ramblr2014

[ramblr2014]

A Ramble of Three Basins: Wenlock, Kingsland and Limehouse, Saturday 13th January 2018

A cocker spaniel puppy comes bounding along the towpath to the delight of these ramblers: SC, JM, LC and RB. Joggers and cyclists, however, prove a pain in the pedestrian’s arse. They should know better at weekends. The Crown by Victoria Park smells of fried fish. It wafts us round the corner to the East London Liquor Company. Then Mile End’s boy bands tout cannabis for afters. We ignore their advances, reticent like the swans, who await a human to work the lock, and priggish like the Canada geese, whose bedtime it already is.

Above: Former home

Above: Question

Above: Horseplay

Above: Blue door

Above: At the last basin

Above: January’s map

[ramblr2014]

The 12 Gays of Christmas, Saturday 16th December 2017

The Sexual Offences Act 1967 decriminalised homosexual acts in private between two men (aged 21+). Half a century later, JR, ZW, PM, JM, SC and KB set out to find these 12 Gays of Christmas:

Joe Orton Matthew Bourne’s Swan The Unknown Cottage-goer Mother Clap Mark Ashton Virginia Woolf Lytton Strachey Antinous Vince John Gielgud Muriel Belcher Francis Bacon

Above: The Act

Above: The Gays

Above: The Map

[ramblr2014]

Scaling Horsenden Hill, Sunday 26th November 2017

Along the Grand Union Canal from Greenford, bare-branched trees encourage local refuseniks to throw down Autumn’s orange at last. ZW, PM, SC, JR, NB, JM, AW, JB and RB, feeling Winter’s chill, concur. We follow the canal, whose coffee ripples sometimes dissolve into pools of sky blue. There’s something sinister on the far bank: a lone office chair in a patch of scorched earth. (“Torture,” murmurs one rambler.) Horsenden Farm’s scarecrows are no less creepy, so we heave a sigh of relief to escape via the Gruffalo Trail. The climb to the hilltop is short and we’re too early for dusk. Wembley’s arch is clear in the daylight and Heathrow’s planes take off through clouds, only just turning pink. We could tread tussocks for an hour but the crowd votes for an extension. And so it’s at Harrow on the Hill where the sun sets on this ramble, while a schoolboy in his Sunday best fears the working week to come.

Above: Bäume

Above: Falling

Above: Tufted summit of Horsenden Hill

Above: Flush hour

Above: Harrow City sarnie

Above: November’s map

[ramblr2014]

Walking Walthamstow Wetlands, Saturday 28th October 2017

Lockwood Reservoir is stark. From the elevation of its banks RB, SC, JR and JM see the broadest skies in London. Pebbles at the water’s edge will surely become Walthamstow Beach when July unclothes our flesh once again. NO SWIMMING, however, in Maynard, unless you’re one of the grebes or divers who freely take the plunge. The Wetlands to the south of Forest Road are crowded for this opening weekend. The prammed classes cram the Engine House and lovers lean into each other on platforms that notch the reeds. Fishermen casting for trout look peeved. The gates of their urban idyll have been thrown open to the masses. But the Sun is a democratic antidote to their grumblings. Going down on British Summer Time, it paints a lava-streaked skyscape for everyone.

Above: Yeah we should take a trip to the reservoir

Above: Ramblers rebooted

Above: Set point

Above: October’s map

[ramblr2014]

The (Blue)Bell Ramble, Saturday 6th May 2017

Corgis sniff out bluebells in the Chiltern hills as pigs do truffles in Piedmont. And so Ozy and Flash guarantee success for this hunting party today: JR, JM, JL, DL, SS, RCS, ZW, PM and LC.

Above: And they’re off

Above: Success

Above: Where are Ozy and Flash?

Above: Scene from Cymbeline

Above: Stinging blue

Above: Homewards

[ramblr2014]

A ramble for Europe, Saturday 22nd April 2017

The bunting is unfurled in Parliament Square and 28 flags fly together. Some things are worth rambling for, and so say MO, JM, PU, NM, BW and RB.

[ramblr2014]

The Crossness Ramble, Saturday 25th March 2017

From the seafood shack in Charlton, KB, JM, ZW, PM, SC, JR, MO and NS move downstream under big, blue skies. As the city falls back, the horizon widens and stuns with space. If rivers begin with spurting climax at the source, they end with languor. And here the spent waters of the Thames unfold noiselessly.

Above: Yellow crane

Above: Downriver

Above: Knights Ramblr

Above: Obtain permission

Above: Apolis

Above: Peek a view

Above: Vanishing

Above: Mud dreams

Above: March’s map

[ramblr2014]

The Wandsworth Ramble, Saturday 25th February 2017

Canada geese take flight from the Thames and strafe JM with green guano; their compatriot SC escapes unscathed. Dabbing goose shit with a paper napkin, on a roundabout outside McDonald’s, makes for a disquieting start. But we won’t seek sanctuary at Wormwood Scrubs and we can’t at the Toast Rack’s more plum addresses — they all remain barred to soiled ramblers today.

[ramblr2014]

Cutting through Tower Hamlets, Saturday 28th January 2017

RB, JM, ZW, PM and JR take the Limehouse Cut from the Thames to the Lea. A submerged moped in the canal and a burnt-out van in Bow witness that this area is better explored on foot. The residents of Tower Hamlets Cemetery push up a lone narcissus too soon. Up above, bare trees stretch like bronchioles across a lambent sky, which — to a rambler’s delight — turns candy floss pink.

Above: Insert Cutting caption here

Above: In print

Above: Burnt-out van and man 

Above: Lungscape

Above: Blusher

Above: January’s map 

[ramblr2014]

O Tannenbaum! O Ramblebaum!, Saturday 17th December 2016

This ramble begins with shame and regret for JM, KB and PU. It is the morning after the Office-Christmas-Party night before. The city’s Christmas trees bring necessary cheer but the star on top is the sound of a Welsh male voice choir singing through their beer in a Shepherd Market pub:

O holy night, the stars are brightly shining, It is the night of the dear Saviour’s birth; Long lay the world in sin and error pining, Till he appeared and the soul felt its worth. A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices, For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn;

Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices! O night divine! O night when Christ was born! O night divine! O night, O night divine!

Above: Shirazeh Houshiary

Above: Christmas present

Above: Antony Gormley

Above: December’s map

[ramblr2014]

The Sloane Rambler Handbook, Saturday 19th November 2016

From the Sloaney Pony in Parsons Green JR, SC, PM, ZW and JM follow a mother and daughter into Bayley and Sage. The eight-year-old has her own dinky trolley and, for treats, gets to pick the grouse. Excess is local to these parts and the world-weary face of Thomas More outside Chelsea Old Church suggests he’s seen too much. This saint longs for Morrisons and perhaps a chicken nugget.

Above: the Pony

Above: Plenty

Above: Fulham Palace King and Queen 

Above: More more more

Above: November’s map

[ramblr2014]

The Oxtober Ramble, Saturday 22nd October 2016

Undergraduates recur, or so said Maurice Bowra, and hot on the heels of this year’s intake, eight ramblers go up to Oxford: PU, KB, SM, MO, JM, LC, JR and SC. Where we recall youthful misdemeanour — on Port Meadow, outside the Pitt Rivers and down the Turl. And where we realise we’ve learnt no better as we fumble our way through darkness by the lapping Isis.

Above: Reflections and rednesses

Above: Porters

Above: A happy place

Above: Academe’s brightest

Above: October’s map

[ramblr2014]

Ponders, Totters, Ramblers, Saturday 10th September 2016

The weather is hostile and only one rambler (JM) has the Mary Quant poncho to brave the tempest-tossed towpath from Ponders End to Tottenham Hale. Rambling solo is new and peculiar, so the the first steps away from the tower blocks, striped like Bassett’s Allsorts or coconut ice, are tentative. BEWARE RAZOR WIRE and DANGER DEEP WATER both discourage, but the narrow boats Blue Iris and Boreas, white geese and a heron, grazing sheep and low-flying pigeons all see him through Alfie’s Lock and under the North Circular. Then, which is the saddest sight: Michaelmas daisies losing hope at the water’s edge or a soggy EU flag drooping from a mast?

Above: Orphan from the storm

Above: Moss, wetness, concrete

Above: Sub A406

Above: Routemasters in repose

Above: September’s map

[ramblr2014]

Rambling with Stanley Spencer, Saturday 20th August 2016

JL, JR, JLR, JC, ZW and PM brave the train to Newbury and the trail to Sandham Memorial Chapel for this reward: bread lusciously painted with jam and butter by Stanley Spencer. Our return journey passes Highclere’s back gates, where one rambler dum-dum-dums the theme tune to Downton Abbey under his breath. There’s unpleasantness in the woods at Deadman’s Bottom. A muntjac deer’s cadaver is on the turn and motorists wind down their windows to curse. 

Above: Hamadryad

Above: Box of Spenny treasure

Above: Of straw-coloured hair and stony fields

Above: August’s map

[ramblr2014]

The NW Ramble, Saturday 16th July 2016

JL, JM, JR, KB, LC, SC, PM and ZW find that men in silly suits are out in force for the match at Lord’s. The suits get sillier and more 1969 as would-be Beatles attempt the crossing at Abbey Road. Ramblr2014 contributes a new graffito to the studio’s front wall. SK’s arrival at Kilburn means we’re a nonet for golf. We pitch and we putt and we hunt for balls in the long grass of Queen’s Park—until the nineteenth hole’s summons can no longer be ignored.

Above: Babes in St. John’s Wood

Above: Rambler not vandal

Above: Portraits of Kilburn

Above: At home with KB

Above: Links in park

Above: July’s map

[ramblr2014]

The Chalk & Chess Ramble, Saturday 11th June 2016

We’re in Rickmansworth for ramblr’s 30th birthday and the guests include JM, BW, SC, JR and LC. Neither the Brexiteers campaigning on Church Street for their corner of little England nor the downpour that falls can dampen our ebullience. D. A. Long runs the local newsagents and confectionery. Its window displays a stockpile of incandescent bulbs and Harpic in rows. A caged bridge wrapped in razor wire takes us over the railway lines to Fortune Common. Strange squiggles mark the grass – the abstract expression of some dog’s nitrogen-rich piss or a local scoundrel with a bottle of glyphosate perhaps? Play has resumed at the cricket ground beyond. However, we cross the field to join the Chess Valley Walk.

Above: Chess Valley High

First the path clings to the chalk stream’s curves. Its waters are clear but no brown trout are glimpsed. A choir of birds competes with an aircraft that drones somewhere above. The hedgerow is thick; the grasses are high. We leave this scene too soon, forced into a tunnel through thick vegetation. It protects us from the Chorleywood Road at least. Beyond Troutstream Way snakes a greater foe – the London Orbital. No one has walked this stretch beneath the motorway embankment for a while, so stinging nettles, pink campion and teasels rule. Solesbridge Lane is an escape route for ramblers in the ascendant again.

Above: Below

Above: Above

Now on the M25’s western side, a toppled 30 mph speed limit points us in the direction of the Chess. We cross it by footbridge and climb New Road to Sarratt for Badger beer at the Cock Inn. Our steps are tentative around the Church of the Holy Cross, but two passersby give us courage to gambol down the field towards a wooded dell. There’s a caterpillar here who’s wriggling midair. Only when we squint do we see the silk thread that it’s climbing. Through the trees we find the stream at its most sluggish. Time pauses. It takes a rambler wading in the water to press play once again.  

Above: A bigger splash

With feet dried, socked and shod, we advance to Holloway Lane. The neighbouring meadow gilded with buttercups and iris is home to quite the herd, but it’s only one horse that looks up. This skewbald beauty in sorrel and white comes over to steal our hearts. His eyes bewitch and his gentle nuzzling enchants. He leans over brambles for titbits of goosegrass, and shadows our passage until the boundary limits his courting. Parting is such bitter sorrow on this occasion. Someone plays The Winner Takes It All at Chenies Watercress Beds. Agnetha laments while we palely loiter. A sign recording how many water voles’ lives invasive American mink stole compounds our woe.

Above: Mr Horse

The track turns uphill and we’re thankful for the rise. Blackfaced sheep buoy us along a succession of fields too. A swan makes majestic course over a widening River Chess and the sky purples with the coming eve. We leave the valley at the weir and make for Little Chalfont through West Wood. We give the teenagers’ party on Bell Lane wide berth, preferring the White Hart. No noise comes from Beel House to disturb our peace. Dirk Bogarde, Ozzy Osbourne and Robert Kilroy-Silk sold up long ago.

Above: June’s map

Above: Happy 30th

[ramblr2014]

The Lambeth Walk, Saturday 28th May 2016

Anytime you're Lambeth way, Any evening, any day, You'll find this four doin' the Lambeth walk: JM, PU, JR and SC.

Marcel Duchamp beat us to Brunswick House, or so the plaster nude moustachioed in marker pen claims. Wandsworth Road’s traffic doesn’t disturb. It’s the lull before the jam. We head north passing Vauxhall Bus Station on our right. Its cantilevers project like a stag beetle’s jaws. The road becomes Albert Embankment at the postmodern, postMayan sandcastle that is MI6. Two Walks next: Glasshouse then Vauxhall. Walker Books’ candlestick-clutching bear on the latter seems friendlier than the mutt we find tethered opposite Salamanca Street.  

Above: The rut

Inside Newport Street Gallery, designed by Caruso St John, Jeff Koons and Ilona Staller cavort while a balloon dog keeps watch. Eggs so giant that monster hens must have laid them fill a nearby bowl. They’re shocked to their shells. There’s more filth under the rail bridge outside. A graffito shows Damien Hirst with a sign that reads SUCK ME OFF. Not today, Damien. We turn onto Old Paradise Street instead. Wisps of white cloud across an otherwise blue sky might come from the menthol Superking of a chimney stack above. Taking the first left, we join the Lambeth Walk. Our cry of ‘oi’ breaks the silence. WW2 bombing and decades of housing schemes gone wrong destroyed the shops and silenced the market’s buzz. It’s a long time since any preacher last mounted the al fresco pulpit at Pelham Mission Hall. Local boy Charlie Chaplin is memorialised in mosaic. Would he have done his ablutions and laundry at the nearby Lambeth Baths? Not in the current building though. That was rebuilt in 1958. He was certainly no pupil at King’s Maths School whose doors are crowned with the Platonic Academy’s motto – ΑΓΕΩΜΕΤΡΗΤΟΣ ΜΗΔΕΙΣ ΕΙΣΙΤΩ. Our geometry days are behind us. We move forwards to Lambeth Road. 

Above: The Word by Edward Bainbridge Copnall

Schoolboys in sunglasses and pork pie hats force us onto Hercules Road where a baby pink limo startles. But it’s the roses on the corner of Virgil Street that really pop. William Blake’s house once stood opposite. A Corporation of London estate on this site now bears his name. A black Jack Russell awaits us in Archbishop’s Park and licks its lips as we share chilli-flecked coconut flakes. We reach the front of Lambeth Palace and follow its red brickwork down river. Now PU departs and the remaining trio seeks solace in the Crown and Cushion. We leave fortified, and an old man counts his coins crossing the threshold to take our place. 

Above: In the pink

Everyone’s horizontal in the park around the Imperial War Museum – except for us. We only stop to hug a tumescent trunk. Dallying down backstreets we head south to Kennington. Both pint glasses and boules clink in Cleaver Square. Green gasometers against an evening sky mean the Oval is just ahead. We round it anti-clockwise, when one rambler remembers a good bar nearby. So negroni-soaked is how we finish on Lansdowne Way. And it’s ramblers rather than Routemasters that need a good scrubbing at the Stockwell Bus Garage. 

Above: Embrace

Above: May’s map