Getting out and about

It's always the little things. Playing with Developing a thorough understanding of how to get the best out of all the functions of a smartphone (OK, trying to organise my music files, with the pretty album pictures, the way I want) turned out to mean hours of fiddling with metadata for a couple of thousand files: or more or less my job for the last ten years or so. So much for all the leisurely outings....

However, one warm and sunny day (remember them?), a quick flick through a book of walks brought something else to mind. These two slides were taken some time in early 1967, somewhere near the village of Ashwell in Hertfordshire, which I dimly remembered as rather picturesque, and here it was, mentioned in the guidebook.


What better incentive to go and see it again?

Barely an hour from London by train, and within five minutes of leaving the station, all that could be heard was the faint whine of planes going in and out of Stansted, and much more insistent bird song. Passing through prairies of wheat, there were skylarks trilling overhead, and moving along past the dog roses in the hedgerows, a pair of partridges flew out in opposite directions.



Up hill and down dale, and, fortunately just as lunch was required, the village church came into view across the fields:

It turned to be every bit as picturesque as memory said, with half-timbering, pargetting and cottage gardens straggling along the main street.


Click on the image to see when the pargetting was done

But, lest you should think the place was pickled in about 1954, the church was packed with excited children of all races rehearsing for a steel band concert.


The guidebook's route back to the station offered one last panoramic prospect of the village (click to enlarge this photo for the full effect):

13 bears, a big dog, a Vietnamese pig and a raccoon

Actually, I like tea

but I like this advert too:

Cheer up!

Smile for the camera, and you too could be one of the Happiest People Ever

Reading matters

On the tube this morning, my neighbours were reading

The Financial Times
The Racing Post
The Koran
A book on Victorian design
A 700-page novel in Lithuanian

I suppose it's a foretaste of the future that medical matters seem to be featuring more and more in my life. What with signing up to the Biobank and taking up the various check-ups the NHS is offering, I've seen more doctors and nurses in the last few months than in as many decades before.

Not that there's anything wrong. The tests and pills and reviews aren't to cure anything serious, but to stop me getting ill in the first place - a proper health service rather than a sickness service.

The latest development is the arrival of the discreet kit of low-tech cardboard and plastic for providing samples (by post) for the now regular bowel cancer screen.

It all makes a useful rehearsal for whenever decrepitude really strikes, getting into the groove, as it were.

You might even say, in the style of Mme Defarge, that I'm going through the motions.

More experiments with my new phone camera, on a bike ride into town, stopping off to have a wander round the Temple and a peek at Temple Church (mercifully free of D*n Br*wn addicts), and later at the quiet garden that was once St Dunstan's. Even allowing for my not quite mastering the brightness/exposure control, it's interesting how much difference there is on how the image renders on different screens. They nearly all needed a bit of adjustment not to look too washed out on a larger computer screen.

And the roses are starting to go over already [sigh].

Temple Church:





St Dunstan's (I've previously written a bit about it here):

Testing, testing

I missed the much blogged about absence of Blogger, being preoccupied with my shiny new toy, an Android smartphone. Having finally got to grips with getting it to do what I'd imagined I could do with it, it's time to see what else it can do.

Hence this post from the teeny-tiny touchpad, and, I hope, this random photo from its camera. It's a laborious procedure, but you have to marvel that it's possible at all, on something that fits into my wallet. And that it can store all my CDs on something smaller than a toenail....

Will it be ready?

Strange how not having to do anything in particular seems to remove any incentive to do the things you'd quite like to do. It's days since I went to have a look at the biggest and most complex project-with-a-deadline you could imagine - the London 2012 Olympic Park.

To get there from here on the bike involves the classic East End journey contrasting the old council estates (looking very workaday despite attempts to brighten them up) with the ever-present towers of Canary Wharf.

The route passes reminders of past upheavals in Poplar:


and, by chance, an ordinary-looking street-corner pub in Bow that you wouldn't think had a romantic legend attached, before turning semi-rural at Three Mills, where eighteenth-century entrepreneurs put the River Lea to work:

From there, it's a short ride up to the Greenway, whose name rather disguises the fact that its elevation depends on the great Victorian sewer underneath. I walked along here when I first came to the area, and then it was surrounded by small workshops, car breakers, scrap metal yards and the like. Now it runs straight through the Olympic building site, and alongside one edge of the park where it will all happen in just over a year.

There's a temporary viewing platform and café, with signboards to tell you what will be where, and how it's all going to work:



From this viewpoint, only some of the main features of this enormous site are visible, but everything seems to be well on track. The stadium has its seats in and the grass laid, the Orbit is rising fast, and in the distance the towers of the Olympic Village are looking reassuringly solid.



Passing along the Greenway, you can see how property developers have been getting in on the act, though these residents won't get much of a view of any action in the park:


And just to reassure the International Olympic Committee, old-established defence measures are still available to help ensure security:

Bluebell time

The bluebell season doesn't last long, so a chance remark about the display at Emmetts Garden was worth a try. Even on the way there, it was clear that local woodland and hedgerows were ideal habitats for some impressive spreads of these ephemeral flowers.

In the garden itself, there are some fine views, but at this time of year, the thing to see is the sweeping slopes of woodland which really are carpeted with bluebells, stretching into the distance till they look like a ground mist. It's hard to stop taking photos in the hope of getting that one perfect and complete image. In the end, only a video seems to give the full impression.

A grand day out

By tradition, a sunny Bank Holiday Monday more or less requires Londoners to go to the seaside - and the closest to hand is Brighton.

You can go for the over-the-top orientalist splendour of the Pavilion, or check out the antiques, arty and alternative shops and cafés in the Lanes, the Regency re-construction of the original fishing village

But for most people, Brighton is for fresh air and fun, preferably as vulgar, saucy and sometimes downright raucous as possible

If it' s still a bit early and breezy for the beach to be getting crowded,

and if strenuous exercise isn't your thing,

then the pier always offers something.

From the simple pleasure of getting yourself photographed in a comical pose or topical situation


you can stroll along the pier, taking in the views and peering between the decking, which is carefully spaced to let you experience the thrill of seeing the sea beneath your feet without any of the inconveniences of being on a boat.

And, of course, among the opportunities to relieve yourself of your money, there are food stalls and a fortune-teller (if you believe the signboard, even the biggest financial firms in London consult the tarot reader, which may explain a lot).

You can't come to the seaside without visiting the rock shop.

Your tooth-threatening souvenirs are available in all shapes and sizes, not just the familiar stick with name of the resort lettered all through, but also versions for your football team or for the recipient:

Amaze your loved ones with a novelty meal:


or amuse your more disreputable friends with something saucier:


With treats and souvenirs bought, there's still the amusement arcade and its "penny falls" machines, cranes that never pick up the cuddly toy, and shoot 'em up video games:

and right at the end of the pier, the funfair offers all the waltzers, dodgems, coconut shies, racing games, horror shows and thrill rides you could want:





But don't just take my word for it. Here's another view of a day out in Brighton: