Back Again

November 28. Having spent some 4 hours in Clubland meeting a friend from my teens and twenties I decided to walk across the park to Lambeth to have a look at my birthplace. This involved another trip over my river, walking from Big Ben over Westminster Bridge to Lambeth. By chance whilst near Pall Mall I dropped in to the Stephen Wiltshire Gallery and bought a post card showing the bridge from the air. This artist has made some amazing views of parts of London as well as many 'Cityscapes', mainly black and white they are not everyone's cup of tea but well worth viewing on his web site.
My birthplace, St. Thomas's Hospital has changed a bit in 83 years and the record I wanted is either destroyed or with London Metropolitan Archives. It is just over 3 years since I was by Westminster Bridge and little has changed except a cabin is missing in 'The London Eye' and a piper, bagpiper that is, was playing on the bridge, it was cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey but he played on.

Return to SONNING on Thames

Sunday 3rd July 2011.
This was a place where EG and I stayed one night, very old pub but we missed our way leading to an extra 10 minutes walk and I wanted to find out why. Instead of going up the path top left in int right hand picture, we SHOULD have turned left and the pub was about 20 yards ahead. Note the brick wall going off right, it was built from bombed out bricks taken from east London in 1945
You can see the pub above. It is one of the few pubs to be owned by the nearby church. This is because it dates back to about 1300 and was then the lodging house for some visitors calling on the Bishop of Salisbury who lived in a palace about 200 yards away. He later transferred his residence to Salisbury and the palace became a ruin. Just like that!
Sonning was at one time recently the home of the Palmer family, as in Huntley and Palmers biscuits. The palace site is now a school.
The walk along the river in the wrong direction was quite pleasant, far too many people for peace but if you go out on a Sunday you have to expect that.
We had a large lunch at the pub, The Bull, very satisfying, i recommend it but tall people (over 5ft6) should watch out for the low ceilings.

Return to THE RIVER

11th June 2011
M and I returned to The Olde Bell Inn at Hurley, Berks where E and I had eaten some 3 years ago. Another delightful day and VERY good food taken indoors after a walk down to the lock and along the riverside for about 1/2 a mile. A really lovely place to spend some easy time, the only road in the village leads to the river so there is little traffic, only 2 shops and not many houses so again little traffic although this day there was a wedding at the church (dating back to 633 AD in places) with the recption at The Olde Bell. A nearby house (Lady Place) is said to have been a US Intelligence HQ in WW2, a house next to the Inn was used by The Prince of Wales (later Edward VII,NOT to-day's Prince Charles) to meet a 'friend'.
Whilst walking beside the river came across a chestnut tree recently fallen, one that Edie hid behind no doubt.
If you go to the pub/inn try the green pea soup flavoured with Loveage, it turns a dull dish into a winner.

Change of plan

Since my last post almost a year ago many things have happened and EG and I are now investigating the idea of motor boating up the Thames using friends as drivers while we walk most of the day. This has the advantage that the non walkers get a chance to learn how to negotiate the 40 or so locks whilst we get as much exercise as we want and when necessary can call on help from the water bourne people. I have suffered a simple but painful injury whilst EG's friend suffered some sort of fainting trauma resulting in everyone seeing sense and giving up Coast to Coast until the males are fully fit again.
This photo was taken with friends visiting Ephesus and has no connection with Old Father Thames or EG