The archive

It had been widely touted as the hottest weekend of the year so far - and inevitably the comparisons with the usual holiday destinations were being dusted off. Why wasn't I heading off to the coast? Or somewhere nice?

It had been a challenging few weeks - the seasonal sickness that descends on all those condemned to office life had struck and left us tired and exasperated. To cap this, of all the body parts which could choose to exact sympathetic rebellion, my right foot was painful.

In some ways it felt strangely familiar to be heading out at the crack of dawn, on the very first possible train of the day in pursuit of new track, joining the surly nightworkers and early airport crowd.

I woke early this morning, despite trying not to. It's become my custom on our more urban breaks to use the golden morning hours wandering deserted city streets or staking out turgid waterways while my wife prefers to sleep in.

As the end of the year approaches, I find myself seeking some sort of summary. It has been a testing year - full of anxiety and uncertainty - and these walks have been beacons of a sort. Marking time against interminable bureaucracies, counting backwards away from grief and disappointment.

My discipline in planning these excursions had slipped I thought, as I looked at the locked gates of the Hammersmith and City line platforms at Paddington. I thought it again as I stood at the bus stop a few minutes later, realising the 205 wasn't…

It had been a busy month of excursions already, and it was impossible not to suffer the slight financial disquiet which always seems to ensnare me at such times when faced with the prospect of a weekend in London.

I first visited the Tropicana on a school trip – probably sometime in the late 1980s. I wasn’t a swimmer, so joining a small number of sick, limping or otherwise unpopular kids, I skulked around the margins of the site.

Crossing London can be a trial at the best of times, but today offered some special challenges. I knew in advance that various parts of the Underground network were out of action, but my early luck in tumbling onto a replacement bus service lured…