National Cycle Route One - Garden of England

Damp Sunday morning. Leaving London is fairly straightforward. I pick up National Cycle Route 1 at Greenwich and ride on through endless ugly suburbia and light industry until Rochester, where there is a castle and a cathedral and a pedestrianised high street packed with pubs and cafes which is good because it's lunchtime.

That's Rochester's cathedral. The rain is holding off - just. On past the Chatham Dockyards originally founded by Henry VIII. The bike path eventually leaves traffic, roundabouts and footpaths behind and follows a concrete path by the Medway, where the Sunday dog walkers are out in force, clogging up the way. Every dog seems to be called Bella and none of them are on the leash. Slow going.





Even slower when I finally leave even the Sunday strollers behind, following a route that weaves through orchards and lanes and down farm driveways and along the levees across marshland. Lots of gravel and pot holes.

It's a bone-shaker of an afternoon that get greyer and goes on forever and doesn't seem to be getting anywhere. There was meant to be a camping site somewhere near Upchurch but with no mobile signal to pull down google maps, I missed it completely. Late in the day with even darker clouds gathering in and rain not far off, I follow a Footpath sign into a field of apple trees and put the tent up behind a hedge. All night I can hear planes coming in, one every few minutes, and not far away there is a trainline, and below all that the constant drone of traffic on the M2. Otherwise this is rural bliss. It rains softly most of a night marked only by the intermittent thud of an apple falling.

Day Two is more of National Cycle Route 1, from near Faversham to St-Nicholas-at-Wade. Big highlight of the day is Whitstable.  Once again I hit town at a good time for lunch. I had oysters very much in mind, but at 6 pounds for half a dozen? A quid per oyster - actually a cheese sandwich looks quite appetising right now.

Morning drizzle eventually dried up but there is no sign of sun. Out at sea, wind turbines; and in between,  fields of strawberries, corn, apple and pear trees, and acres of solar panels. The roar of traffic is ever present though the route cleverly crosses busy roads via footbridges or crossings where there a green bike sign pops up beside the Green Man. But I'm unimpressed with the route so far. It is very rough in places and not designed for a fully loaded road bike. I have only seen a couple of other cyclists. Signs are fairly frequent but easy to miss and I have to backtrack more than once. I have nettle stings on my legs and bruises from hauling the bike through narrow gates and over raised barriers that must be to keep motorbikes off the route. But there are plenty of opportunities to feast on blackberries. Lesson - don't pick the ones low down. Probably pissed on by one of the Bellas.

Next day it's my birthday and I'm starting to feel like an OAP - if only I actually got a pension. By getting up soon after dawn I avoid paying for last night's campground and arrive in Minster too early for coffee. In a churchyard opposite the Benedictine Abbey I get out my primus and I have just enough gas left to make porridge and almost-hot cup of tea. When I bought the milk, the Indian man in the convenience store warned me to 'watch out for the speeding school mums in the lanes'. The lanes have only room for one car and I have to pull over and stop when a vehicle comes up behind me. But there isn't much traffic and mostly I can fly along, just need to keep a sharp eye out for potholes.

Ramsgate in time for a slap-up brunch in a cafe full of flowers picked from the chef's allotment. Flowers in jam jars hung up on the walls, flowers in tins on the tables. That's the high point of Ramsgate. Waiting for outside is a flat tyre, my first, so I head off pushing the bike a good mile uphill hoping to find a cycle shop but what google takes me to turns out to be a sleazy back-street second-hand bike parts yard. I'm sure you have to have at least 6 tattoos to qualify for entry to that place.

Undaunted I go around the corner and dig out the puncture repair kit and wait for someone to stop and offer help, which no one does. Step Two - read the instructions carefully. I locate and remove an embedded sliver of glass in the tyre. Lever out the tube, wait patiently for the glue to dry as instructed (in French). When I get everything back up the right way again and apply the pump, it seems to be OK, but a couple of miles later it's flat again. Off I go on a very round-about route through the over-populated conurbation that is the Isle of Thanet, not longer an isle at all, just endless suburbs and eventually a bike shop which is not what I hoped for at all but a branch of the giant chain store, Halfords, where a wee lad replaces the tube in a flash for nine quid. I got to see quite a bit more of Kent on that side trip and didn't much like what I saw. Off to Broadstairs to pick up the cycle path again. The sun is trying to shine and the sea is actually tinged with blue and I pull up at a very pleasant garden bar (minus garden as such, but there are hanging baskets filled with flowers and it looks out to sea). Things are definitely looking up. Or maybe that is the effect of the ale.

Anyway, it's a balmy evening when I arrive into a tidy little campsite on the outskirts of Ramsgate and am warmly welcomed by a lovely couple who saw me cycling by the Medway two days ago and are celebrating their first night in a brand new camper van.

Somewhere across the Gardens of Kent I came across a church called St Mary the Virgin, with this stone nearby. The sign says it had to be removed from the church for being unholy.

Reclaim the Streets

The marked cycle paths in South London often follow quiet residential streets with little traffic, and it strikes me that there is potential to reclaim these acres of tarmac and use them for vegetable gardens, trees, resting and playing spaces. By blocking off every second or third street and setting up a timed permit system for access for deliveries and loading, we could have green corridors across the city. Winding down the middle of these people-centred spaces, one-lane shared bike/pedestrian ways with in-ground solar-powered lighting. Dedicated multistory and underground parking facilities would use space more efficiently and provide 24hr video security. People would get more exercise and more opportunity to meet neighbours and the streets would be quieter and safer. With increased foot traffic would come more opportunities for pop-up businesses.

Lambeth Council is already providing secure bike parking, like these that I see everywhere. London is doing such a good job of creating infrastructure for cycling but it could go so much further.

Google tells us I'm not the first person to come up with ideas about reclaiming the streets. There was a whole movement in London in the 90s, and it actually started in Brixton which is where I was when I started thinking about it. That movement has been swept up into the wider anti-capitalist activities.

I'm thinking more along environmental AND high-tech lines. When Uber morphs into a transport system with something like google cars, for example. And car sharing schemes. Actually now I think about it, aren't there already streets like this in Collingwood and Fitzroy in Melbourne? Montpellier has some great lessons in how livable a pedestrian-zoned conurbation can be.

Self-history

Look what I found.

One Lonely Planet, one Rough Guide. I was vacuuming at Jeremy's when I spotted these (I'd hate for anyone to think that I poked around in their things while house sitting - I don't. Except for bookshelves). Ah, I thought when I spotted these, just what I need. I have been looking in every charity shop I pass for guidebooks.

Hey, that's my name in the front, and it's in my own handwriting. Those are my highlights and notes scribbled in margins. It takes me a moment to register - these are mine, from when I was here in 2001-2. No wonder I fell upon them so eagerly. Now I dig into memory and remember that Jeremy had lent me stuff when I moved in to Miss Pope's - a portable TV, a couple of Pat's watercolour paintings. I must have included these books when I was returning what had been borrowed.

Packing up - ah, I do it all the time. It is almost exactly two years since I left Rotorua with no more than a suitcase. Then too I gave away what could be palmed off and took loads to local charity shops. I do have some things in storage on the Gold Coast (thanks Neil and Di). Of what I packed into that suitcase, very little is still with me now. Phone, laptop, toilet bag, a couple of merinos, a pair of gloves - that's about it. Now here are these books, artifacts from a life even more deeply rooted in the past. Strangely affirming. Traces of continuity in a peripatetic life. I live happily in the short term, but it is comforting and reassuring to have evidence of coherence, of some greater design running through the years and developing over time to shape the person I am today.

And now I'm picking up where I left off 15 years ago, doing things I wanted to do then but didn't get around to. The Leighton House Museum, Brixton markets, Chelsea Physic Garden, Tate Britain, Dulwich Picture Gallery. It is enormously satisfying for all sorts of reasons. The guidebooks might be dated, but they are still useful and I'm a bit thrilled that they have turned up in my life again and that I have this opportunity to fulfil those older wishes.

Dulwich

It's a short ride to Dulwich from Herne Hill and so a good choice for a rare blue-sky day in London. I am in my element setting off to go somewhere I have never been before with no idea what to expect. The buzz I get from this is probably to blame for me being unable to settle in one place for long. Its like an addiction I have.

My destination, the Dulwich Gallery, is easy to find but the sign saying Dulwich Village tempts me with promises of cafes, and the reality does not fail to satisfy. This is my sort of place, a tiny shopping street with lots of trees and not much traffic and some interesting little shops including a branch of Gail's Artisan Bakery, which I discovered near Clapham yesterday.

About Gail's, there are some recipes on their website, and they have a book out that looks great too. Check out some of the breads available, all made with sourdough starters.

Here's a nice place for sale in the area - is that a misprint, or are there meant to be that many zeros? In a suburb that doesn't even seem to have a mobile signal?



Back to the gallery. Nearby is one of the oldest buildings in Dulwich, the original Dulwich College for Boys.

I give the Dulwich Picture Gallery 3 out of 5. They promote their app which is meant to provide information about individual works. They say you can point your camera at any painting and the app will recognise it. I tried 3 times to download the app and it timed out each time. I asked at the ticket office was their WiFi network working, and the staff said they didn't know. Not good enough.

I got my lefts and rights mixed up again and rode up to Crystal Palace when I really wanted to go to the Horniman Museum.

School holidays, what was I thinking? The Horniman when I got there was unbelievably noisy and also smelly and hot. Turns out I wasn't in any mood to look at natural history. I guess I just tick off that one. Though I was very impressed by a taxidermy box of 112 hummingbirds. So tiny and so iridescent. And the conservatory is a lovely building - apparently Horniman ordered it from a catalogue from a Glasgow company.

There are views of the city from the gardens.

Cycling is such a pleasant way to explore and to feed my addiction. 

London summer

Drinking outside

Go overboard with flowers

And enjoy a pint in the afternoon

London presents lots of opportunities to look around people's homes. The Leighton Museum  is the house that Frederic Leighton (1830-1896), artist, traveller and celebrity of the nineteenth century, built to house his art collection and his studio. He wanted to create a 'private palace of art', and now it is open for all.

Lord Leighton's journeys in the Middle East and northern Africa inspired both his own artwork and this magnificent home.


Complete with indoor fountain and soaring domed roof, the Arab Hall is a mixture of Islamic and Victorian architecture, decorated with Turkish, Moorish and Syrian tiles, screens, fabrics, ceramics and mosaics.

The rest of the house has been restored to show the original William Morris wallpapers and some of the original furniture. Photography is not allowed but please have a look at the virtual tour here - you'll see what a delight this house is.

'He built the house as it now stands for his own artistic delight. Every stone of it had been the object of his loving care. It was a joy to him until the moment when he lay down to die.'

Leighton’s sisters in a Letter to The Times, 26 January 1899

William Morris 'India' wallpaper,
in the bedroom

The garden at the back of the house is very simple, a peaceful spot in the middle of busy Kensington that has lots of potential. Reviews here.

London, summer of 2016

My house sit in London is in Herne Hill. Before I got here, all I knew about the south of London ended at Waterloo, Vauxhall and Clapham Junction. So riding from Paddington meant plenty of stops to look up the map. Also a hill - well the name is a bit of a giveaway regarding that one. I said I'd arrive at about 4.00 in the afternoon and there I was ringing the doorbell right on the dot of 4.00. I didn't even have to hide around the corner for 10 minutes, waiting. And who should open the door but Uncle Dennis from Auckland.

The house in Herne Hill belongs to my cousin Jeremy and his wife Suzanne. Jeremy is turning 50 and has weeks of celebrations planned starting with a yacht charter in Croatia. I'm looking after their lovely shy cat called Shaddo. Thankfully, unlike Jo in Bristol, she's not a talking cat and she doesn't feel the need to wake me at 5.30am every morning. The unsavoury parts of my role are much the same though. without going into detail both cats seem to have some digestion issues. But what a small price to pay, and in exchange I have a place to call home for a while, with access to fast wifi, a frig and a washing machine and a clean shower. I love all these luxuries but there are also the small pleasures of not repacking everything each morning and not having to put on damp clothes and having a bath mat and going to bed in the same place as I did the night before. Not having to blow up my camping pillow and not waking in the night wondering what country I'm in.

There's a train station just down the road. With my Oyster card there is a maximum spend of around seven quid per day, so in any one day it makes sense to use as many trains, tubes and buses as you can to get around the city. That's wet days sorted. Fine days I don my high-vis vest and take the bike out exploring.

Or just walk. Brixton is only 30 minutes away on foot, across Brockhurst Park. Far from being the domain of hoodies, dealers and dolies, Brixton has become a destination of choice for hipsters of all ages. The old street markets down Electric Lane, dotted with Caribbean shops, are still there; but there's also Brixton Village, undercover markets with every type of food you can think of, wine bars and vintage clothes and organics and candles and handmade arty crafty everythings. And there's Pop Brixton, an area made from containers with office spaces, food and retail outlets and event venues.

The idea is to support support local jobs, training and enterprise. Apparently the submissions to the Ambition document for public libraries in England didn't provide any clear strategies that would enable public libraries to generate income - but it strikes me the Pop Brixton model might give some clues for revitalising libraries as community hubs. Taskforce, take note. (Deliver: Ambition for Public Libraries in England 2016-2021)

Brixton's West Indian traders sell almost anything, from smudge sticks to giant African snails to pigs heads. You can also buy chilli-flavoured lemon curd, Portuguese grooming supplies, french knives, African fabrics, fair-trade asian baskets, British wine (moving right along!) and artisan breads -- over the years there has been a community backlash against the supermarket chains in the area. But who knew that Tesco was established by an Brixton barrow-boy?

It helps to have a bike to explore Hyde Park. On a sunny day the banks of the Serpentine are packed with groups of office workers gathered around cool boxes, couples lounging in deck chairs, mums and bubs, families with picnic rugs and where are my sunglasses? - youths with their shirts off playing cricket.  Others are out on the lake in pedal boats or swimming in the pool adjoining the lake.

Every year the Serpentine Gallery picks a star architect to design and build a summer pavilion. This year it is the work of young Danish architects BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group). Their description of it is 'like an unzipped wall'. There's a bar/cafe in the pavilion.


Hyde Park is just one of the eight Royal Parks. I rode through Bushy Park when I visited Hampton Court Palace. I rode alongside Green Park, the smallest (no cycling) on my way to Herne Hill from Paddington. Also Kensington Gardens. I have never visited Buckingham Palace though - should I do that while I'm here? let me know if you have you been - was it worth it?