Harefield Place Course Again

This lunch time, an anti-clockwise loop round the Harefield Golf Club for four of us, Bashful, M, T and me. 6.6 km walked and 388 calories burned. The good news was the pace: 16.95 hours for 100 km: first time the pace has us below 17 hours – not that it’s sustainable, just encouraging.

Sponsor wanted: 6.6km

Harefield Place Golf Club

Speed was the intention today. Doc, Bashful, M, T and I started at at noon and did the Harefield Place Golf Club clockwise walk, about 6.5 km at 17.3 hour pace (per 100 km). I managed to burn off 392 calories according to my phone.

Sponsor wanted: 6.5km

Killiney Loops

Ready to walk after a feed of pancakes and coffee on a hazy but dry day without too much pain in my foot. The iPhone being set up, the walking gear on, I set off about nine into a chilly easterly breeze. Round to Roches Hill where the crushed booze cans and general detritus make you sad and anrgy that no one cares to clean up after those who can only afford to watch the golfers in Killiney. Overcast, there's no bird song today but the bright yellow gorse somehow compensates. Cross the highest point and on down towards the sea, using mostly walled rights-of-way. An early encounter with a Black Suvdriver reminded me to watch out for the local wildlife. Overgrown pathways attest to an ongoing conflict in the area; unrestricted access might attract walkers and others into places they are not really wanted.

Reaching the beach, having passed the gum treed garden of the Canadian ambassador, I saw a Greater Breasted Ball Thrower. She was entertaining a dog where it is alleged that sandwiches were once offered to a tramp seen on successive days sitting below Bono's home - except it is said it was Bono.

Killiney beach is where Robert Mallett demonstrated in 1862 that seismic energy propagated in the near surface thereby explaining the destructive forces of earthquakes. This knowledge was used to triangulate artillery locations in the Great War and is now a fundamental tool in exploration and exploitation of sub-surface natural resources.

I watched a Blousy Backcombed Bun bird walk across the small promontory that separates Killiney and White Rock beaches. I was rock-hopping my way across the storm driven boulders, varifocal glasses inspired bone breaking noises whispering in my sub-conscious. The outcrop is the contact or metamorhic aureole between the granite pluton and the country rock into which it was injected, a fact that explains a few adits that memorialise unfulfilled Victorian ambitions. I could still see aligned, black rectilinear tourmaline crystals on some exposed surfaces of the schists.

Harefield Place Golf Club

HelperT took us up through the posh part of Harefield and down into the oozing mud below the golf course for a balmy 6.5 km walk that returned us along the canal. Doc and Bashful were more concerned about the stink than I was. Ironicaly it was the iPhone that went into a loop before I did, so to speak. So the tracking mapping failed.

Sponsor wanted: 6.5km 

Another Canal Walk

Snow White led Grumpy, Doc, Happy, Bashful, helperT and me along the Grand Union Canal for a quick-ish 5.25 km lunchtime walk that suggests we could cover the 100 km in 17 hours.


Sponsor wanted: 5.25km

Hillingdon Trail North

Having slept well, I woke to no pain, no discomfort and another beautiful day. What could I do but walk. This time I headed north along the Grand Union, deciding to do the northern half of the Hillingdon Trail. Again I had to walk a long way just to pick it up but the canal walk had its rewards. Coots, mallard, swan, geese, heron, tufted duck, cormorant, black headed gull and mergansers were the easily spotted water fowl. I heard the cuckoo, the green and (saw a) great spotted woodpeckers. Swallows appeared today, I saw none yesterday. The hedgerows were alive with chaffinches, robins, dunnocks, wrens and blackbirds all calling and singing. Chiffchaffs and tits added a wonderful counterpoint.

Unperturbed by a lack of a map yesterday, today I carried nothing - I decided that house keys and money were the only things the iPhone couldn't replace. The GPS on the phone played havoc with battery so I couldn't really use it. But I used the money to buy myself soup and a rib-eye streak at the Coy Carp on the canal, in competition with Little Britain-like hordes; tattoo's were obviously big at Christmas and many were getting shown for the first time. And sorry, I think builders bum has become the new cleavage; no gender discrimination perhaps? Feeling re-energised and re-hydrated, I headed back down to the ANZAC cemetery across from where I used to live in Harefield, passing just below Edwinns where Lia and I had lunch recently. Then climbed up to Ruislip Common which includes Mad Bess Wood and the famous Ruislip Lido. I enjoyed a 99 there along with thousands of families who thronged the banks and beaches.

Hillingdon Trail South

The weather here was gorgeous and I was trapped by volcanic ash (and that's my excuse for not helping at home this weekend). I couldn't not go walking. Especially since I'd done this walk two years ago on the same weekend.

I went south along the Grand Union Canal, going from Uxbridge to Cranford Park, a ten kilometre hike just to get get to my starting point. The weather was glorious and there was much to see. There was a little girl blowing bubbles from a narrow boat; they lit up the waterway as the bubbles glistened and changed colour in the still air. The banks were adorned with wild plums (sloe or blackthorn to you and me) in effusive and effulgent blossom. The mallard, watchful but proud with up to twelve ducklings. It was perfectly quiet under the empty Heathrow flight path. Then I headed north on the Paddington spur, having met the intersection with the Hillingdon Trail at Bulls Bridge. There was a man in the canal, or so it first seemed. He was actually in a tiny boat like a box and he had a big filter on a scoop, arranged much like a bulldozer. He was cleaning the water and frankly, the Paddington spur needed it.

I spent a few minutes on the phone while in Willow Tree Reserve and despite serious discussions about granite paving, I will admit to being a bit distracted by a cob aggressively and repeatedly waging territorial war on two disaffected Canada Geese. Someone had removed one of the signs and I took a slight detour which meant I saw what Tesco have done to Yeading (I'm not sure outsiders are supposed to) and I won't be going back. Of course, if I'd brought a decent map it might have been easier.

Uxbridge Common Loop

I put a spreadsheet online to illustrate what I'm thinking. It's not perfected yet but I have to start somewhere. For now, you'll need to scroll down to a walk, select the date and then, going to the donation site, please mention that walk and my name in your donation. I'll figure out how to add your name as a sponsor so that it pops up with maps etc. I'll be adding more maps as time goes by, such as this one from last night. And pictures too. It's all a bit cumbersome for now but I'll get it improved over the next week or two (and work out how to keep it all relatively private).


Ultimately, you'll be able see my progress as I walk, live on a map in your browser, provided I work out how to extend the iPhone battery time.


Sponsor wanted: 5km

Denham Loop

Another fabulous evening as I walked out along the New Denham Road at about the same speed as the rush hour traffic. I headed out to Denham by way of the Country Park. I took a few calls while on the golf course and the GPS on the iPhone lost its bearings; it needed to reboot the phone to keep WalkMeter going. A very pleasant 8.5 km evening stroll, I returned along the canal, cutting across to the Frays River via the M40 underpass whose graffiti laden pillars instilled a sense of anarchic unease.


Sponsor wanted: 8.5km

Uxbridge Common Loop

This three mile loop was conceived to help us prepare as a team. Well, today just three of us headed out to the common. It was a lovely day and we walked five kilometres.

Among the topics of conversation were the team theme and the peculiar partitioning of information by Oxfam, who don't provide the support team with as much information as they give the walkers. Our able bodied support team seems to be overlooked by Oxfam.

With two teams of four people, including seven males, I suppose it was inevitable that the team theme would involve Snow White.

Sponsor wanted: 5km

Grand Union Canal Stroll

I meant to add that lots of small donations are what I'm after. If I want to raise the Gurkha issue to lots of people, then it's better to have 50 donations of 10 rather than five donations of 100.

I thought I'd name the walks in honour of the donors; you, your children, your friends. I thought to suggest donations in proportion to the distance walked - so the frst walk with Lia on Sunday was 5km, the second alone on Monday was just 2.5 km. At £2 per km, donors would match £15 against those already walked.

So what I'd do is publish my intended walks in advance if possible and seek donations to match the distances. That way people could match what they could afford. Obviously the distances will tend to be bigger at weekends and worse, they'll get longer closer to the event. Early sponsorship is advised.

Nice and complicated, this gives me a focus as well as a 650 km training target. It sets the funding goal (£1300) at twice my requirement (£500).

Sponsor wanted: 3km

Coliemore Harbour

Be the first!

I need to raise £500 in sponsorship for walking 60 miles in no more than 30 non-stop hours across the South Downs in July. It raises money for Oxfam but I'm in it because it also assists the Gurkhas, who I think have been poorly treated and discriminated against for a century. They even get buried at the back of the British War Cemetries I've visitited.

I've started training this week and will be blogging so you can follow my progress. I'll probably do 60 walks in which I cover 500 km or something like that. I'll add maps and pictures like I've done before.

The first walk was 5 km around the Vico Road to Coliemore Harbour and as pleasant as it was to be walking with Lia, my lasting memory will be people that a few people were viewing and pointing at Dalkey Island. It fleetingly piqued my curiosity. Pointing forgotten for a while, incomprehensible snippets overheard in Dalkey village took on a new meaning when I heard it said that somebody was planning to drill an exploration well in the Kish Basin. The Sunday Independent carried an interesting but poorly researched article that seems to confirm something is happening. The thought that I might be able to sit in bed and watch a well being drilled is just a bit ironic.


Sponsored by Nessa - Thank you.