Spit Bridge to Manly

Monday 25th January 2010. Kevin had the day off work. I hadn't suffered any jetlag. Time to go for a walk!

This was my 4th visit to Sydney (or 6th, depending on how you count it -- on two visits I've been on 3 or 4 day side-trips in the middle). But it was only the second time I was staying in a hotel, and the first time I've had to fend for myself. Most importantly, related to what I'm talkin' about 'ere, I had to get some public transport BY MYSELF like a BIG BRAVE BOY. Which wasn't something new, come to think of it; what's new was I was meeting me bro' somewhere I'd never been before, namely the Spit Bridge.

I needed a Diet Coke before the bus, so popped in a newsagent next to where they all start from. While I was in there someone appeared basically from nowhere, in a robe, and asked where the swimming pool is. Turns out there's an entrance directly into the shop from the hotel in the building next door. Freaked me out though.

Monday rush hour traffic in Sydney by the bus terminus is mental. Very unpleasant. But my bus was on time and got me to the Spit nice and quickly. There was nothing remotely difficult about getting off at the right place, and in fact I surprised Kevin by getting there so early. He was playing with AJ, but once I got there he got her sorted, shoved her in the backpack, and off we went.

Spit Bridge to Manly

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The Spit Bridge to Manly walkway is ace. My type of walk: a boardwalk, mostly signed, a feeling of being miles away from the city despite being in the centre of it, water, trees, wildlife, a half-decent climb, and it ends at a Bavarian pub next to a ferry port.

Not much to say about it that other sites can't say better. But I can show you a picture of an Eastern Water Dragon, one of the many that we spotted en route.

AJ was well behaved pretty much the whole way, as I recall. The climb around the head was a bit more than I expected, but that was a good thing. Part of the walk goes past a beach and park which Kevin and Sally had taken Ruth and I to, back in 2008, which was my first Golden Gaytime experience. Yum. But this time I just stuck with water.

The weather was pretty grey, which was actually perfect. It meant I didn't get any decent photos (wildlife notwithstanding), but it also meant I didn't get sunburnt or die of dehydration etc. By the time we finally reached Manly, me bro was more fucked than I was, blaming the fact that he'd carried a backpack with his daughter in it the whole way. I pointed out this only just about made him weigh the same as me, but he legitimately countered with the fact that he's not used to weighing that much. Bah.

I love the Bavarian Bier Cafe at Manly. I think I've been there on every trip to Sydney (when you count them as 4). This is at least in part due to the fact that the Manly Ferry is yet to get boring, what with it being a superb picturesque 30 minute boat ride in Sydney harbour with ace views of, um, everything, and it just being public transport. Nothing special about it. Manly itself is actually not part of Sydney, or something...I could look it up right now but can't be arsed, but my understanding is it's not a suburb like, say, Wimbledon, but actually a separate place like, um, I dunno. Woking? Except it's better than Woking, because it has a ferry and a huge beach on the Pacific Ocean and a Bavarian pub and no fucking pikey-ass Wetherspoons.

The first time I went there because "you've never been here before, the Manly Ferry is a box to tick and there's a Bavarian pub there". The second time was exactly the same reason, but aimed at Ruth instead of me (that was the best visit; there are photos of our crazy drinks and my bro attempting some kind of schnitzel challenge somewhere). The third time was because I wanted somewhere nice to have an angry drink by myself because I was hurting lots -- though the bar staff took my Oktoberfest 2002 t-shirt to mean that I was German and felt homesick. No, not German...

This visit was because we needed some calories after the walk. Of course there are abundant choices in Manly of places to sit and eat/drink, but I wanted to go here because it's a Bavarian pub for fucks sake. AJ was ... less well-behaved than she might have been, but not awful. Most thing stayed on the table most of the time. I showed off my fearsome beer knowledge by recommending we drink Stiegl (it is a great lager), and then we got the ferry back.

I don't recall what the rest of the day consisted of. I suspect I just sat in my hotel room dicking around on the internet, and then watched a load of tennis. Those things happened quite a lot o this holiday.

Friday the 13th and other random musings

As I started this post, it was almost 2am on Saturday 14th November and I was watching Friday 13th Part V: A New Beginning. It's the one after The Final Chapter, an episode so final that subsequently there have been 7 more (not including remakes, but including Freddy vs Jason). I have them all on DVD, and ever since completing the set I've wanted to have a fest of this sort, a back-to-back all-nighter of watching them, on an occurrence of the date. Today I finally took that ball and ran with it.

These are seriously low brow films. I struggle to think of films more formulaic. They take no brain power to watch. Actually, that may not be the case: if you let them, they occupy the brain when you try to figure out what on earth the comically bad endings to part 2 and 3 are all about. They distress the brain when each episode starts with a recap that's way way way too long. They leave you with enough capacity to spend an entire film thinking "fuck, where else have I seen that actor?" without losing track of the action. But mostly, from episodes 2 onwards, they make you -- that is to say, they make me -- laugh. I think they're fantastic. (Actually, such a broad statement isn't strictly true: episodes 1-4 are great, 5-8 considerably less so (though 6 is OK), 9-10 + Freddy vs Jason back on point)

Does anyone know where my Making Friday The 13th book is? I have a feeling it might be in my garage. It's certainly not in my bookshelf, or in my bedroom. Wherever it is, it's probably next to my copy of If Chins Could Kill. I really want to find them both...so I can lend them to others.

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Why can't I find any popular science books, or even introductory academic texts, on writing/script? Well -- actually -- I found one, the Oxford University Press Very Short Introduction To Writing And Script, but it was a huge disappointment. Mostly it was about various ancient scripts and when they were in use, when they dropped out of use, what they eventually morphed into, and how decipherment works. All very interesting to other people I'm sure, but not to me: what I'm really interested in is a history or explanation of, literally, why certain shapes came to represent certain sounds. Why individual scripts look like they do, in themselves and relative to one another. But I can't find anything like it. I've plenty of linguistics books about word meanings, about cultural differences in language, about language as an expression of thought (Pinker RULES), and about language development... but nothing about writing in the way I'm interested. Is it simply a case that we just don't know that kind of stuff about scripts?

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I walked 15.3 miles last Saturday.

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I'd never heard of wulffmorgenthaler.com two weeks ago. But in that time I've seen links to their strips from two different sources; one of them reckons this strip says something about me. Maybe it does, but worse than that is how much of a kicking today's XKCD gave me. Ouch. (If you're going to read more of this post, make sure you read that XKCD strip first)

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I've recently bought a parade of ever-fancier toys. Of most immediate relevance is that I upgraded my phone to the Android-powered HTC Hero, after years of being a Sony Ericsson fanboi. I have massively mixed feelings about it so far: there were loads of teething troubles getting it set up with contacts, getting it onto my wireless network at home, the alarm app is a load of shit (sometimes alarms don't go off, and when they do there's no snooze option), battery life is rubbish, ... but oh me oh my it's a fucking fancy shiny toy.

The Cowon S9 is a great mp3 player, I love the interface and the sound quality's superb, but I don't like how there's no way to record a log of what you've listened to and send it up to last.fm (who I continue to use massively, despite the bastards turning me down for a job in the summer ;-) ). Actually there may be a way if I use a more complex way of loading it up with music, but it's a load of hoop-jumping bullshit that I can't be fucked with.

The Squeezebox Radio is my best electronics purchase this year. The sound is amazing and I've loved the squeezebox server software for as long as I've known about it (which is over 2 years now). Access to all my music in my bedroom, when I fall asleep, when I wake up, when I have a lie-in, etc etc, with the most flexible yet simple to use interface I've ever seen, is just fantastic, something I've wanted for years. So in tandem with the ongoing project of re-encoding all my CDs, I now get to listen to them each morning and night, when previously I either couldn't, or had to do some kind of bullshit iTunes fakery and listen through laptop speakers. The Squeezebox Radio is nigh-on perfect.

I have flimsy justifications for getting these toys! Yay me!

• I have always adored music
• my last phone was horribly broken.

The truth is I already have 2 working mp3 players and one perfectly functional old phone, and could have got the broken one fixed. But until someone or something (preferably the former) comes along -- and I am trying to do my bit -- this pale facsimile of fulfillment will likely carry on.

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Since I'm turning this long, rambling post into something which approximates a week or so of tumblr.com-esque snippets, I might as well embed a few song videos. These are tunes I think are incredible, or getting there at least. There's no reason why anyone should agree with me, especially as I listen to an awful lot of music and sometimes have a pretty low quality threshold, but still...these are great songs, and not remotely extreme metal.

I fail at maps, directions, and signs

Golf course, originally uploaded by Darren Foreman.

It's true. After my mostly dismal attempt at walking the Thames Down Link the other week, today I tried to walk section 9 of the London Loop. This is, as the name suggests, a "circular" route through the outskirts of London, split into nice simple chunks. Section 9 is between Hatton Cross and Kingston Bridge, and although the recommended route is to walk it in that direction, I wanted to do the opposite, because I'd just seen Ruth off at Heathrow.

So, at 0630, I emerged from Hatton Cross station. I was better prepared than for the Thames Down Link, having done a bit of map reading but also, crucially, printed out the written directions from the official London Loop website. Granted, as said, they were for the reverse route, but surely all I need to do is swap my lefts and rights. Left?

It worked for a bit. I found some signs. They were useful. That was good. Less useful was the rain that started just as I turned off the A30, but in for a penny in for a pound.

I walked next to the River Crane. I followed the next signs. I crossed a road. I carried on next to the river. I went over a weir. I went over a bridge. I came out on a bit of Hounslow Golf Course ... and I was lost.

The instructions say -- "go straight across the golf course, over the bridge, and turn right". Well I'd just turned left, crossed a bridge, and emerged on the golf course, so I went straight across.

I FAIL, originally uploaded by Darren Foreman.

No path. Oh. I walked to the right, through a little clearing, then arriving on another hole. Still no path. I walked down the side of the fairway, near the river. No path. Between the fairway and the hole there was a little bridge and then a path. Over the bridge, along the path, up a hill/mound... no, this didn't match what the directions said at all.

Back to the hole, back to the river, no path. Back to where I emerged, facing it, trying to find a way of standing such that behind me was a path. Couldn't do it. Straight across? At which angle? None of them that I could tell. This charade took a good 30 minutes or so, in the pissing rain, and just annoyed me so much. Where were the signs? Where was the path? Why couldn't I find either? So I walked back down the aforementioned fairway, got to the mound again... and spotted a path next to it that I'd missed first time!

Not the right path. It just took me back out of the golf course onto Staines Road -- the road I'd crossed (correctly) back when I was still on course and hugging the River Crane.

On the road there was a knackers yard and some roadworks. Puddles and rain. Loads of traffic. Just horrible. I walked along it, determined to still walk even if I couldn't do it in somewhat nicer surroundings.

Turns out the directions mention that earlier in the route you cross Staines Road. Since earlier meant later for me, I did actually hold out some hope of rejoining the loop if I just persevered along the road.

At the time, there were two crucial things which I had no idea about -- but do now, having plotted the map of my route. First, my route out of the golf course had been a huge double back. The fact I'd crossed Staines Road earlier was a mystery -- it had just been "a road", and sufficiently further along to look very different. I'd lost my sense of direction, sort of.

Second, there are two Staines Roads around the area. I was on the wrong one.

I figured this out, actually, by the time I got to the outer limits of Hounslow town centre. Here I really thought about giving up properly and just jumping on a bus, but two things stopped me from doing that. I knew where I was (and thus which way to go), and the sun was coming out. The weather being as it was, I thought there was a good chance of a rainbow, and I wanted to photograph it.

No rainbow was forthcoming. Instead I just walked to Whitton, used the community toilet scheme, bought a diet coke, found a park with a "River Crane walk" in it and set off back along that damn fucking river -- though not before spending ~5 minutes staring at the map + information board trying desperately to figure out which way would take me toward Twickenham and which back toward Hatton Cross.

I picked right! But I still got really confused. In a day of pairs, I learnt two things about the River Crane walk. One: there are two routes along it, one "via River Crane" and one via something else. Huh? I don't get it. But anyway, two: the "via River Crane" route hardly sticks near the River Crane at all. I thought I'd been typical me and got lost when I didn't see the river for a while, and especially so when I suddenly found myself next to The Stoop and then in some residential roads. Much to my surprise I then saw a "River Crane Walk" sign on a corner...

... but I didn't care. Enough was enough. It was about 0930 now, I'd expected to be at Kingston or Kingstonabouts but I was just north of Twickenham station, opposite Heatham House, venue of -- perhaps -- Halibutt Sharon's finest ever gig (though the Marquee was pretty sweet too). In the spirit of my old band, then, I stood at a bus stop and waited for a bus. For about 2 minutes. And then I went home and made some pork.

Him outdoors

Found it again, finally
Originally uploaded by Darren Foreman.

I left the house today.

That shouldn't be worthy of a mention by and of itself, but unfortunately it is. Almost every weekend, and certainly those while Ruth's away, I spent almost the entire time in the house. Farting about on the internet, watching Sky Sports, or playing on the 360. And every time I do those things -- which I enjoy, don't get me wrong -- I chastise myself for wasting the plentiful opportunities Saturdays and Sundays afford me to get some exercise (because even more frequently than that, I chastise myself for being a fat fuck).

And so, today, after chatting with Ruth for a bit on Skype, I left the house and got some exercise. Specifically, I went out to give the Thames Down Link walk a bit of a go.

The route map, and other write-ups I've read, are all in the direction of Kingston to Box Hill. Muggins here knows better though, and decided to do it in reverse. I figured I didn't want to get to the end of the route a horrible sweaty mess and piss people off on the bus back, plus I coudn't really control what time I'd finish and didn't like the idea of waiting up to an hour for the bus home. So I got the bus there instead, "there" being Box Hill.

Plenty of other people had the same idea. It was a nice morning, after all. Though as it happens, despite my prediction only 2 other people got off at the same bus stop as me, one of them being the muttering drunk of indeterminate gender (by the end of the journey I was fairly sure it was a bloke).

That said, I got off one or two bus stops too late, right next to the biker pub at Box Hill. There were shitloads of bikers around, and I struggled to find the start of the route. I started off up the hill itself until I got about halfway and thought, hold on, this is really knackering and it might actually be too steep to come back down sensibly, unless someone rolls some cheese maybe. I descended gingerly and took out my two GPS phones to give them a run against each other. The Sony Ericsson c905 wouldn't even try to get a signal so it loses. The HTC TyTn II got a signal after a couple of minutes.

Into the biker pub car park. Which was the wrong way to go. So I crossed the road a 3rd time and consulted a map, which showed me where the start was: a bus stop's distance back towards Surbiton. Headed along the pavement to the junction where it was and realised my calves were hurting. Really hurting. Not good. I was really worried I'd fucked them by not really warming up, and heading half way up that hill a few minutes ago. But I also thought that they'd sort themselves out, and I persevered.

They killed for the next 40 minutes. I kept stopping to rub them, stretch them, rest them, try to make them stop hurting despite not really having a clue about how the body (especially mine) works. Oh dear. But, slowly, as the track levelled out and I adjusted my pace the pain went away and I started to feel decent: worked up a sweat, heart going a bit faster than normal, lungs nice and open, this was what I was after.

Most of the first 3 miles were uphill. I wasn't really prepared for that. I figured a route from a hill to a river would, well, be mostly downhill. Oh well.

I hadn't taken a map with me, because I don't own one nor a printer, and because everything I'd read said it would be well signposted. And so it was, for a while, until I got to Ashtead. The path became a pavement along a road full of really really posh houses, but then the signs disappeared. There were 2 bridleways, the signpost for one had a Thames Down Link sign pointing back the way I came, but there was nowt around showing me the way to go. Bollocks.

Thankfully I was near Ashtead town centre, which I know my way around. and I'd remembered that the route goes through Ashtead Common, in which I went the wrong way. Big style. There are loads of paths, I didn't find one displaying the logo, and I failed to follow the one I'd meant to stick to anyway. Unexpectedly, I emerged on the A243 to Malden Rushett. The 465 route. I was expecting to be in the Epsom/Ewell borders, near the entrance to Horton Country Park. Sigh.

This is where the walk stopped being fun really. Not that it matters too much -- I was out to get exercise for exercise's sake, not to see anywhere or anything special, but still...once I made my way back onto the route -- about an hour later, FFHS -- there were plenty of signs. About every 25 yards for a while, in a place where you really don't actually need them because there's not much choice. Thanks for that. Then, when I reached the loos and information centre I found (and photographed!) a big sign about the very walk I was doing, complete with YOU ARE HERE market and a route map.

As soon as I turned away from that sign, I went the wrong way. Spent the next half hour or more strolling along roads and around pavements. I suck SO MUCH at using maps. I did eventually find my way back into the park, but still no signs, and wandered along paths I thought were in the right direction. Once again I emerged nowhere near where I wanted to be. And that was it: time to do a Paula Radcliffe.

blimey, a walk

After getting a prod on twitter I managed to do today what I've failed to do so many times this year, and drag my sorry carcass away from the TV/xbox/laptop on a Sunday to go for a walk. Turned out to be a very good idea 'n all, for a number of reasons.

Not that I hadn't spent a bunch of time in front of the TV, xbox, and laptop this morning anyway. Got up with a vaguely woolly head and did a bit of coding unrelated to work, a habit I've surprisingly fallen back into after a 4+ year hiatus. More of that later, possibly; I'm undecided whether to ever launch or publish anything, the main motivation is just to learn how to do python well so I can do my job better.

Aaaaanyway. Coding on hold I put the xbox on to play Death Magnetic a bit more (what an album!) but left meself on Yahoo! Messenger so I could chat to the still-in-Pakistan missus when she popped up. Pop up she did, apparently with a very bad hangover, and she soon went back to bed after not much more than a quick hello. After that the twitter prod happened so I showered, sorted my GPS and camera (k850 in flight mode! hah) out, put a spare shirt in me bag and buggered off towards the Thames, destination Richmond.

I didn't go to Richmond. I did this:

Surbiton, Kingston, Home Park, Thames Ditton at EveryTrail

Map created by EveryTrail:GPS Geotagging

Hmm. That's not a bad embeddable widget (the other one everytrail do is worse). Anyway, I took the familiar route from home to Kingston Bridge, which on a day like today always reminds me, as if I need reminding, why I love living here. It's just such a nice view and walk. But I wasn't really hanging around to savour it, this was a very workmanlike trip, done to take advantage of the nice weather as an opportunity to do something vaguely healthy. I had my mp3 player on very loud, a bag on my back to both make sure my posture was OK and to provide some extra weight (the dual aim being to get some upper body benefit as well as lower body, and to just generally use up a few more calories than normal), and I was keeping up a pace that meant after just a mile or so I could feel me shins saying hello.

Mind you, it would have been really stupid to be out and not take any photos at all. I took some duplicates (ie, I've done this bit quite a lot) around the river and at Kingston Bridge -- including a pretty poor panoramic effort -- before diverting off a familiar track and into Home Park (which seems to also be called Hampton Court Park).

Oh, wait, I already skipped over the whole didn't-go-to-Richmond thing. Yeah. I got to Kingston Bridge and decided it was a daft idea. For one, I don't actually like Richmond. I do like locks, which means Teddington Lock would have been good, but I fairly recently walked with Ruth to Richmond Park which involved trekking as far as Ham along the river. But even with the spare shirt (designed to change into at my destination, out of the super-sweaty one I'd be in at that point) I didn't relish the idea of finishing up that far away and having to get a couple of buses back. Also I was sort of time-bound, in that I wanted to get back in time for QPR vs Southampton (4-1! Come on!) on the box at 4pm. So, all those factors combined to make me decided on a new route: from Kingston bridge, back on the other side to Hampton Court and then a train to Surbiton and home.

Turns out I went to Richmond, though, sort of. On the north side of Kingston Bridge there's a sign saying "Welcome to Richmond Upon Thames". Sure, it's only the borough, but, meh... along the river towards Hampton Court I spotted a sign which piqued my interest (the royals are going to kill a bunch of animals), discovering in the process of photographing it that I was next to a gate into Home Park that I hadn't previously known about. I knew there was a golf course there, and that in that area there was also a park, but I didn't know there were a few public entrances. Having stumbled upon that one I diverted my route.

Christ, was I ever glad I did. Not that I don't like walking that stretch of the Thames, but I've done it a few times and new things are always better than old. Better still, there were mushrooms and deer! The 'shrooms were pretty cool, but the deer took me by surprise, almost literally. I first spotted a few wandering around the car park of Hampton Court golf course, and then there were 3 just sitting on either side of the path I was walking along. Being a huge wouss I avoided walking between them, but did use poor digital zoom to get a snap of them once I was a safe distance beyond.

Home Park does actually seem to mostly be a golf course. It's quite boring. Oh, but before the deer I had gone past a lake where loads of blokes were, I think, racing radio controlled yachts. They were certainly using them, and a little portable tannoy thing was counting down 60 seconds until the start of something. I didn't hang around to see what it was.

Jubilee Gate was quite useful because it gave me a you-are-here moment, and showed me I was on the right path to one of the exit/entrances which is right near Hampton Court -- and that I could still avoid walking alongside the river. After crossing a couple of fairways I headed up a big corridor of trees towards a fairly majestic gate with the palace behind it. The gate was shut. It's shut from April 1st to the end of September. Toss. But it said I could go to ... Jubilee Gate, and walk along the river, to get to the Palace. Ah well. I hadn't actually expected to find a gate directly into the Palace gardens there, and am glad I haven't been there by myself since Ruth wants to take me there anyway. But it did annoy me that I had to backtrack.

If any of the above is interesting that's quite a surprise, and it's also quite sad, because that's about it. The rest of the walk was, obviously, along the river to Hampton Court bridge, then an ice cream before changing my mind (again) about the train and treading the roads through Thames Ditton and back home. Really nothing special, and that's why the pictures end as well. Still, 9.2 miles at 3.4 miles an hour is decent, in fact my brother had suggested I try to do a round 10 miles in 3 hours and that's the pace I managed, if not quite the distance.

Back home in plenty of time for the game. Got a call from Ruth telling me it wasn't and isn't a hangover; she's proper ill. :-(

turn that wine back into water

Ballater from on-high
Originally uploaded by Darren Foreman.

We checked into our B&B properly after lunch, a bit surprised to find we essentially had an entire wing to ourselves. Certainly an entire floor, they said "your room is upstairs" and it, our toilet, and our shower room, were the only things that were. And after tourist information had asked for a double room, which by the sounds of the phone call was likely to be a twin room turned into a double, the presence of a bunk bed was an eyebrow-raiser.

Thankfully there was a double bed as well. The bedroom was the full depth of building, giving us a view above the caravan park to the hills beyond at one end, and to Craigendarroch over the local housing at the other. The latter window was slightly worrying as it had no curtains, yet also the most scope for being spied on(!)

Also worrying, to us big city types surrounded on a daily basis by the scrotes of Broken Britain, was the knowledge that the front door was never locked and being asked if we wanted a key to our room. Such things are apparently not required in sleepy Ballater, and we felt almost guilty for saying we would like one. It reminded me of my bag quandary in Auckland the other year.

Anyway, the weather was gorgeous and the day was still young. On came the walking boots, out came the GPS and camera, and off we went. In Ballater tourist information we'd snagged a leaflet of local walks and decided to combine two of them: first walk along the river Dee until it met the one which went up Craigendarroch, the big fucking hill. So we started out through the caravan park, past the golf course, through a car park, and up to a church. Except it wasn't a church, it was an ex-church that's now a "restaurant with rooms" called The Auld Kirk.

At this point we actually had no accomodation for the following night (Tuesday). When booking in Aberdeen we'd deliberately given ourself an extra bit of freedom, although I'd tried pretty hard to convince Ruth that staying 2 nights in the same place would give us freedom, as we wouldn't have to check out and find somewhere that day. And I'd succeeded :-) but this place tested that, because it looked like a fucking cool place to stay. But we didn't, deciding instead to explicitly look in advance for opportunities to stay in a converted church on some future holiday.

The Auld Kirk was also the place where the two walking routes joined, so we left the first and joined the second. The trek up the hill is graded DIFFICULT but unlike another one of the same grade, it did not (apparently) require a high level of fitness or proper hill walking equipment. Good job, as I have neither.

Not really sure how far up we were when we turned back. It wasn't all the way, and from some angles it looked quite near the top... but from others it didn't at all. Either way it was a decent walk, got the heart going and the sweat beading, and was exactly the sort of things we'd had in mind for this holiday.

The Auld Kirk
Originally uploaded by Darren Foreman.

We headed back down the hill -- and it was probably a good idea we'd given up, as it started to rain. The descent would have been a bit more slippery and dangerous if we'd not. Back to the Auld Kirk where we waited for about 2 minutes for a waitress to come out, then we gave up and went to a pub in the centre instead. Beer and quiz/bingo machine session later we went back to the B&B. We ran into the landlord who was so happy about our request to stay a second night he did a little dance(!), and he'd just sorted out a curtain on the rear window too. Mint. In the room we happened to catch a good BBC show about learning magic tricks and stuff. Can't remember what it was called or I'd use the name and link to it.

It was only about 6pm. It would have been a shame to waste the great weather and countryside, so we actually went out for another walk. Cambus O'May had been on a signpost in a picture in the Aberdeenshire brochure we'd gone through back in the Aberdeen hotel, partially responsible for convincing us we could head inland for a better time. It's a few kilometres from Ballater along a walking track which traces the old train line, and it was that we headed along, finding its start point after a wander through the local housing estate.

Ice cream van music still in our ears, we wandered for a while, stopping at one point for a chat with a local dog owner whose Collie dog apparently loved rounding up sheep... just so long as it was on its own terms. It hated being told what to do. Daft thing, does it think it's a cat or summat? ;-)

We didn't bother going all the way to CoM though. It was getting nippy, we were getting hungry; we got as far as a decent view of a little castle-turret shaped house and turned back.

This whole Deeside area had done a very good job of reminding me of Tasmania, but I couldn't quite figure out why. It hit me on the way back into Ballater that the reason was fucking obvious: probably more than half of the towns and villages in the state were essentially Scottish, built on very similar lines in very similar countryside. A further similarity was soon evident as we struggled to find somewhere to eat. It was a Monday, and most of the restaurants were fucking shut.

In the end we had a meal in another hotel, which was piping through a fucking terrible local line-dancing AM radio station which interspersed the songs with ads the likes of which I thought had died out in the 80s. The best song by far was Turn The Wine Back Into Water, a Christian country lament from a guy imploring that God sorts out his addiction to grog. Nothing like taking responsibilty for your own actions, eh. I've since discovered, in the course of writing this, that it's by a bloke called T Graham Brown. Now that's a website.

Despite the awful music and terrible decor, the food and service weren't that bad really. Shame we had to tell about 4 different members of staff that no, we weren't staying there (and we never will!).

On Tuesday we were going to do one of the things you pretty much have to do, given how many there are in the local area: go see a castle.

couple of walks

We've done two walks here so far:

Bondi beach
Nielsen Park

Can't tot up the distance properly because I've failed to get the GPS working, and because on the second one everytrail.com seems to think it was only a mile long. I reckon it was about 3. In fact fuck it, let's assume roughly 7 miles, roughly 2 miles for the walk into Kingston recently, cheat a bit by rounding up and make the running total 40 miles.

Weather in Sydney seems better today so we might get some more done, maybe even the harbour bridge!

Walton wander

For the first time in over a month we actually went out for a walk... met up with Ed and Monica for the first time in ages on Saturday. It was meant to be a nice long wander and we decided to start from the Anglers at Walton on Thames, to walk along the Thames Path for a bit. I'd mis-remembered, thinking it was where we finished last time when it was in fact where we'd started. In the end it didn't matter because we didn't do very much at all; by the time we'd all got to the river it was tipping it down with rain, and instead of walking we went for a pub lunch. Once the food was finished it was dry out so we headed towards Sunbury Lock, but turned back when we reached The Weir pub because time was running short.

Total including car park to river to car park: 3.7 miles. Running total for the year: 30.4 miles. Number of days of the year to day: 77.

Oops.

Thursday the 14th

Just walked from my dad's place to mine using a shortcut I'd always suspected existed but only got confirmation of the other week when me brother was here. Doesn't chop off too much of the distance, especially when I got a bit lost (and walked too far in Berrylands too) but makes the whole route much nicer by cutting out Grand Drive and West Barnes Lane.

Blimey. I've walked 27.1 miles in the last 6 days inclusive. Shame I'm still over 17 stone, sigh.

I walk alone

Doesn't count towards the resolution, but I've knocked up an extra 12 miles solo over the past 24 hours walking to Ruth's and halfway back

Gomshall to Guildford

A proper length walk today, 9.5 miles from Gomshall to Guildford. Photos here. There's 51 photos out of 66 uploaded at the time of writing. Particularly nice one of a big cock. No GPS track because it broke. I should have used the everytrail app even though it won't upload properly, at least it records. Oh well. I also really can't be arsed trying to draw it on everytrail or gmap-pedometer or runningmap or anywhere else, it's a proper pain in the arse especially when most of it isn't on roads, so find it out for yourself...

... because it's route number 14 in the TimeOut book of Country Walks, volume 1, and briefly described at that book's website. Book says 9.2 miles but a brief mishap just after the recommended pub lunch means I'm adding on a bonus 0.3. Lots of the walk is beautiful (especially in today's weather), but a bunch of it is fairly boring too, and the mud sucks. Recommended overall though. So that's 26.7 miles now.

hospice to register office

7th Feb 2008, 2.3 miles from the hospice to the register office yesterday, picking up paperwork at the former and taking it to the latter. Running (well, walking) total now 17.2 miles.

Also, big up BA for rearranging me brother's flights home to get him back to Sydney 4 hours and 1 flight quicker than he was booked on.

Bit of a wander around Nonsuch Park

1.8 miles around Nonsuch park on Sat during a break from hospice vigil. Lots of dogs. Red Setters are cool, but Bearded Collies win. 15 miles in 35 days (not doing any today).

surbiton to hampton court to kingston

Did this yesterday (with a sunday roast + mascarpone cheesecake w/blueberries in the middle):

Surbiton to Hampton Court to Kingston, 7 miles.

Now, I know it claims 6.6 miles, but I'm claiming 7 because the first section (recorded by GPS) was 3.3 miles whereas the second section I clicked in. It (the second bit) is inaccurate because I was lazy, and moreover there's a sign at the bridge at Hampton Court which says Kingston Bridge is 3.5 miles away. Add getting to the bridge from the pub at that end, plus crossing the bridge and walking to the bus stop at the other end, and I'm saying the 3.3 for that segment was more like 3.7. Handily enough that also means we walked a nice round 7 miles. So: 13.2 miles by the end of the 20th.

World of walkcraft

That's a shit title for a blog entry, but no-one's reading anyway so I don't care.

I've made a new year's resolution to walk at least a mile a day -- on average. And what's more, it doesn't count if I walk by myself: I made Ruth agree that it's a co-resolution. Hah! We don't have to walk every day, but I want us to have walked at least 366 miles by 2009. To this end I'm recording each walk we do on everytrail.com (because, when I remember, I can use one of my GPSes and let it do the hard work for me) and adding them up.

I thought I'd use my blog to note down my progress mostly because I think they're both things I will soon get very bored of and stop bothering with. But anyway, progress to date:

1. London's South Bank, 3.3 miles
   
2. Ruth's to me dad's, 2.9 miles
   

So, 7 days in and we're at 6.2 miles. Behind schedule already! Heh.

Walked 10 miles today. Clicking on "small" next to where it says "Elevation" is quite interesting. Richmond Park seems nice -- I've never really explored it before, and didn't do much today, so that gives me something to do sometime. Who has sovereignty over postcodes? There are road signs on Kingston Vale and the roads coming off it that say Royal Borough of Kingston at the top left, and SW15 at the bottom. I kind of thought the borough border would also be the postcode border.

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Got my name read out on XFM finally yesterday, on about the 5th attempt I guess. Can't even remember who the DJ was but it was a guy in the morning asking for hangover cures. Darren in Surbiton recommends a Lucozade Hydroactive and a packet of crisps, which rarely fails but if it does, a Guinness fixes everything. Natasha on 6music read me out again 'n all, even though I emailed in during a section of the show where she hadn't been inviting contact (I said the new Fall Out Boy single, played in Emo Corner, sounded like Christina Aguilera; she, her producer, and another listener thought it was more like N*Sync).

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I hate football commentators. They're nearly all shit except for Andy Gray and Martin Tyler. Alan Smith just said "this is probably the pick of the bunch without doubt". Is that probably, or without doubt, Alan? You fucking idiot. David Pleat once said "I like this lad, he's got plenty of that side-to-side width". Not that top-to-bottom width then Dave? Can't remember who it was that said "alarm bells are flashing" the other week. Chris Kamara made 90 minutes worth of howlers during a play-off final the other year which everyone I was with kept picking up on and getting infuriated by. During Cardiff -vs- QPR a while ago they might as well hae been watching a different game such was their interpretation of how the game was panning out. Etc. In fact now the guy who isn't Alan Smith just said "Is it my memory playing tricks or how many great goals have we had this season?". What the fuck does that mean?

The number of the beast

I was going to go for a 15, 20, even 25 mile walk yesterday. I didn't. Managed the just-under-6-miles from home to me Dad's place though, good preparation for Christmas that. I just couldn't be arsed leaving the house any earlier than 3pm, despite getting up plenty early enough for a long 'un. I just lazed around watching football on TV instead. Ho hum.

Got on the radio again this morning. 6music once more, this time for bigging up Mysterious Cities of Gold's theme tune.

Left the house at 0945 today to walk to Chessington, but gave up halfway and got on a bus. The reason I was heading that way is 'cos I'd agreed last night to join Loz and Freya on their trip to the zoo.

I love zoos. They're great. If memory serves correctly I've been to zoos in Paris, Cologne, Berlin, New York, Singapore, Sydney, and now Chessington. Actually that doesn't sound like enough, but maybe it is. Anyway. Chessington's is perhaps somewhat less splendid than the others but heading there on what turned into a fairly grey and very cold English December day was a great idea. I love visiting summery places out of season. Spending a few days on the Isle of Wight in November 2003 was a superb case in point. There's something about the bleak desolation, exacerbated by the weather, of a half-closed, almost-deserted tourist attraction which really appeals to me; Chessington Zoo today provided just that. The bleakness was even compounded by the horrid building site of the 150 room hotel being built on the premises. Ace.

The animals help too, mind. There aren't masses of 'em but they've got spider monkeys and rabbits and alpaca and gorillas and lions and tigers and stuff, innit. I do think it's a genuine shame, rather than just something to take the piss out of, when something so obviously educational is let down by bad English though. Like, say, on a sign explaining stuff about the Grey Owl where, highlighted as one of the things to remember, is a mis-spelling of the word "Arctic". Artic indeed :-(

Hung out at Loz's for a while after the zoo, getting a couple of films he illegaled for me last night in the process, then decided to walk home. The "walking as a form of transport" route is just over 3 miles, but is a pretty horrible walk through shitholes and along very big roads; but the "I've got nothing worthwhile to do with my time" route I managed to concoct was 6.5 miles, and thoroughly pleasant. Well, not thoroughly, but perhaps 85% so. Deliberately walked faster than normal, partly to see what speed I could keep up and partly 'cos I was fairly keen on the idea of watching Chelsea -vs- Arsenal, think I kept a steady 4.3mph. Not bad I suppose.

What on earth am I walking about?

The apocalypse hit yesterday. About 10 minutes after I left my Dad's place in Morden the skies opened and fuck me did it tip it down. Shame really 'cos I was going to go for a walk. Mind you I did anyway, just not a really long one. Jumped on a tube to get somewhere dry and got off at London Bridge, from where a slow-ish trot was taken along the south of the Thames to Waterloo Bridge, then along the Strand at Aldwych, Fleet Street -- complete with diversion to Dr Johnson's House -- to Ludgate circus, then back across the Thames at Blackfriars Bridge and back to London Bridge. Even in the variably cold and wet weather London's skyline is amazing. I should go up town on my days off/weekends more often. Maybe.

Where shall I go?

That's about 3.5 miles all told, I think. Just under a quarter of the distance I did today. *cough* Didn't have a plan, I didn't even decide which direction to turn at the end of my road until I got there. I chose left. The first few miles were pretty boring, but then they would be I guess. Same as a lot of walks. Variation only comes in when uncharted territory is reached, which started today with the footpath linking the A3 and Woodies. Quite useful that. From there it was a trip along South Lane, then under the A3 and onto ... South Lane. Odd road. That ends up in what I thought was Motspur Park, but now know is Old Malden.

Heading there had sort of forced my hand into a Worcester Park/North Cheam route, thoughts of Nonsuch Park entering my mind. But some really old signs pointed in one direction to Surbiton, Epsom and Ewell, and I thought one of the latter two would be a nice trip.

It's on that road, Church Road, that the border between Kingston (a Royal and London borough) and Surrey is. But for crying out loud, we're still in outer London. North of the big road the 406 and 418 go along. Yes, it's deep south, but not out in the sticks. Those are the thoughts I was occupied with as I stumbled along the edges of a pavementless tree-lined road with no mirrors on the blind corners and muddy puddles all over the place. Grr! It wasn't the longest road in the world but still, I was expecting to end up in Stoneleigh really.

That road doesn't end up in Stoneleigh. It ends up on that road where the buses go, but I turned off it before then. I was in a really residential area I didn't recognise, and frankly with the turns Church Road had taken I wasn't quite sure what direction was right. But a footpath through a park is always right, and that was the choice I took. Auroli park had a map of Epsom and Ewell's other parks too... and I couldn't see Nonsuch Park. That put paid to that plan for good. And in fact the map wasn't right useful really, 'cos it had no roads in it, just council wards and parks. Not to worry, the road the exit I chose came out on looked big enough so I headed along that and hey presto, I knew where I was again. On that big road.

From that big road I knew where I was going. There's something to be said for that, but it's also a bit boring. Nonetheless I picked the 406 route to Ewell, which ended up being a good choice 'cos I got to see a lot of cool autumn colours and stuff at the river/pond in the village. And it's at Ewell Village that I took my next random choice, not really knowing where I was going and relying again on signs... until picking a random footpath just because it was called Mongers Lane. Heh. Carried up on that until again I was in known territory and I followed the main road to Epsom town centre.

I don't like Epsom. There are a couple of OK pubs but a lot of bad ones, including an enormous Wetherspoons with expansive and astonishing toilets. Besides, I was only 8 miles in and it was only 1pm. But I didn't really know where to go. I thought about walking to Epsom racecourse, and Tattenham Corner, but couldn't remember how to get to the path that goes that way, so instead I thought I'd walk to Ashtead, and/or perhaps Leatherhead.

The problem with walking to Ashtead was that I didn't know the way there either. I took a guess at the bottom of Epsom High Street, went up West Hill, and came across a sign to Ashtead. Hurrah! Got a little bit lost in some residential roads, then found the train line which had a footpath going down the side of it. Instead of that though I crossed the bridge and got lost again in some more residential roads. About 2 seconds after telling Chris how lost I was in a text message I spotted a big road and went to explore. Turned left until about 10 yards later I looked back and saw the sign said Ashtead was in the opposite direction, oops.

The road I now found myself on was the A24. It's a big road that goes all the way to Morden and beyond, northbound. In my head the southbound route turns into Ashtead high street. It doesn't. A while down it there was a sign about Ashtead Common, one entrance of which I found myself at, and the right-hand turn had two little gate things flanking it saying "welcome to Ashtead". The high street was that way, I figured, so along I went. For ages. Until I got to some shops I didn't recognise (despite having been to Ashtead before) and the station.

Fuck it. I'd done enough walking. Time to get a train back. Oh, damn it, there goes a train. Shit. And it's a Sunday so there'll not be another one for ages. But what's this? A big common with a map on a sign and some clearly marked footpaths? Don't mind if I do!

This morning, on IRC, Chris and I had had this exchange:

* dsf doesn't really care if it rains
<chris> you might if it really fucks it down and you are miles from shelter!
-me <dsf> yeah but that's unlikely
-me <dsf> i've not walked over fields and shit yet
* dsf has stuck to easy to escape from routes
* chris nods
-me <dsf> and given recent weather, if i do go out i'm sticking to Concrete

It barely rained all day until I was in the middle of either Ashtead or Epsom Common (they kinda merge). With no shelter to talk of. I got fucking soaked. Damn stormbringer that I am. Unfortunately I couldn't tell Chris this because for the past 45 minutes, and for the next 45, my phone said "inactive SIM" on it. I had no coverage. Stupid Orange. I get that at home sometimes too. Orange's north Surrey coverage is fucking awful.

Anyway. The clearly marked paths aren't massively clear. Well I guess they're clear enough, but they're numbered, and I didn't know what number meant what. I'd already had to make a random choice at the start when confronted with a fork, then I diverted onto a different one that looked less muddy, and then at a crossing I changed direction. I thought I was roughly going the right way until I reached the edge of the common and it wasn't a road, but some fields. Erk. Thankfully another path went along the edge, I carried on along that and just basically kept walking. Eventually I came across some other people (which meant my singing along with XFM had to be calmed), a clearing, a pond with some people fishing, a car park, and a road. I had escaped the common.

XFM interlude. I think I do like it, really. Perhaps the variation on Sunday is just enough for it to not piss me off, 'cos I still heard most of the songs Laverne plays every morning but since I was listening to it for 5 hours in total that's not too bad. And I do like that Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. song. I was going to call this blog entry "Get Shoes. Wear Shoes. Walk", or "Walk Of The Worlds", in its honour. But I didn't. Nor did I call it "Nice walk if you can get it", that'll have to wait for another time.

So. I'd not come out of Epsom Common at the corner I'd expected. I didn't really know where I was, just traipsing along an unknown road with nothing but common and fields next to it. Grr. But there was a roundabout sign up ahead and with roundabouts come road signs. Aha! Epsom! Actually it was a roundabout I'd been to before, near the edge of Horton Country Park and on the road towards Chessington. Didn't want to walk through HCP though and couldn't remember the roads, so Epsom it was. The route ended up actually taking me back down West Hill, the road I'd taken out of Epsom on the way out.

In the town centre I thought I'd get a bus back to Surbiton, but after getting some drinks I checked and there was no service for a while. So I walked to Ewell, a slightly different route (guided by cycle signs) which took me through an industrial park. Doesn't sound too pleasant but it meant I got to do one of my favourite things: happen across a great sunset. Love it. And my timing was perfect for the bus too, as I'd picked a walk that got me to the stop just as the bus was timetabled to arrive.

So here's the full route, 15.6 miles. Bloody hell. What a way to spend a Sunday. And I even got back in time for Man Utd vs Chelsea on the box.

All the way home

Good entry this one. Boring, no photos, and loads of text. You lucky lucky people.

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So, last night: with music to my ears (albeit with broken headphones, FFHS) and nothing to do, plus a weather forecast saying it was the only evening this week without rain, I walked home. All the bloody way. 12.6 miles.

See yell.com has a walking route calculator thing. You can shove in a couple of postcodes and say you want to walk rather than drive, and instead of the perhaps more sensible response of "how far?!? fuck off!" it actually tells you the route. I thought from the office to home was 18 or so miles but it turned out to be just over 12. I had a bit of a fight using gmap-pedometer 'cos I didn't trust the route yell gave me to be the shortest, turns out it pretty much is though. How dare it know better than me, bah! But still I failed to follow it exactly, through a combination of pig-headedness, road/area preference, and forgetfulness.

First things first, office to Piccadilly Circus. Small distance, horrid walk at 6pm. Too many people around. Just nasty as hell. As soon as I got onto Piccadilly itself though it got better, presumably because people are scared of getting poisoned through being in close proximity to that sushi restaurant where the Russian spy got fucked over the other week.

First deviation from yell's route came at the end of Piccadilly. I didn't want to walk along Knightsbridge, plus I still wasn't convinced it was the shortest route. Instead I wanted to head through Belgravia towards Sloane Square and get on the King's Road at source. I managed the last bit but not without getting a little lost inside Belgravia, ending up on Sloane Street which was rather surprising. Turned out it wasn't a massive diversion though.

The King's Road, and New King's Road, is bloody long. It also fluctuates greatly between posh and lovely and grim and nasty. At one end there's Sloane Square and Peter Jones and a bunch of mews, in the middle there's a knife amnesty bin next to Tesco, ... I love London. I love the way the whole place is a mixture of ace and grim separated by pretty much fuck all. Pick the wrong direction from any given place and you can be somewhere shitty inside 5 minutes. Start somewhere shitty and walk for 5 minutes and you'll find tree-lined roads or a nice park or a river or little square or whatever.

Anyway. At the end of the New King's Road is Putney Bridge, and just as I was walking down the side of the station I got a call from the Frankenkarma's creator. Not sure what he was most interested in checking up on, my progress or his baby's ;-) I was doing better than it was... not 'cos it was broken though, only because the battery had run out and my headphones were fucked. Mind you this had made answering the phone a lot easier 'cos I was listening to XFM on it, playing the same old fucking shit AGAIN.

Putney's where the walk gets rubbish. I really like the centre of town, Belgravia, the King's Road, even the New King's Road in a way, certainly from Parson's Green to the bridge, and I don't mind Putney High Street (which was the scene of my first calorie stop; prawn mayo sarnie, sausage roll and a diet coke please mate ). But from there on...

As it goes the aforementioned had predicted I'd give up on the trawl up Putney Hill, not necessarily through fatigue but because it's a shit walk. He's right 'n all. Walking along the A3 through Roehampton Vale isn't my idea of fun and isn't something I'll be doing again in a hurry. In fact the nasty stretch was a good 4 miles all told. Bah! How disappointing that the entire route home isn't glorious.

Oh yeah. On the A3 there was a road sign saying "Kingston 4". About a mile later there was one saying "Kingston 3". And about a mile later, at the foot of Kingston Hill (where I was coming off the A3) there was a pedestrian/cyclist sign saying "Kingston 4". FUCKERS.

Kingston Hill is long. Not that steep, but fucking long. It never feels that long on an 85 or K3 but that's probably because they're going along at 40mph or so. As I walked I kept thinking, I know this bit, the crest is soon.. and it never was. Well obviously it was, after a while, but a lot longer of a while than it was meant to be. But it was informative, in so far as I'd never realised before just where the border between SW and KT was -- and I'd never have placed it halfway up the hill near the Uni.

Kingston Hill is something else too: very very boring. But I had Radio 1 on 'cos XFM was just pissing me off way way way too much, and they were playing a variety of stuff most of which I'd never heard of. Hurrah! And then along came Tim Westwood too! Hurrah!

Trouble set in near the tail end of Kingston Hill. By the time I'd reached the top I was knackered by the climb but determined to carry on, but as soon as the descent kicked in my mind wandered toward the possibility of jumping on a bus. There were Surbiton buses now, see. I could just get a K3 home. At Norbiton I could get a K1 or K2 also. And if I went into Kingston town centre I had even more choices... in the end the only thing that happened in Norbiton was I stopped for more liquids. Lucozade hydro-active FTW!

As it turns out Kingston was the scene of my second yell deviation. Not through choice this time, I thought I'd remembered the route properly but after checking it this morning I hadn't. But even given that, and my earlier Belgravia shenanigans, the full route was only 0.4 miles longer. Stepped in the door dead on 2130 which meant I'd taken exactly 3.5 hours. That means I averaged 3.6mph, about 0.6mph faster than normal but with liberal adjustments for calorie stops, hills, and traffic/road crossing (virtually none of which were present on any of the river walks) I reckon I must have walked at 4mph pretty much the whole way. Go me! And stuff!

Anyway, that's that then. I can walk home on a weeknight and feel virtually no ill-effects the next morning. My feet are a tiny bit sore but my legs aren't. Not that I plan to do it regularly mind, but it's nice to know it's possible. It'll do as a contingency plan for next time the trains get proper fucked up ;-)

Thine ears bleed

Went to the Peel last night and saw 5 bands: Necro Ritual, Desolation, Amphitrium, Handful Of Hate, and Abgott. Got there early 'cos we'd wanted to see NR, and they were really very good. Again. And this time you could even make out the music 'cos the sound wasn't awful. Desolation are a waste of a good band name and a bit anachronistic, not really being black or death metal, or much cop either. Amphitrium and Handful Of Hate were both entertaining but it's a bit telling when the best song a band does is a cover. Good choices though, Bolt Thrower and Testament tunes. Abgott were, I think, quite good, but by the the time they came on I was pretty fucked and we all left before they finished to get an extra pint in the Cocks. Eesh. Wooj was full of wisdom, turning that pint down because "it won't make the night better, but it'll make the morning worse". I love that line of thinking.

I love all that corpsepaint bollocks too, but it has to be done right. Necro Ritual do it right but the singer in Handful Of Hate looked like a tart. Really. His face looked like a Mr Kipling bakewell tart. Not exactly scary. Not sure if you can make it out in the photos I took though.

Walked about 4 miles this morning, through Berrylands. It's a lovely place when it doesn't smell. Perfect walking weather too, but I had to come home 'cos this afternoon I was out at a rehearsal studio, jamming away on bass for the first time in months, maybe even over a year. I was nowhere near as bad as I thought I'd be.

No Napalm Death this evening but Slayer/In Flames/Lamb Of God/Children Of Bodom/Thine Eyes Bleed tomorrow. Can't wait. The only bad thing about it is that it delays my taking receipt of frankenkarma by at least a day (I learnt earlier this afternoon that it's ready). Alex is my current object of hero worship.

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The xbox360 pisses me off. I'm rubbish at the games and don't have enough patience to practice and get good at them. :-( Oh well. Chatting with people through the headset while being beaten at Table Tennis is quite fun for as long as it lasts... before I get in a mood, tell them to fuck off, and log off in a huff.

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I know what a teasel is now. That's because I saw a sign showing them, and then a bunch of them themselves, in the fantastically named and not-at-all-incongruous-no-siree-bob wonder that is Wilderness Island, in Carshalton.

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My sore throat has nearly gone. Turns out medicinal remedies rather than glucose, sucrose and eucalyptus did the trick. A few Lemsips on Thursday and a bunch of Strepsils since, job done.

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Senior executive recommends 20% job cuts across the company. It's good to be back at work.