Walkie Talkies!

Walkers:  The ALES aka Farty and TB & The POOR - Mrs Provincial

Distance: A very respectable 8.9 miles!

Time taken:  We were out for 6 1/2 hours but that included a long lunch, a visit to the Geffrye Museum, Westland Salvage yard and numerous stops to gaze longingly at yummy menus

Weather:  Cold & dry, but wrapped up warm it was great walking weather

The Uckfield Express lived up to its name today and delivered Mrs P to East Croydon almost on time where by a feat of great planning (or more like good luck), The Ales were waiting for my train at precisely the right spot on the platform.  We then journeyed on to London Bridge where we started the walk at 11am sharp.

Straight over London Bridge, past Monument and towards Leadenhall Market. For those who haven't been, it's beautifully restored and looks a great spot to stop for a coffee, bite to eat or of course a little cheeky glass of something.  TB unfortunately met a very grumpy shoe shine cleaner who didn't feel having his photo taken was part of his remit ... ah, well, we carried on and past the Lloyd's building which is almost next door.  Very modern and non-too attractive, it is known as the Inside Out building as it has all its plumbing and pipes on the outside.  Just like a few people we have come across in the past!

Next stop the 'Walkie Talkie' building - 20 Fenchurch Street.  Mon had been looking online to see about the possibility of going up to the Sky Bar and garden on the roof but it seemed to be booked up.  So we popped in to check find out for ourselves - the very helpful chaps on the reception desk told us that if we came back when it opened at 6pm it was first come first served but we should have no problem getting in.  Now we had an incentive to get back on time!

There is just so much history in the City, almost every corner there is something else of interest.  Just after the Walkie Talkie building is the ancient St Helen's Bishopgate which was bomb damaged not so much during WW2 but by the IRA when they bombed  Baltic Exchange in St Mary's Axe in 1992 and again in 1993.  So much for being Christian ...  Unfortunately we had just missed the chance to visit inside so we carried on, stopping to look at the Grade 1 listed Gibson Hall in Bishopgate www.gibsonhall.com which was the old National Provincial Bank, then Westminster and finally Nat West.  Now a very posh, upmarket venue for various occasions - not for the likes of us sadly!

We saw the Gherkin, the Cheesegrater, and ended up at Bevis Marks Synagogue in Heneage Lane www.bevismarks.org.uk .Unsurprisingly, there was a security guard on the gate who also doubled as cashier as there was a charge for visiting.  We happily paid up as very much wanted to go inside, none of us ever having been inside a synagogue.  The building is Grade 1, simple but very beautiful.  We were fascinated by their displays of numerous and stunning old mantles - couldn't quite work out whether you were meant to wear them or cover some holy items with them!  Farty has duly obliged and informs me that they are for covering your Torah when you put it in the Ark .... well, now you know!

Duly enlightened, we wrap up warm again and carried on towards Devonshire Square where we found this chap - a very imposing statue of a knight on horseback.  Devonshire Place is where the East India Co had its warehouses but it's now full of offices and restaurants and is a lovely spot.  We particularly liked the look of a Lebanese restaurant called Kenza - take away menus collected, something tells me Farty & TB will be back!

We continued up Bishopsgate and over into Spitalfields and Artillery Lane - all very Dickensian with its narrow passageway and houses.  Down Gun Lane and through Spitalfields Market, along Hanbury Street, past the Trumans Brewery and to Brick Lane.  The wonderful aromas emanating from the curry houses made us realise how hungry we were getting - but no hanging around, still more ground to be covered before stopping for lunch!

We walked through Columbia Road where there is a flower market on Sundays - apparently well worth a visit - and through very ordinary residential roads with frighteningly expensive houses, past Hackney city farm and Haggerston Park until we arrived at Broadway Market and LUNCH!  Mon's chosen venue, the Dove, was an excellent choice - not a fancy gastro pub, just an old fashioned pub with good nosh: rather bizarrely the chefs are Thai but very miserable Thais they are too - Thai charm clearly having evaporated somewhere between Bangkok and London!

Well refreshed, we ventured out again and walked down towpath of the Regents Canal, coming off it at Kingsland Road.  Sadly the canal along here is somewhat neglected:  full of rubbish and very oily looking although it hadn't deterred a few coots who were somehow finding enough to eat - yuk, poor them.  We were now in Hoxton - all these areas are mega trendy now - and headed for our next planned venue, The Geffrye www.geffrye-museum.org.uk.   Another excellent find by Mon - how does she know all these places?! Its a wonderful museum in converted almshouses, dedicated to the history of English homes over the past 400 years.  And it's free!  Poor TB probably thought at this point that he would never get Farty and me out again - but we were well behaved and didn't linger too long.  It's a fabulous place to visit, they have rooms from most eras kitted out with original furniture.  Much reminiscing over the sets from the 50s & 60s, it brought back (ghastly?!) memories of the decor of houses we lived in, and those of the ageing relatives that we used to visit.

We continued down Kingland Road and Shoreditch High Street for Mon's next find - Westlands! http://www.westlandlondon.com - Architectural Salvage, but not as we know it out in the Provinces Jim - apparently they are antique specialists.  As they would be in London.   A veritable cornucopia of architectural delights!  It is housed in a converted church and is truly an Aladdin's cave, stuffed full of magnificent fireplaces, chandeliers, furniture, wood panelling and all sorts that you didn't know you needed - until now.  Prices for fireplaces seem to start at about £8,000 ...... possibly a tad out of our range?!!  But no doubt the trendy locals come in their droves ....


Cocktail time was calling by now!  So we walked back towards Liverpool Street and the City to the Walkie Talkie where we only had about a 20 minute wait before they opened the Sky bar www.skygarden.london.  Through security and we were whizzed up to the 34th floor and to the fabulous Sky Garden. The view from up there is just stunning - as is the venue itself.  The gardens are quite wonderful and stretch all the way up two staircases either side of the bar.  We bagged a couple of sofas with a beautiful view and treated ourselves to a very well deserved cocktail - martinis and bellinis all round!  Excellent!

Could have stayed here all evening but the train back to the Provinces beckoned once more for Mrs P so we reluctantly left and walked back to London Bridge.  However, the journey made a lot more bearable after our Sky Garden visit!

I've realised that this blog seems to have gone on for ever - that's the trouble with London walking, there is just so much to see and do and of course I can never condense it into a couple of sentences!  Just be glad that I left a fair bit out ......!

Watch this space for the next ALE/POOR outing.  We would love it if some of your could join us!  There may even be another cocktail at the end .......  Cheers!

Wimbledon, The Crooked Billet

The Crooked Billet

 Walkers: Mrs P, Farty, TB, and me.

Distance: 7.5miles

Found: Tissues and Wimbledon

Time Taken: including lunch, all day!

A streetcar named nostalgia (thank you, Mon) and wombling round Wimbledon.

 Another episode in the occasional series, the Rahras go forth. (urban section or Arborfield London Explorers (ALE))

Croydon Tramlink

It was a beautiful day with gin clear skies, our favourite, as Mrs P and I girded our loins and boarded the Uckfield "Express" to Croydon to meet up with Farty and TB.  This "service" can be unreliable to say the least, and often morphs into a bus ride, but today all went to plan and Farty and TB were waiting for us, and we set off to board a tram to Wimbledon. Mrs P and I are impressed by the tram system, we don't have such things in the provinces, it was quite like being oop north.  I do remember trolley buses around London as a kid though. (Oh god, she's off)

We arrived safely at Wimbledon Station and set off up the High Street.  My, how it had changed.  There was going to be a lot of this today, as I used to live nearby.  The only shop I recognised was Ely's where my mum went shopping on the morning of her wedding with her bridesmaid, as you do.  I think there was a sale on.  

Our first stop was at St. Mary's church, the one you see in the background at Wimbledon tennis.  Farty

had an urge to see the tomb of Sir Joseph Bazalguette, designer of the London sewer system after the "big stink" of 1858.  Farty and TB had a similar problem some years ago after a particularly hot vindaloo.  Sir Joseph was buried in a mausoleum with several relatives - all very grand.  We had a good nose round.  Inside the church was a plaque dedicated to Canon Norman Hook.  This rang a bell with Farty, and sure enough she later discovered he had christened her all those years ago.  (Sorry Mon!)  What a memory, and only 6 months old!  Leaving the church we were now on a road skirting Wimbledon golf course, very exclusive, with des reses, & full of character.  Sadly some of these houses were being bulldozed and replaced by square buildings a la Kevin Mcloud's Grand Designs.  Such a shame. 

We arrived at the entrance to Wimbledon Park itself, (nostalgia alert), where I spent many happy hours on the swings.  Proper swings, you remember, really tall, where you could swing until you were horizontal, and probably fell on to concrete beneath.  Now they're little plastic things with sand underneath.  Pah!  Onwards towards the lake where Farty remembered being brought as a child by her granny, who lived in Wimbledon.  What a coincidence.  We could have been there at the same time.  Come to think of it, I was once pushed in by a little blond girl.......We were close to Southfields where I was brought up.  (Oh oh, memory lane again).  It seemed a shame not to have a look round.  Lots of changes of course, and people of, how shall I put this, a different hue from the 50s and 60s.  There's a big South African contingent living here now, and several biltong shops which Farty, Mrs P, and TB could'nt resist.  Try as I might, I can't get my head, or gob, round biltong.  It looks like the sort of stuff Sir J. Bazulguette would have dealt with.  On into the town, and lo and behold, there was the dentist Farty used to visit.  Around the corner was Sutherland Grove where I grew up, a nice road with plane trees, on one of which Dad measured my sister and me. 

The marks long since gone, probably 20 feet up!  The house itself was transformed with extensions and 2 plastic lions either side of the front door.  OMG!  It doesn't always do to go back.

We about turned and headed for the common.  "Follow me!" I cried, confidently, "I know a short cut!"  Wrong!  Estates seemed to have popped up everywhere.  Quelle shock.  Farty got us back on track, and we stopped off at the Buddhapadipa Buddhist temple. 

In Wimbledon?  Who knew.  It's a fantastically ornate building, and the air was heavy with incense.  Monks drifted about, looking serene.  Maybe it wasn't incense.  Feeling peckish now, we hot footed it on to the Crooked Billet, where my mates and me used to indulge in a bit of underage drinking.  A schoolfriend passed her driving test at 17, and having acquired an ancient Austin 1100, 6 of us would pile in, (no probs, no seat belts), and head for the pub.  Unfortunately the friend had a withered right leg due to polio, and all the controls were around the steering wheel.  Recipe for disaster, especially after a lot of elderflower wine.  Bit sickly really, none of your tequilla slammers back then.  We lived to tell the tale.  We settled down in the warm welcoming pub, which was situated next to some cinque port houses for men over 55.  God knows where the women were.  Probably dead of exhaustion after having 10 kids.  The food was fab.  Pork belly for Farty, and good old fish and chips for the rest of us, with triple cooked chips.  Yum.  It was starting to get dark and a light drizzle was falling, so we made a move.  The Uckfield "Express" waits for no man.  We reached Wimbledon station and boarded the tram.  Ay oop, we'd had a reet champion time!

Apologies, this has turned into All Wend's Yesterdays! I can hear the yawning from here!  xxxxx

Water Link Way To Greenwich

Water Link Way

Mud-free Meander!
Tuesday 25th March
Distance 10 miles!
Weather: dull, but dry, Walkers: TB & Farty

Klemmer

The Carshalton all-weather walkers were determined to get a decent walk in even though the forecast was for some rain. Left the house with a little drizzle and that stopped after a very short while and the rest of the day was dry, but dull. Caught a train through to Sydenham via West Croydon where we picked up the Water Link Way and walked its entire length to Greenwich and the Thames!
We passed a river pool to a confluence with the Ravensbourne river. We didn't find any mud just nice clean pathways and some very pleasant people only too pleased to chat. Who'd have thought we were up 'in the smoke' being surrounded by all this greenery. We met a U3A group ('stroll with a camera') and ducks and birds. Just before Lewisham we came across a Dutch elm (Klemmer) which is in very good nick; set for another 200-300 years good quality life. A rare find indeed

Deptford Creek

The route took us to Ladywell and into Lewisham for lunch.  Lewisham has some few nice older buildings (the old Co-op building), a good daily market and a fab Turkish restaurant. There is a 'Thing' in the middle of a roundabout outside the library, but we couldn't find out what it was.
 Deptford Creek was intriguing. The CreekSide Centre runs all kinds of activities for kids (and adults) to mess about in the mud for as long as they like!

The Big Red Bus

Canary Wharf

At the end of the walk there were views of Canary Wharf, Peter the Great's statue and that skyline!. We took the Clipper from Greenwich to London Bridge and coffee & cake at Cafe Rouge in Hays Galleria before jumping on a train back home. Absolutely 'cream crackered'!

Peter the Great & TB