The archive

I was still smarting a little from last month's abortive walk, but things had started tolerably well. Despite some engineering works which saw me arriving in London around half-an-hour later than usual, the journey had been relaxing and I'd read and dozed my way east.

I calculated I had until about midday... The forecast wasn't good, and as I sped eastwards under steely, unrelentingly grey skies, I doubted my calculations. I was eager to get walking too and I felt anxious to cross London swiftly, emerging on its eastern edge in a silvery gloom.

Arrival in Erith did little to dispel the strange gloom I'd sensed about the place on my last, fleeting, Sunday afternoon visit. Back then I'd been content to assume it was shuttered and drab because of the malaise which descends on all British…

UPDATE: You can now buy Adverse Camber on Amazon UK and Amazon USA. Over the past couple of months, I've revisited the posts I wrote here about the incomplete A13 walk which I took back in 2015/16. They felt a little self-indulgent, but were in…

I'm fairly often asked 'Why London?' when I speak about my wandering. Living in the West Country, a comfortable distance from the zone of poor air quality that sheaths the city is, to most, a huge positive and the question appears to assume a deficiency.

The last few moments of my long tube journey to the furthest reaches of the Central Line were occupied by slathering sunblock onto my exposed temples, musing that when I was last here there was probably more natural coverage.

It's easy to be cynical about the history of planning in Britain, and especially easy to be scornful of those well-meaning but usually flawed efforts to build new communities which skirt neatly around the errors and problems of the past.

It was a faintly ridiculous proposition, but I am it must be said, a creature of habit... I'd long ago booked the journey to London for this walk - speculatively scooping up cheap rail tickets in advance knowing that I'd probably end up planning the walk hastily at the last moment.

We are heading out to Germany for a few days to meet friends and see a little of Europe before it gets more complicated to do so. On some of the hottest days of an already warm World Cup summer, travel would present a number of challenges - but…