This journey taken on Saturday November 28, seemed not to have been posted, although I know I did it! Hmmm. So this comes before 12 …. Are you all following???

Grumpy and confused Rock Dove!


11 Greenford to South Kenton

Saturday November 28, 2009:
“Yum” I drool, popping a piece of toast with some delicious scrambled eggs balanced carefully on top of it into my mouth. “This is the way to start a walk!” I declare taking a deep draft of black Earl Gray tea, which has just reached the perfect temperature for quaffing.

It is still early, but the café opposite Greenford station is busy. We eat breakfast and enjoy the snug warmth. But there is a walk to do and it’s time we set off.

We cancelled our last walk just over two weeks ago, on account of a dire weather forecast which offered blustery torrential rain. But today, the skies are clear and a soft winter sun shines down on us. Still it’s darn nippy and I am glad to be wearing my hat, scarf, gloves and heavy duffle coat

We walk along the Greenford road and then slip through a tunnel into an oasis of peace. A mini wetland nature reserve with reeds, fine trees and chirruping birds offers surprising tranquility, even though the main road can be heard roaring behind us.

Standing on a mini viewing platform in the sunshine, I breathe the pond damp air. My companion excitedly admires the grey and white terns as they wheel above us. Landing with delicacy onto the surface of the pond, they hold their tails carefully free from the water in a neat if fastidious way.

The sun gilds a birch trees yellow leaves bright against the silver bark. A great oak tree with all its leaves still on, shakes its full head in the wind. We walk on down to the side of the Grand Union Canal.

The canal is flanked by shrubs, amongst which coots and moorhens waddle, splashing swiftly into the water as we approach. Terns skid on the surface, bottoms up. All scatter before the approach of the narrow boat Tolerance, festooned with cheerfully waving, well wrapped up passengers.

The canal speeds by busily, its black water glossy under the blue sky. A smart houseboat, the Oden, complete with an appropriate black cat loitering nearby bobs peacefully on the water. A polite cyclist greets us as he passes.

We climb steps and take the bridge over the canal to our first opportunity to get lost, on the slopes of Horsenden Hill.

The ground squelches thickly under foot. We wind our way through a small copse out onto Dyers Green, a meadow which is home to a rare plant used to make yellow dye.

Several ways offer themselves to us but there is no clue as to which is the right one. We take the left path and descend into another copse, the way lined with blackberry bushes, heavy with late unripe red fruits.

Now we’re on a tarmac path and the road sounds awfully close. My companion is confused but there are no signs. Optimistically we turn up a cobbled path and then climb steps which bring us onto the summit of Horsenden Hill.

“It’s not as steep as I remembered” observes my companion, scowling at the Capital ring book. Glad to have made it up the hill without too much trouble, I stand and raise my face to the sun, its warmth tempered by the blustery wind blowing vigoursly now.


My companion describes the rolling hills of three counties. I imagine the horizon, blue and mysterious which I always thought was the sea, when I was a very partially sighted child. London lies fuzzily below us, framed by trees.
“Where are the Wembly Arches?” asks my companion for the third time. We sit down with our back to the wind and feast on fruit bars and clementines. Still the wind brings the sweet tangy smell of the fruit to our noses. It dances with the damp smell of the grass. I breathe it in and think suddenly of Christmas.

The hill top is flat. There is an ordinance survey trig point which we touch (to prove we were here). We walk through an oak wood. The branches curve and tangle, darkly superimposed upon the pale blue sky. The ground is soft underfoot.

Out of the woods, we walk along beside a playing field. Beyond a rundown row of shops, Ugly houses line the street. There is another countratant between the book and the signs and, after a slight purposeless detour, we turn and follow a striding walker and her Capital ring book through streets of indifferent houses. . Nodding to a magnificent oak tree on a strip of green, we turn down more streets past several profusions of flowering fuchsias’, it being that time of year apparently. Arriving at last at Sudbury Hill, we repair for lunch to the Metro Juice Bar.
Full of falafel wrap, we walk up Sudbury Hill High Street. Several pizza joints are interspersed with healthy looking fruit and vet shops. There’s a Boots and a hardware store and several Indian restaurants.

We turn off and ascend a hill, lined with oak trees growing in a narrow finger of uncultivated land. I’m beginning to puff, but not badly. Now suburbia smiles smugly at us as we toil up a street lined with very posh large houses, not all divided into flats. One or two are prosperous and solid behind their high walls and tall trees.

We sink down to rest upon a bench in the middle of Harrow village green. It is just past two and we’ve made good time. My companion describes the circle of smart cafes, restaurants and shops which make up the village. Then she spies the lighting shop and is diverted to pres her nose up against the window and admire the chandeliers.

The road slopes steeply down through Harrow School buildings, smart and magnificent, neat and prosperous. Behind a wall, a boy plays noisily with a football. The smell of fresh coffee sachets tantalizingly down the street. A car edges it way slowly past us.

We turn onto the path across the school playing fields. Boys of various ages are gathered on pitches tossing the ball to each other. Three long legged girls stride briskly past, deep in conversation. Various adults with sleek dogs wander by.

Suddenly I am halted in my tracks by the piercingly sweet sound of bagpipes. We turn and my companion peers over a hedge. A boy stands in the middle of the field. Players lock arms and bend their heads in the pre match scrum. A whistle blows, they break apart, the pipes stop and a ball thuds.

Leaving the grounds, we cross a busy road and turn into ducker’s path, another narrow finger of trees and scrub. I am tired and plonk myself down on a handy tree stump for a quick rest.

Now our way lies along a muddy narrow path between Northwick Park Hospital and a golf course. We are imprisoned by the scrub and a fifty foot net. Grumbling, we stump along sulkily for ages. We both agree that this is not a nice path.

But it ends at last. My companion spies a deserted swing park. Immediately, I am eight again and want to play. Oh and I’ve not lost the knack. I swing as high as I dare considering that the seat is very low. My legs hurt but it feels good to be arching through the air, the wind rushing against my cheeks. “Weee” I call infantilely, a broad smile splitting my face.

We are neared our journeys end. We tear ourselves away from the park and walk on. A canoodling couple clinches desperately; an annoying brat repeatedly sounds the horn of a car he has got access to. . Playing fields lie deserted. Only a group of smoking teenagers stand at the park gate deep in conversation about who is dating who. Fast trains roar along the railway line. And here now is South Kenton and our journey’s end.

12 South Kenton to Brent Cross (West Hendon

Friday December 11, 2009:

It’s a foggy grey morning, but at least it is not raining. The weather forecaster says that the sun will come out at noon. Layered up against the nasty wind which persistently stirs the fog, we march from South Kenton station through somewhat disheveled streets of reasonably sized semis. The houses are not particularly objectionable but there is something a little neglected about the area.

Preston Park is another matter. Gently landscaped, the undulating ground dotted with clumps of mature trees is pleasant enough. Tits sing in the trees and other feathered souls batter the shrubs as they ascend into the cool cloudy sky.

We turn from the park past a primary school and some more houses. A calm wood pigeon is peacefully singing in one of the back gardens.

“Ah”, I sigh, pulling my companion to a halt so I can listen. The pigeon shuts up!

We turn into an unhappy looking high street. A halal butcher sits side by side with closed pizza restaurants, travel and estate agencies. The uncared for atmosphere of the neighboring streets is explained by the many advertisements offering houses to rent. Perhaps the residents are all passing through and not particularly interested in the surroundings.

It is just past nine o’clock and we are hungry. We search a little nervously for a café, fearing there isn’t going to be one. Coffee wafts towards us as a woman speeds across the road clutching a steaming polystyrene cup. My companion spies the plainly named “Coffee House” and we cross the road.

It’s a cheerful café and efficiently serves up perfectly delicious scrambled eggs on whole meal bread and really quite decent filter coffee. Best of all, it has a clean and handy toilet.

We turn away from the high street into a quiet residential road. Here the houses are detached with larger leafy gardens. Most front gardens have been concreted over to provide off street parking. The atmosphere is altogether much more prosperous.

Slipping between neat semi-detached dwellings, we move along a soft green alleyway and out into a small copse edged with the tube line. This is the beginning of Fryent Country Park. I breathe deeply and savor the soft mossy sweetly sour smell of rotting foliage and fungus that typifies a wood in winter. The ground is yielding and squidgy underfoot and we have to be careful, lest we slip. Falling here would cover us in oozing mud.
We pick our way gingerly across a sodden meadow. Everything is soaked. Its poured non-stop for days and the earth feels heavy with rain. In the distance, a woman surrounded by a whole pack of assorted dogs is briskly striding forth. Above us in the dull and misty grey sky, crows circle cawing to each other.

We ascend through a tangled Oakwood, their curled limbs, black against the grey sky. The earth beneath my feet shifts stickily. The sweetly gagging smell of fox rises up to dance with the moldy mushroom dampness and the more acid smell of bruised grass. Three fearcesome Alsatians, held in check by their three middle-aged minders are being taught their manners. They bark fiercely and I begin to sing quietly under my breath to calm me and them. They take no notice and bark some more. Under a hail of admonitions, their owners drag them off.

We subside onto a handy seat to rest a while. The smell of fox is stronger here. My companion spies a hole in the bank which might be something to do with the foxes.

The peace is shattered as a pack of assorted cheerful dogs appears, panting and scrabbling through the trees. The human in charge of them, calls them to heel and is ignored. The pack is a mixed bag of smart pedigree and mutts and is a complete United Nations of caninedom. They pass happily on and we climb to our feet and strike our way through the wood.

The path rises and we slither and slip. Still we move on, growing warm as the sun thinks about braking through the misty cloud above. We are climbing Barn Hill. Reaching its summit, we find a bulrush fringed pond gleaming muddy brown under the sky. The water is populated by mallards in their winter coats

Standing by the Trig point, my companion describes the roundness that is Wembly stadium. Above it, the arch, like a basket handle is half shrouded by cloud and gilded by the sun which is still obscured by said cloud. Beyond, the urban sprawl is grey.

Carefully, we step along the treacherously muddy path. In time, The Oakwood gives way to a meadow. Dicing with death, we reach the far side of the busy main road in one piece and strike out across more meadow. A young Asian woman in sunny yellow Chalwoir chemise stretches energetically as her companion in running shorts pounds across the meadow.

Our way is barred by a rain swollen water-hole spread across the path. We edge carefully past and on across the sticky mud-clogged grass.
A squat hawthorn bush, its twisting twigs covered in yellow-green lichen offers its velvety complexity to my curious fingers. I stroke its softness and breathe in the sweet mossy odour.

WE pass carefully through gaps in the hedges; placing each foot purposefully one in front of the other as the mud sucks greedily at our boots. The ground continues to rise as we climb of Gotfords Hill.

This round hill offers a panoramic view of London. In the south, the sun shine’s mistily behind the arches of Wembly Stadium. To the west rises St Mary’s spire from the wood encrusted harrow on the Hill. To the north a grey urban-scope is edged with the blue hills of Hertfordshire. To the east, London stretches out greyly towards Essex, far, far away.

Having climbed up, we now need to get down. Foot by foot we move, down amongst the Oakwood.

The clouds clear, the sun shines down. It is noon exactly! Birds chirrup cheerfully in greeting. I take off my hat and raise my face to the golden warmth.

We leave the country park, crossing a main road and skirting round the new St Andrew’s Church, only 150 +years old, we climb in and walk across the much older churchyard behind, with its tumbled-down graves and old sheltering yew tree. Exchanging greetings with an ancient dog and its heavily made up owner. We walk on. The fuchsia bushes are still in flower, and glow cheerfully in the sunshine. It is time for a much needed cupper tea and pee break and we head for the garden centre café, hard by the gaudy Christmas trees.

The “café” turns out to be a French bloke with a kettle and a few shelves of packaged snacks. In keeping with the season, I dig out from the depths of my rucksack, mince pies, clementines and chocolate money.

“Oh enough already!” I mutter as rested, hydrated and after a fashion fed, we hastily speed away from the hideous festival musak. “I’m going to kill Bing Crosby”, I growl, exiting the building hurriedly and coming a cropper on a modest curb.

“Bugger!” I snarl, getting awkwardly up. Every bobble of the concrete has etched itself onto my already tender knees. I take a swig of rescue remedy , an arnica tablet as I extricate myself from the helpful chap who seems bent on pulling my arm off as he assists me rather gracelessly to rise.

We march off down the road, past two alternately bum-sniffing and quarrelling dogs and enter Brent Reservoir Park.
Hardly a human is to be found. The water, silver in the sunshine is heavily populated with a cheerful abundance of water fowl. Canada geese vie with the mallards, a teenage swan, and his beauty not yet come, glides amongst the terns, their bottoms rather superciliously out of the water. The M1 roars ferociously in the distance. We stride on.


Urban traffic roars at us as we leave the peace of the waterside behind. We cross a busy road bridge spanning the howling M1 and the mainline railway. The houses here are reasonably sized semis. I hope they’ve got double-glazing to cut out the din of the motorway. At length, we turn off and passing rather neat little terraced cottages make our way towards Brent Cross shopping centre and our destination this day for this, our penultimate walk. We are only seven miles from home and a little retail therapy beckons!