Places I Have Lived

The Wells, Epsom (bottom of hill)

The Wells, Epsom (top of hill)

So my entire childhood was spent living on The Wells a housing estate near Epsom surrounded by open countryside. Very nice.

Norfolk Terrace, UEA, Norwich

Mannington Hall, Saxthorpe, Norfolk (16th century cottage)

Central Norwich

Three years in Norfolk while I was at UEA. Norwich is a wonderful place to live and the middle year out in the sticks was unique – our front door had no lock and my bedroom window looked onto Mannington Hall.

Willesden Green, London

Ladywell, London

Swiss Cottage, London

Kingsbury, London

My flat rent years, moving on every 6 months. Some of those places were dull, dull dull! Swiss Cottage was good, though.

Great Holm, Milton keynes

Great Holm, Milton Keynes

I lived in two houses in MK, a city I love and enjoyed living in so watch what you say! While owning my first home there I also lived overseas for a couple of years as follows.

Sukhumvit Road, Bangkok

Lardphrao, Bankok

Lardphrao was 13km away from my office, which took 1-3 hours by car! Bagkok is my second home and I love the place.

Reigate, Surrey

Nice big house. Moved there for work and then changed job!

The Wells, Epsom

Back with my parents post divorce. Its a long story . . .

Station Approach, Epsom

Brand new shared ownership flat. Nice, but noisy and no parking.

Commonwealth Drive, Crawley

Unusually I rented my (brand new) house for 6 months and then bought it at a knock down price. I’m very happy here, so hope to stay a long time.

Summary: I’m a a suburban person at heart. I don’t see that as a negative. I love London and big cities, but I need to get out into the countryside regularly. Another feature is that three of my homes have been brand new and one was only five years old. I’m not a DIY enthusiast.  I think you should be able to move into a house and live in it – not spend all your life doing it up and then moving on!

Regrets: apart from Norwich I have never lived within walking distance of a decent pub!

Memories of an Old Railwayman

Well, that’s me. I’m nearly 50 you know! Random memories occasionally pop into my head. Does anyone remember these international rail freight operations:

Transfesa Onion Traffic From time to time when I was driving around my sales patch in the mid 1980s I would come across one of these wagons, usually sitting in complete isolation in the middle of an otherwise empty freight yard. I think they were two axle affairs, coloured Transfesa blue and with slatted sides. Unusually these included gaps to allow air to circulate. They contained sacks of onions from Spain. Over a matter of days a chap in a van, presumably working for a vegetable wholesaler,  would arrive and take out a few bags.  When empty the van would make its way back to Spain.

I often wondered how this business was managed. Presumably someone in Spain had a list of British Rail terminals and would despatch a wagon and inform his customer. In those days Speedlink could transport the wagon from the Trainferry to the terminal.

Dry Ice The UK railway industry has been very backwards in offering services to carry refrigerated goods – although now there are a few new services carrying fresh fruit and veg from the continent via the Channel Tunnel. In the 1980s I seem to remember that chilled goods were transported from the continent and sometimes back to the continent in specialised wagons. These had no chiller units or temperature control. Instead they included a compartment which was filled with dry ice at the start of the journey. Hopefully by the end the product was still cold.

Nowadays chilled or frozen goods have to be continuously monitored and if the temperature falls outside a tight margin the product is considered unsaleable. Again, its hard to imagine that such a service worked, but it did.

Lastly – a quick apology. Sorry I haven’t posted for such a long time. But there is plenty to come in the next few weeks.

Welcome to Thailand!

Greenwich Thai Festival, last weekend, was excellent. Freshly barbecued prawns, mango and sticky rice, iced coffeee, smoothies, Thai music, lots of people smiling and having fun in the sun.

Mr Confident

Miss Confident. Could they be . . .? Surely not . . . This IS Thailand though.

More photos on my smugmug site.

Favourite Places

I love cities and I love the countryside. These are some of my favourite cities:

London – of course. The greatest city in the world. The nicest and safest place to simply wander around. Superb architecture. Excellent culture. Great food. Friendly people. I could never stay away for long.

Bangkok- of course. I confess I am addicted. Its like diving into a maelstrom of traffic, people, smells and heat. Bangkok is vibrant and exciting. The best part is obviously the people – incredibly friendly and usually smiling. Its quite a safe city. The food is superb. I love the oases of cool and calm such as the many 5* hotels, the river, and the temples. I will always go back. A year away from Bangkok is a bad year.

Norwich – “A Fine City”. Relaxed, good food, compact, great culture. Good university!

Lisbon –  I have had several business trips there and I love the place.  Very friendly. Compact. Decent food. Stunning views. The most fun tram system in Europe. Brilliant fado music.

Birmingham – but I could equally say Manchester, Nottingham, Glasgow, or Newcastle. The renaissance of the British city is an unnoticed success of the last 15 years, and one for which the government should take credit.

Also rans: Valencia, Prague, Singapore

Not placed:  Paris, Rome, Moscow

Journey to Work

How should I travel from Three Bridges to my office near Oxford Circus each day? There are lots of options:

1: Three Bridges to Victoria then Victoria line to Oxford Circus then walk.

• Three Bridges – Victoria = 40 minutes
• Victoria – Wells Street = 16 minutes including 5 minute walk
• Two trains per hour from Three Bridges
• BUT Victoria line horribly crowded – you have to wait for several trains to pass before you can squeeze on. Coming home is just as bad – see my last post!
• Walking along Oxford Street in the morning is pleasant. Walking along Oxford Street in the afternoon is hell.

2: Three Bridges to City Thameslink then bus – Wardour Street then a short walk

• Three Bridges – City Thameslink = 52 minutes
• City Thameslink – Wells Street = 25 minutes including 5 minute walk
• BUT only one suitable train from Three Bridges
• Bus trip much nicer than tube
• Walking across Oxford Street much easier

3: Three Bridges to London Bridge then tube and walk

• Three Bridges – London Bridge = 39 minutes
• London Bridge – Wells Street = 25 minutes including 15 minute walk
• 2 trains per hour from Three Bridges
• Jubilee line pretty busy
• Walking along Oxford Street in the morning is OK

So, what to do? Pick and mix at the moment. Victoria is fine in the mornings, but really difficult in the evenings from Oxford Circus. I tend to go home via City Thameslink as I like the bus trip and the longer train journey gives me more time to read the new paper.

Welcome to Oxford Street

My journey home last night . . . .

Oxford Circus Station - 15th July 2009

I could not even get in to Oxford Street Station. After a wait in the crowd I took a slow bus to Charing Cross, a train to London Bridge and then crammed on to the most crowded Thameslink train I have ever seen. The guy in front of me started shouting really loud at passengers to move up. It was exceptionally hot, and took ages to crawl to Three Bridges.

Fortunately I have a huge variety of alternative routes to and from my new office. Victoria to Oxford Circus in the morning is survivable, but I think I will have to find a better way home!

Blogroll: Dave Hill

One of the handful of sites I visit every day. As it says on his Guardian profile:

Dave Hill is a novelist, blogger, occasional broadcaster and long-standing writer for the Guardian.

Dave keeps his ear to the ground and provides fair comment on a range of issues – particularly, of course, the day to day tribulations of mayor Boris Johnson and his diminishing team. But the blog is not just a political getto – it includes insights and comments on London life from a very warm and human perspective. I suspect the subject of chicken feed will feature a lot this week!

Lovely Bankside

More reasons to miss my office in Great Suffolk Street – some scenes from around Bankside yesterday.

Pavement cafes and TV screens around the Blue Fin Building

Beach life in SE1!

Sun worshipping at the Tate Modern

More photos at my photoblog.

Industrial East London

I spent an enjoyable, if very hot, day looking at a couple of sites in East London on Sunday. Both sites were involved – rather tenuously – with the ill fated “Story of London” festival.

The Story of Three Mills Island

I only found out about this by chance. An open day which included both the House Mill and the new Three Mills Lock was too good to miss. Not least as I spent a lot of time with colleagues working up a very complicated funding deal for the new lock.

The event was not very well attended. But the tours around the wonderful House Mill were popular, and a coffee in the Miller’s Garden was delightful.

House Mill tour

The Miller's Garden

The new lock is complete and open – but public access to the footpath over the end of the lock is not available yet – hopefully it will be in the next few weeks.

The lock will allow barges of up to 350 tonnes capacity to access the Olympic Park construction site, and is already being used to take construction waste away from the site.

The new Three Mills Lock

Three Mills island is a genuine hidden treasure. It includes two mills, some open land, the lock, and the 3 Mills TV and film studios. Among the usual sightings of coots and ducks, I noticed that Sand Martins are nesting in disused drainage pipes next to the River Lea.

Crossness Engines

A tube trip, two DLR trains, and a short rail hop took me to Abbey Wood station where a free minibus completed my journey to Crossness for one of the infrequent steaming days of their huge beam engine. This was a very welcome insight into a major restoration project. The well supervised visitors are allowed to enter the bowels of this incredible machine.  Bowler hatted engineers were on hand to answer questions, and some interesting displays and exhibitions completed the event.

Detail of Crossness engine room

Crossness Engine

The engine operates without any accompanying crashes and bangs or blasts of steam. But in its way the smooth operation of the massive beam and flywheel, with the spinning and shifting of various well oiled bits of kit, was even more spectacular for its peace and elegance.

Interesting to overhear at the entrance (£5) some visitors insisting that the event should be free as it was part of the Story of London festival. Only one of the volunteers seemed to even have heard of the Story of London – and he admitted that the engine open day was planned before the Story of London and had just been included to provide some additional publicity!

More Photos

Here, on Smugmug

So. Farewell Then Southwark . . .

To my great regret my company is relocating from Southwark to Oxford Circus. There are numerous things I will miss about Southwark (and one or two I wont miss!). So I thought I would make a few posts saying what I love about this wonderful part of town.

Southwark, or perhaps more specifically SE1, has become one of the most vibrant and exciting parts of London. Arguably SE1 is now the cultural capital of our city, with more high quality and independent theatres, art galleries, music and rehearsal studios, and architects pratices than almost anywhere else. Combine this with the fact that this is a part of London where people actually live (not diplomats, millionaires, or visitors but real Londoners!), and you can see the potential.

Things I Will Miss 1:

The architectual mix: streetscapes are important to me, and I like variety. Within 500m of my office there is incredible variety including large modern office developments, thriving street markets, social housing, former industrial buildings, victorian streets, and in fill developments of architect designed housing or small offices. At times the mix is bizarre, reflecting the ups and downs this part of London has experienced.  As recently as the 1980s two story houses were built in the area, reflecting the low value of land. Yet right alongside these houses you can now find massive office developments or expensive loft apartments.

Things I Will Not Miss 1: The Palestra!

I have nothing against Will Alsop’s architecture, although he can do much better than this! No, what I and most locals HATE is the wind tunnel along Union Street that this building has created. Its horrible. How did they get away with it?

What do you love or hate about SE1?