THE SAXON SHORE - A STORY, SORT OF

  Following the shoreline. A long path along a ridge, mostly straight with a slight curve bearing off to the right. The path is raised slightly a few metres in from the water, the area between covered in marshes. Small, twitching birds flit in and out of these marshes, the tiny twitching movements catching her eye every so often, making her blood pumpo with the small bursts of adrenalin, until she realises they are just harmless birds. The birds are the only living thing she has seen. The path stretching into the distance, out to sea, the marshes - all empty. Behind her, too, she knows this is empty. Everything is empty except for the fucking birds. She's never liked birds and now at the end of the world, they'll likely be her final companions. Typical.

The temperature is very low and there's a layer of frost over everything, thick along the path, delicate on the tiny marine plants, whose alien features are made gentle by the glittering silver of the frost.

A broken fence ahead shimmers with ice, its bleached wood like white bone, sharp flashes of light catch on the icy metal catches. The fence hangs out over the ridged path, above the small drop to the marshes, leading nowhere. She feels caught in a loop in which she isn't really awake, or even alive, walking the path of pergatory in a repetitive sequence. A slight panic at this thought prompts her to scan the landscaoe around her again, a way off of this bloody path. Where is the ferry landing point?

In her memory she can see it. A hut stood on the edge of the water, a comforting light falling out in a beam across the planks of wood, the music apilling from the transistor radio, jangled and tinny. Nina Simone, My Baby Just Cares For Me. George Michael, Careless Whisper. Otis Redding, Dock of the Bay. She can almost see the ghost of Pete Saxon and his son Oliver, yelling to one another and throwing greetings to her. Oliver, with his hat set jauntily, and a cigarette at the corner of his mouth. Thought it made him look like Paul Newman. Pete, with the mug of tea, always stapled to his hand, regardless of what he was doing.

The image fades. It was never there. There is nothing here, Pete and Oliver are gone. There's just her, the path, the forst and the fucking birds.

Across the water, the mist is so thick it hides the island she knows is hunched down out there. The frost deadens everything, the mist places a shroud over it. She remembers reading Narnia and for the first time understanding there is a malign quality to snow.

She crunches onwards, ignoring the cold ache in her feet and hands. A short while later the marshes end and the land between the sea and the path is covered in fragments of cement. She steps onto one of the pieces of cement and sees that at sporadic points there are holes, deep squares cut out of the cement, filled with stagnant water and shapes underneath. Her heart begins to thud and her skin prickles. She feels a strong urge to make sense of the twisted metal shapes under the water, and a desire to be back on the path where she feels safe. At first she cannot make out what they are and then she recognises plastic, rusted metal and rotting wood. The simple everyday shapes, crushed and compressed in these strange holes in the marshes fill her with an inexplicable dread. A creeping sensation over her face and neck as she's being watched. Hackles rise at her neck, but she keeps her eyes firmly on the watery holes, thinking, illogically, that the dark shapes will not regroup whilst being observed. She realises that the holes go deeper, running under her feet. The thought of more twisted things in the holes beneath her is what finally pushes her back on the path.

Following the shoreline.

An encounter with a brick wall in Greenwich

As I enter the DLR to take the short train journey from Lewisham to Greenwich, I look upwards, before descending underground. Large puffs of white air and moisture scud across the sky, blocking the intense beams of sunlight and making a patchwork of the bright blue sky. Clouds: such strange things. But then, thinking in the same vein, all of nature is curious; at once beautiful and bizarre. Five minutes later I step off the train, skip down the stairs and ‘touch out’ my Oyster card at the bottom. It is a glorious day, the sun is a deep heat sinking into my skin, making me feel limp with a delicious weariness. But this is no time for indolence; I am here for a spot of London walking and there is no better place than Greenwich with its layers of history (including being the birthplace of many a Tudor, including Henry VIII and Elizabeth I), its World Heritage status and maritime eminence.

I often find myself thinking about time when I am in Greenwich. The Royal Observatory coined the phrase Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) which is now a commonly used time zone reference. I have lots of memories of Greenwich; time spent with my family and friends. When I was a kid, we had a ritual; my parents would bring me and my siblings to see the Cutty Sark, the only surviving tea clipper, and we would get chips from the fish ‘n’ chip shop round the corner. Holding tightly to white paper cone we would ignore the wooden fork, risking burning our fingers for the best chips in the world. I would clamour to go inside the clipper and see the figureheads - the Cutty Sark Trust has the largest collection of Merchant Navy figureheads which have been displayed in the Lower Hold from 1957-2006. As a child I was obsessed with figureheads after seeing the 1963 film Jason and the Argonauts in which the goddess Athene assumes the identity of the figurehead on Jason’s ship, so that she could guide him. Stood in front of the Cutty Sark’s figureheads I would imagine them blinking their eyes and speaking to me, in a raspy, wooden voice, perhaps sounding as though it were underwater… the history literally rose up like steam from the busts of Nannie (the Cutty Sark’s witch figurehead who is holding a horse’s tail), Florence Nightengale and Disraeli. Another memory: walking down the street with friends, seeing the mast of the Cutty Sark rising above the landscape, towering high above Greenwich’s buildings, up towards the sky. Unfortunately this sight is no longer possible since 2006 when the clipper had to undergo significant reconstruction work after a fire nearly destroyed it. It’s such a significant part of Greenwich to me, and to many others; it is hard to imagine a Greenwich without the Cutty Sark.

I start my walk at the Queen’s House at Greenwich park. I plan to walk through the park and down through Blackheath and onto a friend’s who lives between Blackheath and Charlton. The Queen’s House was commissioned in 1616 by Anne of Denmark, wife of James I, as an apology, according to local tradition, for James swearing at her in public when she shot one of his dogs whilst hunting. After the untimely death of Anne, the house was not completed until Charles I gave it to his wife Henrietta Maria in 1629. There are several ghost stories dating back to the 1960s about inexplicable figures captured in photographs, sightings of a ghostly lady floating through the wall (find out more here: http://www.nmm.ac.uk/about/history/queens-house/the-queen-s-house-ghost). Hard to credit ghost stories when the sun is shining and happy people are playing ball on the grass, eating picnics or walking their dogs. I pass the house and make my way up the hill to the Royal Observatory, which was commissioned by Charles II, who also created the position of Astronomer Royal, instructing him to “apply himself with the most exact care and diligence to the rectifying of the tables of the motions of the heavens, and the places of the fixed stars”. In 1894 the Observatory underwent an attempted bomb attack, by a French anarchist, which inspired Conrad to write ‘The Secret Agent’.

From the Observatory I walk past a putting green and hard-at-it tennis players, decked out in white, barking out shouts of approval or frustration dependent on the shot. Past the area of trees is a covered reservoir constructed in 1846 by the Admiralty and the rear of Macartney House with a plaque to General Wolfe. At Croom Hill’s Gate there is a path leading to the Rose Garden. After the intense summer heat-wave the roses are blooming, all 30,000 of them! From the rose garden I exit and take the south building of the observatory, topped with a weather vane in the shape of a ship; this path leads to tumuli possibly dating from the Bronze Age and a Henry Moore sculpture.

Exiting the park I walk down past Blackheath following Charlton Way into Vanbrugh Park. My friend lives in Bellfield Close and it’s here that my lovely walk reaches a sour point. All along the walk I have been impressed at the state of the footpaths and the signage. Admittedly most of my walk has been through a Royal Park and they hold a certain special status because they are maintained by the Royal Parks authority; this is different to other public footpaths, which are maintained by the relevant local authority. There is a right of way which leads through Bellfield Close to my friend’s house as a cut-through; it is also promoted as a cycle route on Transport for London yet when I reach the place where the path leads through to my friend’s flat, I am confronted with a brick wall.

I find out later, after my friend has collected me (and I have followed a lengthy diversion) that the brick wall was erected after some new flats were built. Originally this for health and safety reasons whilst the work was carried out, however some residents stated that they wanted the wall to remain to prevent anti-social behaviour. Yet it seems there was little evidence of this anti-social behaviour and according to my friend it is a simple case of NIMBYism (Not In My Backyard) springing from a culture in which many people value their car higher than their feet. This is a crying shame because the path was not just a promoted cycle route. It was also a convenient shortcut for people like me to cut across two busy roads and for local community members to access local amenities such as shops and parks. The area is now a car park, yet the cycle and footpath signs still remain, pointing walkers and cyclists into a brick wall.

It was a frustrating way to end a pleasant walk, and left a sour taste in my mouth. I was so irritated by the brick wall I contacted the local council, who told me there was little they could do. My friend suggested I contact the Ramblers, which I did but they informed me there was little to be done because there was no such thing as a ‘definitive map’ in London and therefore it would be very hard for me to prove that this path is a public right of way which would then enable me to force the council to fulfil their duty to remove the wall. Apparently although there are definitive maps across the UK, for some reason inner London is excluded. This means 14 borough council areas (Camden; Greenwich; Hackney; Hammersmith and Fulham; Islington; Kensington and Chelsea; Lambeth; Lewisham; Southwark; Tower Hamlets; Wandsworth; Westminster; City of London) have footpaths which if blocked up could be lost to the public forever. Now that strikes me as something we should be worried about and not just as a Londoner. Many tourists visit London and its iconic buildings and green spaces. The Olympics will be held here in 2012 – how on earth will people enjoy London without its paths? The Ramblers are running a campaign to change this and you can get involved here: http://www.ramblers.org.uk/maplondon .

Paths at risk!

Walking is one of my favourite activities. There is a whole host of information 'out there' about why it's important: it keeps us in good health, it contributes millions/year to the economy, it is a good way of getting to know the world we live in: through nature, habitats, beautiful views etc. I like it for all these reasons but I also really like it because it allows me to unwind, to get out of my head for a while, escape all the niggling stress and worries of everyday life and just be. One of the best periods of my life was when I was living near to where I worked and every morning and evening I had a 25-minute walk through a park and past the river. It was particularly enjoyable in the evening as I could spend the first ten minutes going through all the nuisances of the day and as I walked, gradually, I would get distracted by a bird, a striking house, a funny scene, or a pretty tree and before I knew it, I wasn't thinking about work anymore, I was thinking about nothing - well as nothing as it gets; random thoughts which don't tax the brain. Now I don't get a walk as part of my commute unless I make a lot of effort, e.g. get off the bus early or get a bus which doesn't go directly to/fro work and frankly even for a lover of walks, I find it hard. It's so tempting to jump on the direct bus and think I'll have a walk at lunch or tomorrow. Yesterday evening I went for a stroll locally, just round some back streets I'd never been to before. I found an entrance to some woods I never knew existed, yet another recreation ground with tennis courts and a spectacular viewing spot from which I could see all the way to the Gherkin. An incredible free leisure resource right on the doorstep.

I don't just walk in London, I also enjoy walking in the countryside, regularly going camping or hiking with friends. I did a brilliant trip to Seven Sisters recently, camping in the Country Park and going on a long (wet) walk through beautiful and uplifting scenery (despite the rain). Afterwards we all collapsed in a gorgeous pub and drank lager until we were warm. It sums up for me the pleasure of walking because it incorporates so much: convenience in terms of shortcuts, education in terms of wildlife spotting, aesthetic pleasure via the scenery and a cheap way of having fun either on your own or with a group of mates. AND it keeps you fit and is sustainable. What more could you want?

And yet all this is at risk...

It sounds dramatic but with government's planned spending cuts it is all too likely that local authorities will see their budgets slashed, council officers will be made redundant and many paths will fall into disrepair as the resources become unavailable. We have a remarkable resource in this country: a network of urban and rural paths which serve as shortcuts to local amenities or transport hubs, as routes to local green spaces such as parks and sports centres and as links to open tracts of countryside. Public paths are protected as our right under law and local government have a duty to protect and maintain them. However without the money and staff how will they do this?

The Ramblers, Britain's biggest walking charity, are running a campaign to raise awareness of the potential risk to our path network. It is looking to work alongside local government to ensure paths are protected and maintained; this means clearing blockages, unlocking illegal gates, clearing barbed wire or overgrown vegetation, rebuilding bridges and stiles, ensuring urban paths are kept well-lit and clean and not built over by developers. Please take part in this campaign so that local authorities are supported, and future generations do not find themselves unable to walk due to a dead end network: http://www.ramblers.org.uk/Campaigns+Policy/deadend

Summer in the city

London is blooming. How I love summer in the city; suddenly the litter-strewn streets shimmer with possibilities, the dirty grey river seems to sparkle and the sun stays out til 9pm! Drinking lager in the park after work, sun-bathing at lunch with a book, meandering instead of rushing from one warm space to another, everyone seems happier and more relaxed. Cafes set up tables outside and suddenly it seems a brilliant idea to sit kerbside with a bottle of wine breathing in exhaust fumes and talking over the traffic. Bliss.

Yesterday evening, in a homage to summer in London town, I walked from Lambeth to Blackfriars. Once again I used my trusted friend walkit.com which is beyond awesome. So simple, does just what you want it to do. Easy to understand directions, a simple map, and cute little statistics, for example in this case: 1.7 miles, 26 minutes (fast) - 53 minutes (slow), 184 calories, 0.58kg of carbon dioxide (via car) saved. So I meandered along Southbank, though probably not ever slow enough for it to take 53 minutes - I seem to be genetically disposed to walk fast; a mate of mine always berates me for rushing, and even when I am ambling along it seems I can't stop my legs speeding up. Yet one thing that always makes me slow down: the amazing architecture in the city. The National Theatre for one. It is so grotesque, with it's 1960s, Communist type grey blocks, yet so grandly beautiful with its refusal to fit into the dignified, fall-down disrepair of the classical buildings London is famous for. I love it. I particularly love the way that the site includes a skater area - there is no way Southbank can get too above itself; no rich elite will ever lay claim to this place with it's graffiti covered stone runners and teenagers skating past at 30mph.

The other thing that always makes me pause is the views from London bridges; my favourite view has to be from Vauxhall Bridge, either downriver to Battersea Power Station or upriver to the London Eye. Funny how the Eye has become such an iconic landmark since the Millennium. We all smirked at government's ridiculous Millennium Dome plans and it seemed easy to sniff at the London Eye too. Ill-thought through, expensive, short-term. All about impressing everyone but the people who would have to live with it day in day out, i.e. Londoners. And yet... how wrong we were. A Bulgarian friend of mine was visiting the capital recently and we did the same walk with both of us rhapsodising about the Eye. How well it fits in for such a monstrously modern looking thing; how it looks as if it has always been sat by the river at Waterloo watching the water for centuries, not a mere decade. My friend was surprised at how the Eye was originally meant to be a temporary exhibit, until it was gifted as a permanent structure. The website says the Eye can carry 800 passengers per revolution - equivalent to 11 London red double-decker buses - which is pretty cool. My nan always used to say we shouldn't go on it, she was determined it would lead to disaster, but when my sister and I went on a spin, we adored it. A pretty unique way to see the city.

A cheer for the London transport system

Undoubtedly the workd 'commuting' exists in the dictionary with the definition next to it reading: 'horror'. No matter if you have to train it or bus it - or even worse, tube it - commuting sucks. And yet... the transport system in London is fantastic. It's the sheer volume of people and the ancient infrastructure that turns an incredible system into a trip to hell. In the winter it sucks because it is too cold outside, too hot inside, and the ice/rain/snow stops everything from working. In summer it is too hot outside, too hot inside, and the sun/heat stops everything from working and makes everyone grumpy. I am really grateful I don't have to get the tube to work each day - have never had to as I've always avoided it - but the tube outside of rush hour is a pretty impressive thing. An underground network of tunnels through which locomotives pass, picking up and dropping off passengers, quicker than the cars queueing in traffic far above... it's like something from a novel or film. And the buses - oh man let me talk about buses. I get very geeky about Night Buses which are both magical secret world you have no idea about unless you are a certain age (16-35 perhaps, though I risk offense) and at the same time immensely practical. I did rather hate them at 17 when I lived a long way from London and the Night Bus took almost 2 hours to get me home, feet aching, eyes closing, ears ringing (and a long walk at the other end, sigh). Since I moved to London I LOVE them - who cares about trains and tubes which finish at midnight, and not being a Cinderella, are of no use to me, instead focus on this: a service which runs every 30mins, all through the night and takes me from whatever scene to my flat in no time at all... and offers me fun along the way - the drug-addled, those in beer-comas, the cacophony of parties of drunk 17 year olds. I have had some of the best bits of my night on the Night Bus home as my mates and I dissect the night, gossip and talk philosophical gibberish hardly even realising where we are, until the lights on the bus go out for the final stop, and we fall off the bus in giggles and blinking eyes.

I also quite like getting the bus in the day too; but it's not as fun, normally because I am going to work and not to bed.

The centre of the world

A November morning; glorious sunshine from a bright blue sky; cold. I can feel my mood lift as I walk from Charing Cross and through the back streets towards Covent Garden. The endless grey clouds of past weeks which made me irritable and sluggish, have dispersed. Even the other commuters seemed appeased, more polite and understanding than usual. No arguments or tart comments about the lack of space; no delays.

Covent Garden. Everyone - well, actually visitors and tourists - seem to hold this space as the epitome of London, and yet if you actually live in London you rarely visit it. I recall vividly how glamorous it seemed as a teenager to go to Covent Garden, to visit the shops, take in the street entertainment, drink in the bars and dance in the expensive clubs. And yet even then I remember pondering the fact that the majority of people frequenting these places weren't Londoners, but ephemeral faerie folk, just alighted in London on a sojourn, or people who weren't real in the proper sense of the word, i.e. they didn't hold down full-time jobs and struggle to pay bills and curse London with as much passion as they complimented it. If you visit Covent Garden as a London resident, you are struck with the lack of community, a soullessness. Interesting as it wasn't always thus; the space was once a privilege held only by the very rich until the new fashion for town planning developed the area into a public space, and the underside of London began to infiltrate, ruining the wealthy classes peace and privacy. They took themselves off to the newer more segregated spotys such as Bloomsbury Square, which had bars to keep out the riff-raff. Artists and bohemians took over Covent Garden. In later years, Covent Garden developed into a huge fruit and veg market, which filled all of the area, particularly rising in popularity after the Great Fire of London when the ravages had destroyed many other markets. This continued until the 1970s when the area became so central to commuters and visitors that the market started to cause congestion problems. Thus New Covent Garden Market at Nine Elms. And presumably the loss of community at the original site of the market.

I have the pleasure of calling myself a bona fide Londoner these days, and yet here I am in Covent Garden, the theatre of the transient.

Turning from Beford Street into King Street, I eye up the coffee shops and imagine a warm pastry and a large cup of tea. It's an unusually early start for me and an unusual location. I enjoy feeling like a tourist, but a tourist with the added advantage of a savvy that comes from living in the city. I can negotiate the short-cuts and the side-streets, I know what to expect and perfect the slightly bored look of a city-dweller. As I turn a corner I see what at first glance appears to be a corpse, but as I swing my gaze back, I realise it's just me over-active imagination again, encouraged by crime novels and CSI. The feet under the cardboard now make sense to me as they reveal one of the homeless, in actual truth probably half-dead from the cold.

As I round the last corner, Covent Garden suddenly appears in front of me, exactly where it is supposed to be. There is a huge Christmas decoration of a reindeer made from spruce, and blue dancing lights (not of a police car, but of fairy lights). It is so early that hardly anyone is around, only stall holders and labourers emptying dustbins. It's an insight into a Covent Garden I haven't seen before and one I am instantly enamoured with; no tourists, no bustle. I can see the architecture and the cobbled streets. The charming beauty of the place fills me with a contained happiness. In this early morning sunshine, the empty streets seem incredibly beautiful.

I walk past a bench seat filled with tired looking young men in high vis jackets, tucking into white bread sandwiches and tea. They seem to radiate a tired yet mildly aggressive energy, something very male and slightly intimidating. One of them seems to stare at me in the way bulls do - low head on a thick neck, not a flicker of a human within. I suddenly feel very aware of my short skirt and loose hair, and the bull-like man gives me a long hard almost leering look, bizarrely free of desire or acknowledgement, but a look filled with something I can't quite put my finger on. It chills me and I stride past quickly, taking the next right and down another side-street to take me to Endell Street. I can't quite compute the man's look. Usually when men leer they call out a raucous comment, or a cheeky greeting. They at least smile or laugh, perhaps to hide the fact that deep down they feel embarrassed. There was such a detachment in this man's expression, maybe pure exhaustion, maybe something else?

A few hours later I linger by Trafalgar Square before heading back to Charing Cross. The whole city has undergone a transformation and people are beetling about everywhere, covering up the city with their rushed activity. The magical sense of a curtained stage has vanished.