SUTTON Bank inhabits a niche midway between fact and legend in the collective consciousness of travellers. People who have never visited the place have usually heard of it. Like Scotch Corner, Watford Gap, the Devil’s Elbow, Ditchling Beacon and Electric Brae it has been elevated above its station by mythology and notoriety . . . Continue reading
IT’S a day to drift on a wind that smells of salt and seaweed. The sun glares on distant fells where snow burns the eyes. For the first time this year – the first time in many, many months – it feels like spring. Things are changing, and it’s not just the seasons . . . Continue reading
BLOWN on a thin wind around a corner from the Barbican tube station past a private park surrounded by private railings to a place where knights once jousted on a meadow called the Smooth Field – which was situated just outside London’s mediaeval walls . . . Continue reading
A WIND to slice ears off whips across the entrance to Walthamstow Central tube station. The temperature is below zero degrees Centigrade and snow settles behind chimney stacks on bleak roofs. This is London at Easter. There are no bunnies . . . Continue reading
THE worst weather is wet snow. It saps the spirit and soaks through to the shoulders. When it whips off a river on an easterly wind it stings and sucks life from fingers and feet. Just as well we’re searching for a pie and mash shop . . . Continue reading
GOT my boots on. Clump clump. And I’m marching through an industrial estate on the outskirts of Redcar. A less charitable person might describe it as rundown and shabby. It is not the most picturesque of locations, but the low-budget car dealers are offering interesting bargains and there’s a colourful sign outside a scrapyard advertising a cafe – but there’s no cafe. I feel a bit out of place because I’m not wearing one of those high-visibility jackets or a leisure top with a sportswear company name emblazoned across the front. Does that sound a bit snobbish? Sorry, but I can’t worry about that because I’m searching for something . . . Continue reading
THIS set out to be a hike to the Rosedale iron mines – but I got tangled in a fox hunt and that’s far more entertaining. It was also a day of bewildering signposts, dazzling sunlight, heather fire haze and Yorkshire mud. Oh, and there was an immovable dog in a bedroom window. Can’t say fairer than that, really . . . Continue reading
