Capital Ring 8 Osterley Lock to Hanwell June 2018

We walked here on the hottest day of the year and were delighted by the English landscape, with birds and abundant summer plants and a cricket match at the end of the day. A hot day with temperatures hitting 24. I was late meeting Robert and Helen at the Boston Manor tube station start because the Piccadilly Line was crowded with travellers for Heathrow. They gave me a beautifully chosen birthday prezzie of a novel about a river by Ester Kinsky. We retraced our steps to the Grand Union canal, a heron perched a large weir. Coots, swans and ducks swam on the canal. There were many canal boats with flower and even solar panels on their roofs. Elthorn Waterside is grassed in now and we would see small trees there. We walked along to the Hanwell flight of locks. Our path tracked the river Brent for the rest of the day. The undergrowth next to the river was abundant and looked like Middle Earth. The huge beautiful Wharnecliffe viaduct built by Brunel in 1838 dominates the valley. The small bricks used in construction reminded Robert and I of N India Moghul architecture. We had excellent ice cream in Hanwell close to the church. A maze, set up to celebrate the Millenium is still growing. Bitterns field, a huge open a wild meadow only mown once a year had with gentle afternoon light on it. Perivale park contained several local cricket matches were taking place with British Indian teams. The Wembley dome dominated the horizon. Crossing the busy, busy A40 on a footbridge, was a low point of the walk. I enjoyed seeing Ealing hospital, where I worked in 1986. Then I used to take the Tube to Boston Manor and bike to the hospital. Our last 2 miles were on tarmac through 1950’s suburbia and we enjoyed seeing the roses in bloom. We ended the day with beer and crisps in a large pub next to the railway station. Highlights had been the Brunel viaduct and it was surprising how english the walk was. We came home by the central line. I have never been this far out on the central line. Danny Dorling wrote a fine small book imaging the people who might live at each stop on the central line. As a social geographer the book had a broad scope. good: Brunel viaduct, ice-cream in Hanwell Bad: journey out to Boston Manor surprising: luxuriant over growth by the paths References “River” by Esther Kinsky 2017 “The 32 Stops”, Danny Dorling Penguin 2013

Capital Ring 12 Highgate to Stoke Newington

Capital Ring 6 Wimbledon Park to Richmond

I met Robert and Helen at Wimbledon Park station, on a lovely day for doing the next 7 miles. We-like started along streets with houses, then across a park with a Capability Brown vista. The main part of the walk was across Richmond Park, with a huge sense of space and openness, the city of 7 million people does not feel close. 

We saw deer, 15 antlered males sitting underneath a tree and later on a female herd of 25 and the juvenile males had tiny first year antlers.  We saw a kestrel and woodpecker. The trees were magnificent huge oaks, beeches and weeping birches. At Richmond there was a huge plane tree the largest in London.

We ended our park crossing at Pembroke lodge, a fine 18 century house with nice gardens, sadly only open that day for wedding guests. We walked down into Petersfield, pausing at the 13 c church with ancient gravestones, including one for captain Vancouver who died aged 40. Since Robert is from Vancouver this was a nice link to his origins. We walked past fields with black and white cows and ended the walk with views of the elegant grey stone bridge at Richmond.  An abnormally high tide at Richmond had just washed away the Sunday riverside drinkers. We drank in a riverside pub and walked through Richmond to the station passing a lovely square with old houses around it. There is a fine 19 c theatre and the modern Orange Tree theatre. Richmond station has lovely wrought iron features. We took the modern north London line Overground to Highbury and Islington. I walked home feeling tired and virtuous.

7.0 miles

Aug 21 2016

Capital Ring 7: Richmond to Osterley Lock

Many architectural styles and a rural Grand union canal

3.8 miles

Aug 5 2017

 We went by Overground train from Highbury & Islington to Richmond.  We walked back down through the town to the river where we ended our last walk in Aug 2016.  Richmond theatre is a fine Victorian building. Beside the river we squinted through a meridian marker from the time Kew had the meridian. Richmond bridge, is a huge old cast iron bridge and we passed fine old buildings now in Brunel University. Isleworth has a collection of interesting old and new buildings, an old school, the blue school was being renovated by Polish builders. We walked along the riverside pub The Town Wharf pub, indicating older uses. A small Victorian street gave onto the Apprentices pub by the Thames, used for celebrating the end of apprenticeship. On the river people paddled standing on surf boards and scullers rowed upstream. The small Dukes river was named after the Duke of Northumberland in 1605. Syon park has a beautiful 18^th century house with a glass house where Helen and Robert had celebrated a huge Indian wedding. We had coffee and cake in the garden centre. Brentford lock basin is now 21st century with modern houses and a plaza. The modern GSK building is canalside with an interesting yellow and red metal arc shaped sculpture in the grounds.  The grand Union canal felt rural with overgrown summery plants, a pair of swans also coots and moorhens.  We left the canal at Boston Manor and walked through suburbia, sheltering from a torrential summer rain storm over a beer in a pub. We picked our way along the damp streets to Boston Manor station and took the Tube home.

This was a short walk but had a huge range of architecture from Elizabethan in Richmond to 21 st centruy at Brentford. In contrast the walk along the Grand Union canal felt very rural.  Once again London surprises with its range of styles and sights.

Good seeing rather old pubs in Isleworth and building in Richmond, modern sculpture at GSK building.

Bad rain at the end of the day

Surprising how rural the Grand Canal was close to Brentford,  seeing the Duke river, also Brent river.

Diana's Year 2017

2017 in brief: My mother’s life was celebrated with an excellent funeral. I reduced my work load and became a student again. I holidayed with friends in the French Alps, Italy and Tanzania. I enjoyed literary and music festivals in Wales, England, Scotland and Indonesia.

Willy died peacefully, aged 92, after a short illness in spring. She was in her room at Glanenig residential home with excellent palliative care.  Her room looked like a Dutch interior painting with her bed, pictures and spring sunlight pouring in. Her relatives and godchildren had visited her in her last weeks.  She would have enjoyed the positive celebration of her life in Llowes Church and Clyro tea party. Family and friends from across her life came, celebrating her medical work, her life as a vicar’s wife and her retirement in the Wye valley. Thanks to everybody who supported me then. I enjoy her home in Wales and the festivals Hay literary and Brecon Jazz.  Modernising the home is my next project.

I holidayed with Les, Vera and Riff (dog) in their flat in St Gervais. Every day we walked out on the mountains and lunched with the Mont Blanc glaciers in view. We enjoyed unusual evening concerts at the Mont Blanc baroque festival; notably an Irish quartet playing traditional Irish harp carried up to a ski landing stage.  I spent a few days in Paris with my friends Steph and Julia. Each time I visit Paris I follow the Time Out book of Paris walks, and visit new areas. This time I saw the Adam Wickiewicz museum about Polish émigrés to Paris.  I had 4 days in Amsterdam, catching up with friends and family and having lunch on the very trendy Amsterdam tower with Willemien and Bart and family. My time with family and friends was restorative but also stimulating.

February was my last month on call consultant for infectious diseases at UCLH having completed 22 years in service (appointed 1995) and I am happy to be passing the baton on. I still do my specialist leprosy and skin clinics at HTD.  MY NHS job has changed hugely with more patients, more investigations and electronic records.   Then we provided a specialist service in a different hospital with no ITU and the patients were travellers, migrants and missionaries. Now we work in the 16 floor modern block and are part of the teams providing acute infection services for Camden and the patients are drug users and complex elderly and many have drug resistant bugs.  We have bright young doctors working with us but the teams are more fragmented.  I was the first women consultant in the service, now I have 4 female colleagues.

My Mondays are free and I studied non-fiction writing at City University.  I loved the stimulation of being a student but still did my homework at the last moment. My fellow students were interesting; age range 26-70 with backgrounds in finance, academia, and charity work.  We read out our homework in class and I learnt the power of storytelling. The election and the Grenfell Tower fire became topics for our written work. My first published piece was my mother’s obituary (The Guardian June 24).  Our tutor Peter Forbes was a published poet who encouraged us. I plan to write stories about leprosy.

I acted in a drama “Deeds not words” recreating the all female suffragette run military hospital in Covent Garden in 1917, This was an immersive drama and the audience came into the space of the Swiss church and experienced the life of the hospital.  Wounded soldiers were carried in from the street; bandages were in short supply. I played Helen Chambers a pathologist who worked on treatments for wounds.  I enjoyed the teamwork and creating the atmosphere of the hospital and I identified with the pathologist. (photos on my blog).

Work continues to be busy. The ENLIST global consortium linking the top leprosy research centres is developing under the leadership of my colleague Steve Walker. Our last meeting was in Indonesia. My mother was born there when my grandfather was a water engineer in Java. His passion was improving sanitation so the working toilets pleased me. Indonesian food is a treat for me. I had a long weekend in Bali and my stay in Ubud, the cultural centre over lapped with the literary festival and I enjoyed talks on short story writing, seeing photos of the spice islands. I tried out a bamboo bike. The volcano nearly erupted just after I left.

This year has been depressing politically. Brexit will have a negative impact on my life because as a doctor, academic and scientist I experience many benefits from the EU.  I have been active in the local Labour party, fortunately Momentum is not active in our ward.  I am sorry that Corbyn is not providing a robust anti-Brexit opposition.  Three of my friends who live in Europe have become EU citizens. Trump’s presidency is turning out worse than I imagined. Seeing the rise of intolerance has been sobering.

Nina Goldman lived in the house for 14 months as a DTMH student and then worked on the ITU at Kings. She was accepted by MSF as a medical volunteer. She is working in Bangladesh in a camp with 500 000 Rohingya refugees, many with malnutrition and trauma.  She manages a team of Bangladeshi doctors. Working with MSF allows her to implement solutions that would take months otherwise. MSF have been tweeting her reports. https://www.msf.org.uk/dr-nina-goldman

I feel connected to the crisis.

Gardening in Arlington Square has been fun and maybe our 50 acers helped us win the prize for best small park in London. I improved my own garden by having the big trees taken out and the bricks put on a firm foundation, it looks Mediterranean. There were three weddings this year, my friends Simon and Maggie who had a book themed wedding in Westminster and then Faye Goldman and Tom married in Hackney with music themes.

I enjoyed exhibitions marking the 100th anniversary of the Russian revolution, and I am inspired to plan a long trip exploring the country.  Many exhibitions captured the enthusiasm of the revolution and then huge downside of Stalinist repression for artists and journalists.  My best play was “The Ferryman” by Jez Butterworth. Set in N. Ireland the play captures several generations experiences of civil war. It had resonance far beyond N Ireland.  Women’s achievements were celebrated in the film “Hidden Figures” about the bright black female American mathematicians behind the NASA space programme. The ballet “Rain” performed in Edinburgh to Steve Reich’s  “music for 18 instruments” was a wonderful array of running figures. Shashi Tharoor ‘s book “Inglorious Empire” was a devastating critique of the British Raj in India which failed Indians on many levels. I felt embarrassed for our colonial sins.

Enjoy the Solstice and may 2018 be a good year.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jun/14/wilhelmina-lockwood-obituary