I'm sure I pestered my mum something rotten when hometime came around, but I was told point blank that I definitely couldn't come back until Thursday. If only the teachers had told me back then how rare a day off would be in the future, I doubt I'd have complained quite so much about my sparkerlessness. But my first day at school had achieved its intended goal and I was already aching to come back. It wouldn't all be jigsaws and guinea pigs on the several thousand schooldays that followed, but I wouldn't be where I am today without the education that Miss and her talented successors provided.
If it's quarter past seven on the morning of the third of November then I've been single for exactly ten years.
(Yes, I know I've posted this particular post atthesametimeeveryyear since this blog started, but I always update it a bit, and it seems to resonate. And I'm not after sympathy, really I'm not, because I'm perfectly happy being single thanks. But, blimey, ten years eh? Maybe it's finally time to give this post a rest)
Some might say that we single people are missing out on the joys of coupledom, and maybe we are, but I'm convinced that there are equally many positive points to being single:
Single: You get the whole duvet to yourself. Coupled: You don't need a hot water bottle.
Single: There's half as much ironing to do. Coupled: There's twice as much ironing to do but somebody else might do it.
Single: You can hoover the carpet when you think it needs doing. Coupled: Somebody else hoovers the carpet before you think it needs doing.
Single: Nobody ever tells you that the kitchen must be repainted and the bathroom must be retiled. Coupled: Two people can repaint the kitchen or retile the bathroom far more quickly than one.
Single: You never have to waste a Saturday doing what somebody else wants. Coupled: You never sit around on a Saturday wondering what the hell to do.
Single: You can play your music collection really loud, even the track that nobody else likes. Coupled: Your music collection is double the size.
Single: You can watch whatever TV channel you like, without arguments. Coupled: There's somebody else on the sofa to snuggle up to.
Single: Nobody complains when you burp, belch or fart. Coupled: Somebody points out when you have dandruff on your shoulder.
Single: You don't have to put up with somebody else's niggly annoying habits. Coupled: Somebody else puts up with your niggly annoying habits.
Single: The toilet seat is always where you left it. Coupled: The toilet seat isn't always freezing cold.
Single: You never come home to a blazing row. Coupled: You sometimes come home to a cooked meal.
Single: You get to eat the whole ready meal for two yourself. Coupled: It takes just as long to cook for two as it does for one.
Single: You can spend all your money on yourself. Coupled: There are two salaries coming in and only one set of bills.
Single: You can walk away from a flatshare, any time. Coupled: You can afford a mortgage, together.
Single: There are no important birthdays or anniversaries to accidentally forget. Coupled: Somebody actually remembers your birthday.
Single: You never have to buy useless presents for your partner, just for the sake of it. Coupled: Somebody buys you presents occasionally, and it's the thought that counts.
Single: Nobody insists on coming over to yours for Christmas. Coupled: Everybody insists on coming over to yours for Christmas.
Single: You're allowed to flirt with people in the street. Coupled: You don't need to flirt with people in the street.
Single: You can still have a riotous social life in your 30s. Coupled: You can still have a riotous social life in your 60s.
Single: You have no friends to go out with because they've all partnered off and are staying in. Coupled: You don't have to go out with those annoying friends you had while you were single.
Single: You don't catch every sniffle, cold and flu bug off your partner. Coupled: When you suffer a major cardiac arrest, somebody actually notices and dials 999.
Single: You never get left all alone and desolate because your life partner's just passed away. Coupled: When you get old and infirm, you don't end up in a care home because there's nobody to look after you.
Single: If you meet the partner of your dreams, it's not too late to marry them. Coupled: Nobody ever meets the partner of their dreams, so better to get married before it's too late.
Single: Being coupled is restrictive, stifling and a sign of personal weakness. Coupled: Being single is unnatural, lonely and a sign of personal failure.
Single: You never get your heart broken. Coupled: You sometimes feel your heart leap.
Single: You can have sex with anyone you like. Coupled: You can have sex whenever you like.
Single: The bathroom is always free. Coupled: The bedroom is always full.
Single: You can lie in bed in the morning for as long as you like. Coupled: There's a very good reason for lying in bed in the morning.
Single: Nobody sees what you look like first thing in the morning. Coupled: Somebody loves you despite what they see first thing in the morning.
Single: You never get told by your partner, in no uncertain terms, to refrain from ever having any kind of emotional or sexual liaison with anybody else, otherwise there'll be shouting and screaming, even violence, except it turns out later that your partner has been repeatedly shagging around behind your back ever since the relationship began, so those same rules clearly didn't once apply to them, but then that's what happens when you fall in love with a psychopath.
Not that I'm in any way bitter, you understand...
Yes, I know, it's illegal to go for a walk along a motorway. But, to celebrate the 50thanniversary of the opening of Britain's most famous road, I've been for a stroll as close alongside the M1 as I could get. From Junction 5, which is where the 1959 motorway began, all the way up to junction 6a, which is the M1's more recent mega-connection to the M25. That's a six-mile rural hike up the edge of Watford. Oh yeah, I know how to live it up, me.
Junction 5: Berrygrove Before the M1 came along, the Colne Valley southeast of Watford was a place of relative peace and calm. OK, so there was a major trunk road passing through - the A41 - but nothing visually intrusive. And then Britain's first major motorway arrived, launching off from these fields towards Luton and "The North", and the area was never the same again. A buckle-shaped roundabout was built to link the new M1 to the parallel A41, and traffic filtered off to drive on the pristine no-speed-limit carriageways. It's still possible to see what used to be here, before the concrete crash-landed, by taking a walk up from the Aldenham Road along the very edge of the motorway. The path passes first through a field, then enters thick beechy woodland - this being Berrygrove Woods after which the carved-out junction is named. It's a delightful place, all shady forest and muddy trails, currently with scrunchy brown leaves and sprouting fungi underfoot [photo]. From the central sloping trail the roar of the M1 is never too far away, though well hidden. Only by stepping deep into the undergrowth can the roundabout's embankment be seen, high above, disgorging traffic towards the backstreets of Bushey. Best not to even look, and simply to enjoy the unexpected woody solitude of Junction 5's scarred neighbour.
Munden Drive Despite being a mile from the M1, the landowners of stately Munden House risked being cut off from civilisation when the M1 was constructed. Their (very) long drive would be severed by the new road, and no alternative exit across the scenic River Colne looked practical. So the very first bridge across the M1 was a tiny thing designed to link a single mansion to the outside world. No cyclists are permitted to cross today, but pedestrians are welcome to stand high above the centre of the dual carriageway so long as they step out of the way should any Jag or Roller swan by. One wonders what drivers thundering below think when they spot somebody gawping from the overbridge. "Who is that up there?" "Why the hell are they taking photos, are they police?" "Oh no, he's not going to drop a brick on my windscreen is he?" "Don't jump!" [photo]
Meriden Estate The M1 divides residential Watford from some really very lovely countryside. I stuck to the pretty side, following untrod footpaths across meadows and through brambly copses. Every now and again the path came right up alongside the hard shoulder, sometimes beside a giant roadsign, occasionally past one of those anonymous grey boxes that monitors something. A real ale pub in the middle of nowhere came as a pleasant surprise, although the M1's concrete barrier must restrict the clientèle somewhat. Residents of the Meriden Estate aren't given too much opportunity to cross from their side to this, just a couple of gloomy subways, which tends to keep them away unless they have a dog to walk. The only bunch I encountered were a bunch of lads lurking in silhouette beneath the northbound carriageway. They might have been sweet kids who do errands for their grannies, or they might have been comparing knife sharpness, I didn't pause to find out.
Bucknalls Lane If your flat takes longer than an hour to burn down, or if relatively little heat escapes through your newbuild walls, then you probably have the Building Research Establishment to thank [photo]. They're based in Garston, up the far end of Bucknalls Lane, and in the mid 1950s the M1 came burrowing right past their main entrance. All these government scientists carrying out thrilling state-of-the-art research into pre-stressed concrete, and suddenly a genuine concrete-churning project materialised immediately alongside. BRE's thoughts today are with sustainability, low energy houses and all that tedious quality review stuff, so I doubt if the current generation of administrators are quite so excited by the engineering marvel outside the main gate. [photo]
Junction 6: Waterdale The M1 had an architectural style all of its very own, with every bridge along the 53-mile length essentially built to the same design. Flat slablike tops, bold concrete curves, and a pleasing modernity throughout. In the days before computer-aided design, it helped to have one chunky blueprint to stretch or skew to fit the space available. At Waterdale the A405 ducks beneath what was the second junction on the motorway, but is now number six [photo]. It's a very simple (and fairly cheap) junction with a couple of single-lane slip roads curving round to/from the embankment above. Catenary lighting hangs messily along the centre of the dual carriageway, ensuring that this key stretch of the UK network is illuminated at all times. I guess there can't be too many amateur astronomers living in neighbouring Bricket Wood.
Junction 6a: (M25 Junction 21) You've probably driven through here. It's where the M1 meets the M25, a triple-level free-flowing junction where the country's two most iconic motorways intersect. But I bet you haven't been here on foot. I was amazed that it was even possible. First I had to follow a non-footpath along the edge of the A405 dual carriageway to a half-hidden signpost, then cross a ploughed field up a shallow incline into a wood. No clues thus far as to what was hidden on the other side. A sudden fence corralled me alongside the southbound M1, a mere stone's throw away, then down to an unexpected viewpoint beneath a stack of three intersecting overpasses [photo]. As the traffic sped by, both above and below, I felt like an insignificant infidel encroaching into the heart of an automotive temple. But don't knock the power of the pedestrian "right of way". The Department of Transport has had to construct a traversable route through and across this multi-lane canyon, resulting in a pair of narrow footbridges suspended higher than the tops of the lampposts below. These bridges can't be used by more than a couple of pairs of walking boots each day, but they provided an excellent grandstand view as well as a route of passage. First to cross was the M25 proper, a few hundred yards down from the centre of this complex half-cloverleafjunction[photo]. A trio of mighty painted arrows reminded me just how huge road markings have to be so that they're legible through a speeding windscreen [photo]. And then to bridge number two, invisible from the first, across a gentle twin-lane chicane used by southbound M1 traffic attempting to join the M25 eastbound. Less busy, although still strangely picturesque in its own way [photo]. Fifty years on, even a pedestrian can sometimes appreciate the brutal beauty of our motorway network.
WALK LONDON The London Loop[section 3] West Wickham Common to Petts Wood (10 miles)
Last Sunday I walked another segment of the London Loop - the capital's 24-bit perimeter footpath. This time I headed southeast to walk one of the longest sections, through swathes of rolling autumnal countryside. And it was proper lovely.
A short distance from Hayes station, on the boundary between suburbia and countryside, I kicked off my walk by entering a thin wooded outpost of the City of London. West WickhamCommon came under the philanthropic jurisdiction of the City in 1878, and Victorian by-laws still prohibit the driving of bicycles through shrubberies, the grazing of mules, the use of disgusting language, the selling of indecent books and the erection of photographic apparatus. Thankfully walking was still permitted. Ancient earthworks lurked amid heathery ferny glades atop the chalk ridge. There ought to have been a great view to the south, and occasionally there was [photo], but a long row of ever-so exclusive homes had stolen most of it for themselves. Onward along the edge of Hayes Common, eventually re-emerging onto Kestonvillage green. Two pubs and a Post Office proved to be the limit of retail civilisation for the next several miles.
The path returned to muddy woodland and twisted round past KestonPonds. Only one of these pools is natural - the most secluded of the three - while the other two are larger and much beloved by fisherfolk. These anglers had set up stools on the banks and were casting their lines in an entirely unsuccessful attempt (at least while I was watching) to lure wily fish onto their floating hooks. I was much taken by the brightly lit autumn backdrop and by the occasional shower of yellow leaves tumbling gently into the water [photo]. Above the highest pond lies a brick-circled spring called Caesar's Pond, so named because allegedly Julius and his invading army once stopped here for a drink. This is also the source of the River Ravensbourne, rather lovelier here than at its mouth 11 miles away in Deptford Creek. Most visitors appeared to have walked no more than 200 yards from the car park - and I could see the attraction in not straying too much further.
Despite being in the middle of rural nowhere, a fairly decent bus service runs along the Westerham Road (round of applause to TfL). I crossed cautiously and started the steady climb to an unusual and historic tree stump [photo]. The Wilberforce Oak is reputedly the spot where William Wilberforce paused for a chat with PM William Pitt, and here made up his mind to bring forward the abolition of the slave trade in the House of Commons. Alas there's not much of the old tree left, having been snapped and toppled by a ferocious 1991 storm, and there's a now replacement oak bursting forth on the wooded slopes. Close by is a commemorative stone bench, but protected behind a tall wire fence so that no passing citizen could ever sit on it. I got the distinct feeling, continuing down into a spacious but inaccessible valley, that the current estate owners at Holwood House (just visible on the hilltop [photo]) prefer their ramblers at arm's length.
This chunk of London didn't feel like London at all. Rolling hills bedecked in autumn shades, light aircraft buzzing overhead on their way into Biggin Hill, and a winding country lane leading uphill to working stables. I ascended behind a chestnut mare and her squat rider, accompanied on foot by a wheezing over-stocky companion for whom the climb proved almost too much. A delightful narrow path between fields went by the less than delightful name of BogeyLane, and here again I found myself stuck behind an equine traffic jam.
After the obligatory golf course, an unusual clock tower heralded the edge of High ElmsCountry Park[photo]. This is a favoured recreational bolthole for the outdoorfolk of southern Bromley, and home to a number of elegant formal gardens as well as a variety of attractive wilder habitats. I'd accidentally timed my visit to coincide with the park's annual Apple Day, hosted at the recently opened Environmental Education Centre. It wasn't quite the exciting event I'd been led to believe, more a couple of classrooms emblazoned with apple-related laser printout. In one room members of staff were attempting to flog apple juice, and handing out sliced samples of some less common varieties of apple, and inviting visitors to guess the number of crabapples in a jar. Visitors however seemed far happier to sit in the adjacent café and eat anything other than fruit.
Back into built-up London via the suburb of Farnborough, arriving in town up the hill through St Giles' churchyard[photo]. Close by the path is buried the (supposedly) legendary Gipsy Lee, the area's last ever Gipsy Queen, but whose real name was Urania Boswell. It was strange to be walking past bus stops and shops and front gardens again, but the London Loop never strays away from greenery for too long. An open grassy slope provided some fine views towards the North Downs - a visual experience savoured only by myself and a tiny handful of local dogwalkers. I then got terribly lost in Darrick Wood. The walk had been extremely well signposted until this point, but I must have missed a turn-off and so wandered around the maze of wooded paths until I'd completely lost my bearings. Eventually escaping, I negotiated my way through the streets of Crofton - a lesser-known residential neighbour of mighty Orpington.
Yet more urban forest to explore, taking a very lonely path through the middle of Crofton Wood. "If five lads jump out with a knife I'm in big trouble," I thought, although I encountered nothing scarier than an abandoned supermarket trolley and a posh girl with an alsatian. One final lengthy estate-yomp eventually led to Jubilee Country Park, a more-than pleasant nature reserve with open common surrounded by leafy thickets. Much as I love my manor in East London, we have absolutely nothing extensive and natural like this back home, so the London Loop's a great way to rediscover brief segments of what I'm missing. And each stage always ends up back at a station, in this case Petts Wood, where there's a rather fetching Loop 3 route map etched in metal bolted to the wall. My walk definitely hadn't been a shortcut, more a devious downward meander, but all the more enjoyable for it.
4000 days to go - Tuesday 14th August 2001 • London's not planning on bidding for any Olympics, oh no. Instead all eyes are on the 2005 World Athletics Championships, which are scheduled to be held in a new stadium at Picketts Lock. It'll be a triumph, obviously. Planning is well underway, but there are funding worries (the whole project might cost - shock horror - nearly £110m!). Surely the Government wouldn't dream of pulling out... • The workerfolk at Tyrone Ltd, in their big yellow shed up Marshgate Lane, are busy making luxury lace curtains. • I'm just about to move into a flat in unfashionable Bow, less than a mile from a spot that'll be world-famous in eleven years time. Thankfully my letting agents don't yet know this, otherwise my rent could have been considerably higher.
3000 days to go - Monday 10th May 2004 • The Picketts Lock fiasco is long forgotten. Instead all eyes are on London's proposed bid for the 2012 Olympic Games. Seb Coe & Co plan to plonk an Olympic Stadium in the Lower Lea Valley, despite less-than-wild enthusiasm from the businesses on top of whom it would be plonked. • Just like any Monday, there are bits of car for sale at JJ Autos on Carpenters Road. Why worry about the future? London might not reach the final shortlist of five cities at the end of the month, and will almost certainly lose out to Paris in the big vote next year. So it's business as usual. • A London Games will never happen, obviously, but I'm still regularly out and about along Stratford's industrial riverbanks, just in case.
2000 days to go - Sunday 4th February 2007 • It's coming! The Olympics are really coming to London this time, and the Government can't possibly withdraw (however loudly grumpy budget-blasting taxpayers might complain). The Lower Lea Valley is being bought up, patch by patch, and then hundreds of acres will be sealed off in the summer so that they can be transformed from warehouses into grandstands. • At the Manor Garden allotments, hopes remain high that the ODA might want to preserve a patch of sustainable foodstuffs amongst the corporate burgershacks. But every plotholder secretly realises that this spring's planting will be the last. • I think I might go up onto the Greenway and take a photo of the emerging stadium once a month. While I still can.
1000 days to go - Saturday 31st October 2009 • We have a stadium. Its crown of white girders has been dominating the E15 skyline for a while now, reminding local residents that their communities are about to be transformed. The area around the stadium still looks a complete featurelessmess, but the skeleton of several other Olympic venues is already ascending. • Bosses at H Forman & Son now look out towards the stadium from the pinkish balcony of their state-of-the-art salmon smokery. Somewhere beyond the Lea, precisely where their not quite state-of-the-art factory used to be, there's a Royal box and a heck of a lot of ramped terracing. • In Greenwich, angry protesters flock to complain about the terrible damage 75 horses will do to their favourite World Heritage park. Other residents aren't quite so paranoid. Quick - the official consultation period ends today, so there's just time to submit your blinkered bigotry (or otherwise) online.
0000 days to go - Friday 27th July 2012 • London becomes the first city ever to host the Olympics three times. Yah boo sucks to you Paris. • The eyes of the world are on Parkes Galvanising (or, at least, the spot where Parkes Galvanising used to be). Umpteen thousand people have forked out a lot of money to watch the Olympic Opening Ceremony in the pouring rain (and are hoping it's more exciting than Leona Lewis on a bus). • Several security guards want to give me a rigorous patdown before I'm allowed into the Olympic Park to watch the First Night Fireworks from what will one day be my local park. But for the next fortnight, this park belongs to the world.
1000 days after - Thursday 23rd April 2015 • The Olympics are long gone. But there's a nice new swimming pool for the people of Stratford to splash around in, and a shiny Velodrome precisely where the old cycling circuit used to be, and some nice ex-Village flats for rich bankers to spend their bonuses on. That's proper legacy for you. • The Waterside Cafe in the Olympic Park has just opened for its first spring season. Maybe some customers will turn up one day and sit by the river and throw chunks of blueberry flapjack at the swans. • Andrew Gilligan is still complaining that one of the flowerbeds in Greenwich Park looks a bit trampled.
2000 days after - Wednesday 17th January 2018 • Everybody's talking about the Olympics... but the buzz is no longer about London. It's the Winter Games opening ceremony in Reykjavik tomorrow. Do you think Brooklyn Beckham has a chance in the Snowboard Freestyle? • West Ham are playing midweek football at their new 25,000 seater stadium in the Olympic Park. Unfortunately, now that they're floundering in the lower reaches of Division Two, the former Royal Box has been renamed the Tumbleweed End. • Just beyond the Westfield shopping centre, beneath the rusting spire of the Boris Johnson Memorial Tower, thousands of relocated Newham residents are living in elevated shoeboxes and cardboard-wall terraces amongst some of the most expensive parkland on the planet. Some of them even go swimming occasionally. £9.3bn well spent. No, really.
Junction 5: Berrygrove
Meriden Estate
Junction 6: Waterdale
A sudden fence corralled me alongside the southbound M1, a mere stone's throw away, then down to an unexpected viewpoint beneath a stack of three intersecting overpasses [photo]. As the traffic sped by, both above and below, I felt like an insignificant infidel encroaching into the heart of an automotive temple. But don't knock the power of the pedestrian "right of way". The Department of Transport has had to construct a traversable route through and across this multi-lane canyon, resulting in a pair of narrow footbridges suspended higher than the tops of the lampposts below. These bridges can't be used by more than a couple of pairs of walking boots each day, but they provided an excellent grandstand view as well as a route of passage. First to cross was the M25 proper, a few hundred yards down from the centre of this complex half-cloverleaf junction [photo]. A trio of mighty painted arrows reminded me just how huge road markings have to be so that they're legible through a speeding windscreen [photo]. And then to bridge number two, invisible from the first, across a gentle twin-lane chicane used by southbound M1 traffic attempting to join the M25 eastbound. Less busy, although still strangely picturesque in its own way [photo]. Fifty years on, even a pedestrian can sometimes appreciate the brutal beauty of our motorway network.
WALK LONDON
A short distance from Hayes station, on the boundary between suburbia and countryside, I kicked off my walk by entering a thin wooded outpost of the City of London. West Wickham Common came under the philanthropic jurisdiction of the City in 1878, and Victorian by-laws still prohibit the driving of bicycles through shrubberies, the grazing of mules, the use of disgusting language, the selling of indecent books and the erection of photographic apparatus. Thankfully walking was still permitted. Ancient earthworks lurked amid heathery ferny glades atop the chalk ridge. There ought to have been a great view to the south, and occasionally there was [photo], but a long row of ever-so exclusive homes had stolen most of it for themselves. Onward along the edge of Hayes Common, eventually re-emerging onto Keston village green. Two pubs and a Post Office proved to be the limit of retail civilisation for the next several miles.
The path returned to muddy woodland and twisted round past Keston Ponds. Only one of these pools is natural - the most secluded of the three - while the other two are larger and much beloved by fisherfolk. These anglers had set up stools on the banks and were casting their lines in an entirely unsuccessful attempt (at least while I was watching) to lure wily fish onto their floating hooks. I was much taken by the brightly lit autumn backdrop and by the occasional shower of yellow leaves tumbling gently into the water [photo]. Above the highest pond lies a brick-circled spring called Caesar's Pond, so named because allegedly Julius and his invading army once stopped here for a drink. This is also the source of the River Ravensbourne, rather lovelier here than at its mouth 11 miles away in Deptford Creek. Most visitors appeared to have walked no more than 200 yards from the car park - and I could see the attraction in not straying too much further.
Despite being in the middle of rural nowhere, a fairly decent bus service runs along the Westerham Road (round of applause to TfL). I crossed cautiously and started the steady climb to an unusual and historic tree stump [photo]. The Wilberforce Oak is reputedly the spot where William Wilberforce paused for a chat with PM William Pitt, and here made up his mind to bring forward the abolition of the slave trade in the House of Commons. Alas there's not much of the old tree left, having been snapped and toppled by a ferocious 1991 storm, and there's a now replacement oak bursting forth on the wooded slopes. Close by is a commemorative stone bench, but protected behind a tall wire fence so that no passing citizen could ever sit on it. I got the distinct feeling, continuing down into a spacious but inaccessible valley, that the current estate owners at Holwood House (just visible on the hilltop [photo]) prefer their ramblers at arm's length.
This chunk of London didn't feel like London at all. Rolling hills bedecked in autumn shades, light aircraft buzzing overhead on their way into Biggin Hill, and a winding country lane leading uphill to working stables. I ascended behind a chestnut mare and her squat rider, accompanied on foot by a wheezing over-stocky companion for whom the climb proved almost too much. A delightful narrow path between fields went by the less than delightful name of Bogey Lane, and here again I found myself stuck behind an equine traffic jam.
Back into built-up London via the suburb of Farnborough, arriving in town up the hill through St Giles' churchyard [photo]. Close by the path is buried the (supposedly) legendary Gipsy Lee, the area's last ever Gipsy Queen, but whose real name was Urania Boswell. It was strange to be walking past bus stops and shops and front gardens again, but the London Loop never strays away from greenery for too long. An open grassy slope provided some fine views towards the North Downs - a visual experience savoured only by myself and a tiny handful of local dogwalkers. I then got terribly lost in Darrick Wood. The walk had been extremely well signposted until this point, but I must have missed a turn-off and so wandered around the maze of wooded paths until I'd completely lost my bearings. Eventually escaping, I negotiated my way through the streets of Crofton - a lesser-known residential neighbour of mighty Orpington.
Yet more urban forest to explore, taking a very lonely path through the middle of Crofton Wood. "If five lads jump out with a knife I'm in big trouble," I thought, although I encountered nothing scarier than an abandoned supermarket trolley and a posh girl with an alsatian. One final lengthy estate-yomp eventually led to Jubilee Country Park, a more-than pleasant nature reserve with open common surrounded by leafy thickets. Much as I love my manor in East London, we have absolutely nothing extensive and natural like this back home, so the London Loop's a great way to rediscover brief segments of what I'm missing. And each stage always ends up back at a station, in this case Petts Wood, where there's a rather fetching Loop 3 route map etched in metal bolted to the wall. My walk definitely hadn't been a shortcut, more a devious downward meander, but all the more enjoyable for it.
Olympic update
• The Picketts Lock fiasco is long forgotten. Instead all eyes are on London's proposed bid for the 2012 Olympic Games. Seb Coe & Co plan to plonk an Olympic Stadium in the Lower Lea Valley, despite less-than-wild enthusiasm from the businesses on top of whom it would be plonked.
• We have a stadium. Its crown of white girders has been dominating the E15 skyline for a while now, reminding local residents that their communities are about to be transformed. The area around the stadium still looks a complete featureless mess, but the skeleton of several other Olympic venues is already ascending.
• The Olympics are long gone. But there's a nice new swimming pool for the people of Stratford to splash around in, and a shiny Velodrome precisely where the old cycling circuit used to be, and some nice ex-Village flats for rich bankers to spend their bonuses on. That's proper legacy for you.
