The first trip of the new year followed a time-worn pattern. Up early and onto the first train of the day in freezing conditions. After a very chilly change of trains in Weston, settled into a comfortable and thankfully warm first class carriage and headed for London. It seemed to stay dark for most of the journey, with a little crack of sunlight appearing somewhere around Reading. Strangely, we arrived at Paddington in perfect cold and bright weather. The plan was to cover the entire Docklands Light Railway system in it's current form, then to head west where some interesting diversions were taking place. After a short run on the Circle Line to Monument, we popped up in the heart of the City. Elected leader, I struck out along King William Street, locating the lift at Bank station installed when the DLR opened to ensure the railway was accessible, but which was now in a fairly grubby state. I'd never used this lift, despite passing it many times. Summoned the lift and waited for what seemed like an age, before it took us a surprisingly short distance underground to a landing which opened into a narrow tunnel with an Oyster reader. We touched-in and proceeded along the tunnel, arriving unexpectedly at a bank of lifts close to the ticket hall. Down again, much deeper this time, and onto the Northern Line platforms. Still leading, partly by instinct and partly due to a fervent wish not to encounter the terrifying walk down narrow stairs between banks of steep escalators I'd endured here once before. We finally came upon the DLR platforms, exiting the labyrinth at the other end of hall from the very escalators I'd been trying to avoid.

With some relief, I boarded a King George V bound DLR train, and we were soon away on the first leg of the trip, in deep tunnel at first then ascending steeply out into the open near Royal Mint Street with the currently closed Tower Gateway terminus beside us. The weather was fine and it was great to be out, blowing away the dust of the festive season and scudding high above East London landmarks. St George-in-the-East at Shadwell, St Anne's at Limehouse - a Hawksmoor driven ride east on one of Iain Sinclair's "trains with no driver". When possible, we childishly scurried to occupy the front seats for the full rollercoaster ride experience. After Poplar I was on uncharted territory. The broad, empty plains of still, shining water - once docks, now vacant sites for uncertain future development were impressive in scale, and the few cranes - either preserved or abandoned - seemed poignant in their quiet and isolation. The glint of the buildings in nearby Canary Wharf, and the stark white glare of the O2 dome made it hard to look at the scenes to the south. Once past City Airport the crowds on board thinned and by King George V we were among very few remaining passengers. Had a good look at the soon-to-be-opened tunnel under the Thames to Woolwich and then wandered out to the local shops, realising we were just a stone's throw from the abandoned line to North Woolwich, before heading back to Canning Town for the next leg. The service from here to Beckton was operating as a shuttle as Tower Gateway (its usual origin) was closed, and we made the short trip along the long straight section of track sunk into the median of the A1020 before curving back on ourselves and reaching the end of the line on a former rail alignment at Beckton. Struck again by the quiet and almost eerie order of these recently developed suburbs.

Via another change at Canning Town and a fruitless attempt to convince a tourist that this wasn't 'Camden Town' at all, we found our way back to Westferry as catching a Lewisham bound service here meant covering a curve we would otherwise miss. Something of a fight with the Oyster reader here which in hindsight appears to relate to the use of the obviously rogue one we encountered mysteriously lurking in the passage at Bank, which despite validating correctly seems to have been erased from my account completely. We then plunged under the Thames for the twisting tunnel ride, soon arriving in Lewisham. Time for much needed comfort breaks and a strong coffee before setting off for Stratford and the last leg of our DLR excursion via the former rail alignment through Bow, curving alongside the Great Eastern line before arriving at the strangely colourful terminus at Stratford.

A very short stay here as we battled valiantly with another Oyster reader before scurrying aboard a waiting North London Line service to head for Willesden Junction. The diversions in West London had led to some unusual routings and bits of track being covered, and this was our next target. The line was as busy as ever, and we didn't manage a seat at all before arriving at the High Level station at Willesden for the short wait for a shuttle service to Kensington Olympia which was operating in the absence of the usual services to Clapham Junction. The replacement train was surprisingly well loaded, and was soon despatched to make the short trip to Olympia, arriving in it's usual platform, from where it soon set off back to Willesden.

We had a brief chance now to explore Kensington Olympia, a station more passed-through than visited for me. The remains of the former Motorail platforms are now a car park, but the ticket office retains some of its 1970s charm despite being very quiet indeed these days. The footbridge bears the remains of a huge painted BR era InterCity branding, now sadly half obliterated. Rebooked for East Croydon, noting the train was direct from West Brompton to Streatham Common - a good sign that our route was going to be very different to usual. Whilst we waited, we were surprised to see 66092 accelerating through the station, having seen it pass under Willesden on the West Coast Mainline shortly before. 377209 arrived from Watford Junction and we were soon away again, with newly published Southern & TFL Quail at the ready. We set off through West Brompton and over the river, passing through what appears to be the start of work on Imperial Wharf - a station which has appeared in timetables for years despite not existing! At Latchmere Junction we made our way under the knot of lines at the east end of Clapham Junction before curving up and passing under more lines, before regaining more familiar passenger lines at Factory Junction. We then passed through Wandsworth Road on the Atlantic Lines until reaching Shepherds Lane Junction, where we crossed to the Chatham Lines, passing through Brixton, Herne Hill and Tulse Hill before regaining the trains usual route and stopping pattern as to East Croydon. Diversion duly followed, we decided to head homeward via Croydon Tramlink to Wimbledon and the District Line instead of waiting for the unit to work back. Coincidentally we arrived on the District at West Brompton just at the same time as the unit we'd used was heading back. Back to Paddington, suitably pleased with our various hauls of new and interesting track and diversions.

Today provided a busy and interesting start to the year with lots of London seen in fine winter weather, which is somehow just the way it should be seen. By no means high mileage or pioneering stuff, but plenty of variety in scenery, modes of transit and locations. Lets hope for more of these days during 2009.

It was probably madness to attempt a journey of any significance on the Saturday between Christmas and New Year. Booking late after a week or two of general disorganisation also meant missing out on cheap first class fares, which was always going to lead to needing to squash into some already busy trains. It was also proving hard to get around the country - there were pockets of engineering almost everywhere I'd planned to head. Nevertheless, a plan was hatched, albeit with a fairly low new track quotient! The plan was to cover the lines affected by the recently completed Trent Valley Four Tracking project (TV4 as it became known). Stopping services had resumed on this stretch of the West Coast Mainline only last week with the new timetable, and I was keen to revisit. Mr Spinks also came along for the ride, braving the freezing Highbridge morning to set off on the 06:20 which was the first train of today's revised service.

Plenty of time to change at Bristol, as the connections with CrossCountry services are sparse early on Saturday mornings. Eventaully, a pair of Voyagers rolled in and once detached, the front unit was announced as our service to Stoke-on-Trent. Glad to get into the warm and enjoy breakfast as we headed north in fine but freezing weather. As we curved away from the Camp Hill line at St Andrews Junction, we passed one of Fastline's new Class 66 coal services heading for Avonmouth - a first sighting for me. Despite being heavily reserved, no major problems with overcrowding, even after a major influx of customers at New Street. Good not to have to change here today, staying in the warm as we headed north for Stoke, passing another newcomer to these shores in the form of 350236 at Wolverhampton. It was turning into an interesting day. Ground to a halt just outside Stafford, seemingly due to reduced capacity in the station as a couple of lines were closed. A late arrival at Stoke followed, but no great problem as we had a fair margin. Time in fact for Mr Spinks to attempt to win the jackpot on a vending machine, to no avail!

Not long to wait for our 350 to Nuneaton, which today was to be the terminus for these services due to engineering work. An original plan had been to cover the 'Blockade Buster' services which were operating to get around these works once again, since they were booked on a slightly different routing near London, but I abandoned this in the face of dire warnings about busy trains and a lack of cheap fares. Soon off, and retracing our steps as via Stone where services have recently resumed after five years following the WCML upgrade. The impressive station building in the angle of the junction with the line to Colwich sporting new London Midland signage. Onwards to Stafford, noting that timings seemed slack with some fairly long waits at stations. Took the Trent Valley lines here, calling at Atherstone, Rugeley and Lichfield on route to Nuneaton. The line was quiet given the closure, which provided plenty of opportunity to look at the work done here - some fairly major engineering in fact, especially with the number of bridges and covered ways for farm access which needed to be extended to span the four tracks. Soon into Nuneaton, always a rather windy station but today very, very cold indeed. Headed straight for the near-legendary tea shop for welcome warm refreshments.

Watched a late-running CrossCountry unit to New Street arrive and depart from the Leicester line platforms very full. This didn't bode well, and indeed our train was also pretty well-loaded on arrival. Skulked in the vestibule for the fairly short journey to avoid scrambling for a seat. Grateful just to be warm, and in any case this provided a much better view of Washwood Heath and Lawley Street - not that much was happening on this very quiet holiday weekend. Stumbled into scenes of confusion at New Street, with 'congestion on the network' being blamed for some very late trains. Watched one of CrossCountry's recently refurbished HST sets arrive on a Plymouth bound service, solidly wedged and with some very tetchy looking people pushing their way on. Must get a ride on one of these sets soon, as they look rather comfortable inside - perhaps not on such a busy weekend though. Our own train, heading for Cardiff arrived soon after, and we enjoyed a quiet and picturesque run along the Severn estuary in wonderfully wintry sunshine. Newport was also busy, and after watching people squeezing angrily into a packed Manchester-bound Class 175 we waited with some trepidation for what First Great Western would provide for the final leg of our trip. In the event, a generous three-car Class 158 arrived, and we had an easy ride directly back to Highbridge.

So, the year ends with a shorter day out than usual, but a productive and pleasant one despite travelling at a time when people are advised it's probably best not to! Good to get out and explore in this otherwise rather miserable bit between Christmas and new year.

Back from a rather quiet, but warm and comforting day with the family. As ever in my Christmas Day posts, I must stress I don't find the time of year easy at all, and my instinct is to avoid much of the festivity. Given the changes which the family has seen over the years though, it's an occasion when I tend to reflect a little too much. The highlight of course was to get to spend the day with my two wonderful nephews, and to remember that last year we were all waiting eagerly for nephew No.2's arrival in March. It seems like a very long time ago now, and he took the day in his stride, his big brother looking after him and making an old uncle very proud!

It's been something of a watershed year for atheists, with positive press attention and genuine engagement with the mainstream. It's always a shame to see the rather foolish 'Mad Atheists banning Christmas' stories floating about, because I think along with a lot of fellow unbelievers, I value this quiet time of the year with my family.

I have a strange and troubled time with London east of the city. Inspired by Iain Sinclair I've wandered some fairly strange paths, and visited places I'd never dreamed of heading for in search of the curious corners of the city. But more than anywhere, wandering here makes me feel something separate from the City - an outcast, albeit quite often in a sea of other temporary citizens. Here, especially, authenticity is brought into sharp focus. With so much written and spoken about the legends of the territory, from ancient plague-grounds to modern murder myths, its hard not to feel like a tourist. The grim reality is that the Hoxton art student posing his way along the queue at the Beigel Bake, or the carefully designed media type lurking around 93 Feet East is more at home here than I will ever be. For someone who tries hard to read the City unconditionally and walks with a degree of perhaps pathetic reverence, this is a crushing defeat of style over content.

A bit of recent reading though has reassured me that this area is far from out-of-bounds to the outsider, and reminded me that these boundary lands have been contested spaces and seen multitudes of populations share the streets and alleyways over centuries of change and redefinition. So today's walk, tagged onto a trip further east into incongruous rural Essex, was an attempt to reclaim my little bit of Spitalfields and Shoreditch and to walk shoulder to shoulder with everyone else who didn't really belong but had gravitated here for sometimes unfathomable reasons.

I started at Aldgate Station, turning east into Whitechapel High Street and falling into step with the low pulse of the market and the throb of deep music from passing BMWs with shaded windscreen glass, before swinging left into Osborn Street - ostensibly the southern entrance to Brick Lane. There is a boarded-up, closed-for-business feel here, almost an attempt to turn back the casual tourist - this is not what you thought it was. A friend of mine who I sometimes travel with would call it "a dump" for certain. But peering through the cracked hoardings into a deep excavation, the old foundations can be seen. Encouraged northwards, I press on into Banglatown. A bewildering but not unwelcoming combination of scents assault the senses - diesel, curry, hot coffee, bad drains. Quiet, alien sounding music pours from a nearby restaurant - one of hundreds all imploring the passer-by to enter, even at this early hour. Onward, passing the entrance to Flower and Dean Walk, sanitised and erased except for the archway which gave entrance to the model dwellings which replaced the seething rookery a century ago. I try to get a haircut, but I'm refused in a case of embarassed but good-humoured racism by the proprietor - and I respond with equal good humour and a handshake. A little solidarity, and a moment of awareness of how alien we both are here. I press on, Christ Church School with it's tiny Star of David emblem hidden on a downpipe betrays the last great wave to sweep the area - where church became Synagogue, and in turn has become a great Mosque.

Beyond Fournier Street, with its painstaking heritage treatment measured by balooning property prices, Brick Lane changes. The curry houses dwindle and the former Black Eagle Brewery begins to dominate both sides of the street in a warm glow of yellow brick and shadow. Here in Dray Walk are the painfully hip bars and shops which are perhaps where I am most truly out of place. I slip apologetically into Rough Trade East in the hope of finding a fairly obscure American release I've been looking for. It's hard to understand the store - all space, pastries and sofas - not like the happy clutter of their West End locations. I slip out, negotiating the crowds of in some instances genuinely beautiful people, and regain the main line of the lane. Here, where the railway crossed before the bridge was dismantled, I head into Pedley Street to find the remains of Shoreditch Station. On my previous foray, this is where I bailed out, not fully grasping my bearings. Closed for a year or more, the station is decaying. Beside it, a glimpse over the wall allows sight of the ancient and long abandoned Bishopsgate Station platforms deep below, and which my train into Liverpool Street had passed just a little while before. The cutting in which the East London Line ran now accommodates a sweeping concrete bridge taking the gradually forming extension high over the Great Eastern Lines. I pass under this, through a narrow tunnel in the scaffolding and hoardings which divides the two sections of the lane almost perfectly. Tiny, expensive shops full of intricate, innovative and artistic goods sit comfortably beside the Beigel Bake. Young professional families stroll by, making the most of a cold, bright winter morning. What little of the market is out today straggles along to the Cheshire Street junction before petering out entirely as I turn west into Bethnal Green Road. The sign for Shoreditch Station twisted back on itself, perhaps not accidentally pointing to the vast concrete box bordering Sclater Street which will eventually be part of the new Shoreditch High Street station.

I head into familiar territory, Commerical Street with its grime, traffic and gleefully down-at-heel edge. Self-aware rich kids jostle me on their way into pubs, thankfully devoid of Ripper Tours today. I'm aware that I'm ill - the cold I've been nursing for nearly a week has finally overtaken me. I'm light-headed with hunger but not particularly wanting to eat. I lean against a railing, not realising until I reorient myself that I'm beneath the awesome frontage of Christ Church. A private function prevents entry today. I cross and re-cross the road, looking for inspiration for an ending to the walk. Eventually, after more false starts, I return to Brick Lane via Fournier Street and walk south - this time feeling more at peace with my surroundings. Via a staggered route through the abandoned metal stall frames of Petticoat Lane market I stumble back to Liverpool Street and gulp welcome hot coffee. I've made sense of much I've read during today's walk - and beyond the photographable landmarks which remain, almost everything has changed. I belong here as much or as little as the over-polite restaurant tout, the cheerfully racist barber or the studied self-aware art student.

Perhaps we are all shadows?