The archive

After the widely acclaimed and nominally successful staging of the Olympic Games, London has returned to a sort of strangely pensive calm. Everyone senses the Paralympics will bring a little of the magic back, but no-one really expects them to cause quite the upheaval in terms of the capital's life.

This is something I posted on Facebook, largely in response to some of the negative comments I received following expressing my views on the London Olympics. It's not the post I'd like to have written which details my personal connection with the…

Dear reader, I lied to you. Not deliberately. I swore myself off London until after the Games. I didn't want to endure the crowds, the indignity of queuing for trains, the ever increasing paranoia as the perception of a threat ratchets up uncontrollably, and bored security guards itch to act.

Just now, the whole world seems to be on pause. Events are grinding to a halt to accommodate the twin national patriotic rallying points of the Diamond Jubilee, and more disruptively the 2012 Olympiad.

Lately my wanderings have gained in importance once again due to frustrating and dull times at work, but have also decreased in imagination. Often, all I'm aiming for is journeys long enough to distract me - to see movement and feel distance pass by.

My visits to London this year have been frequent and rather hurriedly booked - partly due to huge blank calendar spaces, but also born of a strange compulsion to head that way which I've not yet quite placed.

Today was both a bit of a desperate dash and an experiment. Back from the amazing weekend in St.Andrews, and having been out to the Minehead Rally with the youngsters yesterday, I felt the need to get out on the railway.

I often find myself haunting the same places at the end of the year. As the official trips dry up, I seem to seek solace in a round of familiar journeys which take me back to places - sometimes significant, sometimes just familiar and interesting enough to divert my attention for the day.

My railway friends, locally at least, seem to spend a lot of time on the Southern Region. Perhaps it's because I did most of my ramblings here in the days of slam-door stock, and trains dividing and combining on route, that it sometimes feels just a little bit dull down there at times.