Travel Diary: Burnham on Crouch (32,000 steps)

25.08.2026

In the morning, I woke up raring to go. It was a beautiful day outside and we were off somewhere, my friend Mark and me. It was going to be a surprise. I managed to fit in meditation, chi building, light weights, push ups and stomach crunches. As well as a crossword, a jigsaw puzzle and scrabble online as well as a light breakfast.

After breakfast, most of the morning was taken up with last minute packing (in which I forgot some hand sanitiser) and also playing around with my new pocket microscope that I had gotten from Hamleys. I just couldn’t figure out where the battery was and how to switch on the light. I looked at it from every angle, I searched the internet for a solution. I had a suspicion that you could pull the microscope out of its cradle and that’s how you used it but I didn’t want to break it by pulling it too hard. It later turned out I was right when Mark looked over it too and we got the LED light working. But that didn’t stop me wasting all the time in the morning looking at the thing.

Mark turned up and told me that we were going to Burnham on Crouch and the coast again. During the car journey there, we stopped at a graveyard along the road which had a good view of the Essex plain, which was a picture of complete flatness.

We parked the car at Burnham next to a stately Napoleonic manor from 1815. And then we wended our way down to the coastal path next to the town. We watched a boat being lifted and then lowered into the sea which was called Ophelia which led to us ranking the best of the plays of Shakespeare and commenting on Ophelia being in the water. We also walked into an area that had been devastated by wildfire. It was massive although had been controlled in the end. Next, Mark and I were looking at leaves and feathers through the pocket microscope, amazing views, learning how to use the thing. There were a few excursions into charity shops where we gawped at books and I had to force myself not to pick up one, a paper back on how the earth had shaped human civilisations over time. We ended up having, respectively, a cappucino and a strawberry and chocolate gelato ice cream in the pub. It was tastefully decorated, with a vivid blue paint on the walls and classy portrait paintings of animals in clothes. The table that we sat on had a mass of fake cherry blossoms towering over us as well as a large gilt mirror behind us.

I started talking to the waitress in the pub, a young blonde lady. I asked her if there was anything to do in Burnham that we didn’t know about. There was something she suggested, but it turned out that that was next week. She actually wasn’t from Burnham, but from somewhere nearby. So she couldn’t really tell us. She did suggest seal watching though. I got the young lady to take a photo of Mark and I when we were leaving.

We ended up on a pontoon that shook and quivered with the sea as we walked along it. Kids were catching crabs with nets down there. One family had them in a see through bucket and they were all restless with movement. I asked the lady what they were going to do with them and she laughed and said that they would just throw them back.

We then went on the massive walk where the dry grass was brushing against my bare legs and in which I would eventually end up with a small blister on one of my toes, which was much better than the last blister that I had got on the sole of my foot last time which was exceptionally painful and had come once the interior of my trainers had deteriorated. We spotted Oystercatchers and I had a lunch of sausage rolls and Hula Hoops washed down with water while Mark feasted on corned beef and brown sauce sandwiches. There was an interesting pill box on the way as well as a solar farm and renewable energy windmills. We ended up at the North sea where we sat on a private beach, all to ourselves, again looking at a feather through the microscope and looking out over the sea with my binoculars. Mark thought he spotted some seals as this was seal country, but they might just have been some stones.

In about three hours, we had only seen one human being on that walk. It was a brown haired woman who was very friendly. She had a dog with her and the reason we started talking to her was because Mark threw her the ball that she had been throwing to her dog so that her dog would get back to her.

We walked back to the car to dump our stuff after the walk and had a quick orange juice and a tea in the pub, which had a picture of Dolly Parton which we discussed, before we walked over to the sea again and the pontoon from before. There, a German woman that was breastfeeding her kids started talking to us. She recommended that we go to the Ship Inn for dinner so that was what we did. I had fish and chips and Mark had the prawn spaghetti. I followed my meal with a white chocolate and raspberry cake with amoretto biscuit while Mark had a creme brulee with some biscuits. During dinner, we found out that Dolly Parton had died and we were struck by the coincidence that we’d just been talking about her.

Then it was the end of the journey, the car drive back home. We listened to Dolly Parton songs and about her life, as well as about an upcoming documentary about Wham! and how they had been the first Western act to perform in China (or something of that description). We talked about George Michael amongst other things, Mark not recognising the song ‘Fast Love’ which is my favourite one by him, even when I sang it.

Home and a call to my girlfriend. And then my diary. And now? Sleep. It is 23.15. I’ve been up since six in the morning and will be up at 6 am tomorrow.

Travel Diary 13.08.2026

Today was results day for my two nephews. Anxiously, we awaited what would happen. It was good news. And particularly heartening for me because I had tutored one of my nephews and now he had got into the university that he wanted. The other boy, I had also helped to raise. These things are always team efforts.

After finding out, I headed off to Apsley House, home of the Duke of Wellington, the hero of the war against Napoleon. It was full of treasures, including an elaborate Egyptian dining centrepiece which was absolutely magnificent. The hieroglyphs were so detailed and done in miniature on the piece. There were amazing treasures too in this museum room, including much gold and many swords, some of them Persian and Indian. I particularly admired the mermaids on the trophies. In this room, I read a letter in French presenting the Egyptian centrepiece and thought to myself how wonderful it was that I could read the language so fluently. I had really enriched my life by studying the tongue.

I spoke to the volunteer about the fabulous Canova statue of Napoleon that was there, so heavy and big at three tons that the room underneath had had to be fortified. I told her that it was probably not my nephew’s favourite as the Napoleon section of the history exam had been quite difficult. There were many other Canovas too, which was a real delight, as well as paintings by Rubens and Velasquez, the latter which I admiringly gazed at. The rooms were all a delight and there were other treasures such as the oldest grand piano in the country. I asked one of the staff members what their favourite painting was in one of the rooms and noted that they had one of one of the places where I work. Apparently, she had also worked there. The banqueting table room was quite magnificent too and seeing it, a lady visitor remarked that the place was better than Buckingham palace.

The next trip was to Hyde Park, where I called on a couple of my friends to wish them a happy anniversary. By this time in the afternoon, I had already called one of my best friends, my girlfriend, an older lady friend who is not doing so well nowadays and the couple with the anniversary. I spent time in the park gazing at the floral beauties in the display in front of, of all places, the facilities.

Home next. On the commute to and fro from London I had been reading great tales from English history and listening to Hindi film songs. At home, I made myself sausage and ketchup sandwiches which I washed down with water. I went to sleep next on my bed.

When I woke up, I refreshed myself with some lychee juice and studied French, Spanish, German, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu by reading short stories and the news. A few letters to my pen pals in New Zealand and Paris were penned and then I spent time booking things with my girlfriend then headed into London again to meet up with her briefly before I embarked on the last stage of the night.

The venue was the Piano Smithfield near the Barbican. I crammed in a Subway meal for the first time in my life next to it: a sub made out of pepperoni, salami, cheese, jalapenos, red peppers, onions and spicy chipotle sauce. Washed down with a Coke and followed by a double chocolate cookie. It was quite tasty.

The performance was STAGE FEVER Vol. 1 – Royal Serenade, about Korean music and love. Featured Artists:

Soprano: Soyeon Shin, Sophia Jin

Global Pop Artist: QoA

Featured Musicians

Piano: Leah Park

Violin: Sophia Jin

Performers

Stanely Dubentru-huret

Henry Chandler

I had fun listening to the wonderful music, watching the dances and taking many photographs of the event which you can see on my instagram page for my photos – @suneelmehmi . At the end of the performance, I got a photo with the very beautiful Soyeon Shin who I had immediately been besotted with.

When I got home for the night time, I finished off a Lindt chocolate and hazel nut bar that had been kicking around for a couple of months and then edited up my photos of the event and posted them. Then, I wrote my travel diary which I have just completed now.

Ulting and Southend on Sea – Travel Diary 08.08.2026

The last long walk and day out that my friend and I had last week was from Woolwich Arsenal to Crystal Palace which was about forty five thousand steps (but I never managed to write about this walk). I was really looking forward to this walk.

After we dropped off my son’s friend at Stanstead Airport, we headed down to Ulting and the river Chelmer. The sun was glorious and not too intense and we made our way down along the river. My friend was seeking out an entry point for some wild swimming. Apparently, the Chelmer was known to be a good spot for this.

Unfortunately, the lining in my favourite grey Puma trainers had ruptured and my foot had been sore with a blister for the past few days. Today I was in excruciating pain. I hobbled along.

The river was populated by a number of families and couples. We saw a guy with his whole body tattooed several times as he walked up and down the riverbank with his girlfriend (tattooless). There were little boys fishing with their fathers and my friend asked them if they had caught anything. There was one very pretty blonde woman on her bike with her boyfriend accompanying her too.

We noted quite a few points where the entry point would be quite good and decided to do the thing after a quick snack. We stopped off at the lock and had a seat in the shade and cracked open a box of chocolate chip cake and bananas. I peered inside my trainer and discovered why my foot was in such pain. The rupture in the lining had created a hard nodule that had risen up and it was digging into my foot. Although my foot hurt, I had not been aware of it. I pulled it out. Then we set back to find the suitable spot to have a wild swim. It took a bit of time to navigate where my friend could get in but we got to it.

As we walked back, which was now less painful, my friend was telling me his theory about fishing. It was, he said, a sport where you hunted in one spot. You were chasing the animal in a stationary position, which made it a unique form of hunting.

My friend stripped off and got into his trunks and then went into the river. I had decided not to go in because I had caught a few things in the past from swimming and had been advised not to do anything by my girlfriend in addition. So I took some action shots of my friend. The water looked very cool, refreshing and invigorating and my friend told me that it was indeed. I was tempted to get in but decided that it was good enough to sit on a towel on the riverbank in the shade and to live the experience vicariously through my friend.

We drove down next to Southend on Sea next, to some parts that I had never been before like Thorpe Bay, although I had been to the grammar school there for seven years. When we got there, we happened upon a Toby Carvery so I treated us to a big roast as a thank you to my friend for driving us all day. It was delicious. I had a king sized platter. He heaped his plate which too much food but amazingly managed to finish it and was completely stuffed afterwards.

After that, we walked along the beach for a few hours. It was windy at first and it was messing around my hair which was annoying, as I am quite self-conscious about it. However, it was an amazing walk. We were scanning the ground for interesting shells and jellyfish of which there were many. I was picking up stones and admiring them and we skimmed some across the surface of the sea, although my friend was much better at this than me. My foot was still in considerable pain – in the evening I would see that there was a massive blister there. We managed twenty five thousand steps in the day though by the end. If there’s one thing that anyone knows about me, it is that I can endure a lot of pain and I don’t like to give up.

We came across a lady feeding seagulls which was quite a picturesque sight and I wish that I had taken a few photos of it after getting her permission. A blonde lady with a family took some photos of me and my friend on the beach at my request. She was a pro apparently and took a number of shots, although the final version that we went with was just the one straight forward shot that she took as my friend was not a fan of the diagonal angles. At one point, we walked though a massive Afro Caribbean party on the beach.

I went back to Toby’s Carvery at the end and got myself a chocolate brownie sundae. My friend was still full and didn’t want one. We had a final look at the sea as my friend had suggested some more wild swimming but now it was slightly colder and he had eaten a little too much so we gave it a miss. Then, at the end, what was there but the drive home? We listened to Dan TDM with video game music on Classical FM, discussing which sounds were palatable or not. The foot was super sore in the evening.

Partition 1947

29.07.2026

A: What was the highlight of your day?

S: Yours first.

A: Chocolate cake. Chocolate is always a highlight. Cake is always a highlight. So chocolate cake is doubly a highlight.

S: Everything I do, I enjoy doing. There were many highlights.

A: Okay. So what did you do outside of work? What were these highlights then?

S: I went and got a haircut first thing after work. Zero on the sides. Looks much fresher. Then, I had a cool shower. It felt amazing in this heat. After that, I had a home cooked dinner of chicken and rice, a phone call with my girlfriend and then a beautiful walk in Valentine’s Gardens. When I got back home from that, I applied to do my Master’s in Art History at the Open University and messaged several of my friends to organise a graduation summer part for my First Class Honours, as well as others to arrange a visit to the Henry Moore exhibition this week. Then…

A: There is more?

S: It is not so much.

A: How do you fit all of these things in?

S: I’m fast. What can I say? Anyway, I also enjoyed chocolate. Cadbury’s Creme eggs that I got for sale after Easter. And one especial highlight was watching the trailers for my favourite director coupled with my favourite actor. Rajkumar Santoshi with Sunny Deol. For Batwara 1947 (Partition 1947).

A: The story?

S: What else would it be? The hero is Sunny Deol. He is protecting The Mother. That is my name and my honour. That is why Sunny Deol is me and I am Sunny Deol.

A: It is always protecting The Mother with you.

S: I am named after it. What else do you expect? I have been born to protect her honour. And she has many enemies. Many that would dishonour her and do away with her. We fight against the patriarchy for The Mother.

A: Non-Indians claim Indian men are misogynistic.

S: It is the Indian man that can honour The Mother. Lies we don’t listen to. And cowardice we do not follow.

chosen to be a hero

25.07.2026

A: How was your day last night?

S: It was a busy day at work. And then, in the evening, I went to a park, saw a music performance, photographed the artist and finally, met my girlfriend for a date in the park. Followed by a meal of two Whoppers, fries, onion rings, Dr Pepper and a Chocolate milkshake. There was a curious happening on the tube back home.

A: What happened?

S: A young Afro-Caribbean woman suddenly came and sat down next to me between stations. She was putting me between her and a ranting and raving football fan that was off his head down the carriage. He was shouting out football slogans at the top of his head and moving around in a bizarre manner.

A: She chose you as her hero, out of all of the people on the carriage?

S: Yes. Women have always chosen me as the hero. I am named after Sunil Dutt who saved the life of Nargis on the set of Mother India. I come from the Sikh community where it is our duty to protect others. When my grandfather died, the women chosen me as the man that would protect my grandmother in the nights by staying with her in her house, because she could not sleep otherwise. When there is anything that happens out there in this London, they choose me as the hero. It is destiny.

A: Why did she choose you?

S: Because I am evidently the man. I am evidently the hero. It is not a coincidence. It happens again and again. The weak come to the strongest for help. Because only we can deliver it.

A: You are proud to be the hero?

S: I am proud to live the destiny that was chosen for me. I was chosen to be the hero.

A: You looked after her?

S: I spoke to her. I consoled her and reassured her. I asked if she was okay. I took away her fear. It is my duty to protect.

A: What makes you the hero?

S: I have told you. My name. My background. My strength. My manhood.

A: So this is what it means to be a toxic male.

S: However toxic anyone thinks that I am, still they come to me when they need a hero. That is this society.

achilles without a heel

23.07.20206

S: Achilles was the greatest because his mother’s love protected him. She gives him invulnerability.

A: You have spoken of this before.

S: Harry Potter has it too. The protection of The Mother. I, too. I have the protection of The Mother.

A: You believe that you are invulnerable?

S: You forget the basic truth. I believe that I can do everything and therefore I can do everything. And that belief comes from my mother’s belief in me. That I am not just a man.

A: And what else does this mother’s protection give you?

S: Not just confidence. Not just a can do attitude. Love itself is strength. The love that you get from someone, that is strength.

A: You are channeling her energy?

S: What else? I am her and she is me. All of her desires, I have achieved. The ambition that she has had for me, I have achieved it. Anything I have wanted, I have taken.

A: What else has she given you?

S: Language. Culture. Style. The destiny to be her voice. Her love has been an armour against this cold and hard, hostile world. It has sheltered. This love has been home. The refuge, the sanctuary.

A: When The Mother gives Achilles his invulnerability and strength, it is lacking.

S: This is the misogyny and the anti-Mother attitude of the Greeks and the West. In fact, there is no lack. Achilles has no heel.

A: You mean this Achilles?

S: In Indian culture, it is The Mother that is all-powerful and triumphant. It is The Mother that is all conquering. She is the one that protects. That is why no one and nothing can stand against me. They all fall. It is me that remains standing. It is me that achieves. It is me that becomes The Man.

what it feels to miss love

15.07.2026

S: Do we miss other people?

A: Yes.

S: You answer immediately. But is it them that we miss? Or do we miss how they make us feel? Do we miss their love?

A: Those are aspects of them.

S: Is an aspect them?

A: One is one’s attributes. Do you miss someone?

S: There are those that I think of that are gone.

A: The dead?

S: There are those that are living too. The quick and the dead.

A: The biblical reference. Always with the books with you.

S: The living, I can feel their eyes on me. I know who it is that looks upon my words.

A: Friend, lover, enemy? Who do you talk of?

S: The secret rests within this breast.

A: Why not bring them near to you?

S: It has been a long time. There are distances.

A: You miss them. You will not make it up with them. That is perverse.

S: Humans are perverse. They themselves are perverse. They that hate, they know that I understand them. They hate because I understood, not because I did not.

A: Perhaps that is conceit. Perhaps you misunderstood.

S: Whether or not I understood them, which it is impossible to tell, they did not understand me.

A: The poor misunderstood man.

S: No one understands genius.

A: Why then do they fear it?

S: Precisely because it is an unknown.

A: What say you to the lost?

S: I say that I see your eyes before me. I say that I see your face. I see you saying the words of friendship to me. I remember how I would rush towards you. I remember how I would look forward to seeing you.

A: And yet you cannot bend and they cannot bend.

S: Some things are destined not to be. Everywhere, men build walls around themselves, around others. Such walls become the stuff of life. Such walls determine one’s destiny. Find me one that does not build this wall.

A: Some walls, you have broken through.

S: There is always a wall. To open one’s heart, one has to become a god. One has to become fearless. One has to shed all doubts. One has to become The Tiger.

cristiano ronaldo and admiration in its forties

24.06.2026

A: Why do you like Ronaldo so much? You don’t even watch football.

S: I have played football when I was younger. It’s not like I don’t know anything about it. Ronaldo is inspirational because he has kept up that hunger into his forties. He is still running past defenders half his age. He is the best looking out there. He has transcended the game. He is an icon.

A: An icon for you. Why?

S: Just like me, he is the greatest.

A: I knew it would come down to narcissism.

S: The genuinely great man, whether it is Ronaldo or myself, comes from humble origins. He is known for his greatness. He becomes a success. He becomes the captain, the leader.

A: For him, it is true. How do you put yourself into that category?

S: Actually, there is not as much difference as you think. Ronaldo has many critics. Much of the public is against him. With me, too, it is those in the game that will not give me my due. I know that I have produced works of genius. However, I am in the humanities. The genius is ignored.

A: Also, you will not publish that book that you have written. The one that you claim is your masterwork.

S: Anyone that reads my work realises that I am completely original. That is the mark of a genius. It is what my tutors and lecturers at university have been telling me my whole life. Anyone that reads my work knows that it is brilliant. If I were to say that I was a genius without any proof about it, then that would be megalomania. What I say is justified by the response that I have got from experts in the field. I can go into any field and write these works of brilliance. That is why I know that I am a genius.

A: But then, Ronaldo. Why this identification with him?

S: What he does on the football field, I do in the world of thought. And, despite all the ones that are coming into things, like him, I still maintain my status as the fastest, the best, as the true leader. We are doing it in our forties, when the world would try and write us off.

A: It is extraordinary that the narcissist would celebrate another.

S: They all wrote him off. He still did it and keeps on doing it. Why? Because as they said when he scored those goals yesterday, he has worked tirelessly and relentlessly to raise himself above everyone else. Just like I have all throughout my life.

A: He has his reward. You have nothing.

S: In football, the results are undeniable. You get the goal. In writing? In the humanities? It is not a fair game. They are out to silence us. They are out to marginalise us. They do not want to include our agenda. And despite that? I am still the genius in the field. It is not the recognition of the oppressor that decides virtue and talent. It is the self belief and achievement of the oppressed.

the nightmare that woke me up

03.05.2026

S: A nightmare woke me up this morning.

A: Really? What happened?

S: When I say woke me up, the nightmare squeezed me into the few seconds before the alarm went off.

A: Come, tell the tale.

S: I was working as the manager of a party. The setting was a big supermarket. Before the party people had arrived, I had to get rid of a big white machine. I was taking it to the charging point, carrying it by myself. I suddenly got called and had to drop it off in one of the shopping aisles before I could take it to the charging point. The first party person had arrived, the organiser. She wanted something in addition to what she had been promised when I tried to give her a warm reception and seemed sulky. She wanted the seating area upstairs which was empty, part of the cafe. It was not part of the contract and had not been arranged. I walked inside past the empty chairs and found myself locked outside. I tried to get back in through the door but the whole of the inside was moving upwards. The door would have jammed the movement as it opened inside and would have been stuck on the frame. I closed it just in time. I waited and then opened it again. Inside, they were shooting an astronaut film and the room was full of astronauts. I rushed past them. I would get into trouble, they would find out that I had disturbed the film. The alarm went off. I woke up from the nightmare.

A: A curious sequence of happenings.

S: Very understandable though. The nightmare is about money. It is based on several of my jobs where I manage events at various venues. But tellingly, this is in a supermarket, where the cultural industries I work in have been transformed into exploitative business and not charity. Some spaces have filming for money. Money is taking over my career when it should be about arts and culture.

A: You are having a nightmare about the commercialisation of arts and culture?

S: Precisely. And not just about the charities I work for. Also about writing. Because the astronauts are there because one of my friends is reading a book about astronauts and I read about the author’s prior book which was self-published and made lots of money too, literature as business. When I, of course, self-publish. The dream is about how my self-publishing is an interruption of work and the whole money making ethos. I am the outsider trying to get in, disrupting everything, the unwanted.

A: What about the demanding customer?

S: The philistine public that will never be pleased. The origin of the nightmare.

the addictions of writing

02.04.2026

The sun was breaking out over the houses in my street. I had woken up and lain in bed, running my mind over the infinite business of this life. And then, the call from Alfonso had come. On occasion, he would sometimes wake up even earlier than me, however early I could manage to do so.

Alfonso asked me, ‘Why do you write so constantly?’ I imagined him there at home, perhaps sitting in front of a small and nutritious breakfast, perhaps with a newspaper beside him to be savoured at length.

‘It is an addiction.’

‘Why is it an addiction?’

I searched for an answer. What had that child that wanted to become a writer seen in it? I tried to reimagine myself as that young and voracious reader. Of course, the first addiction had been reading. I had devoured books constantly. The joy, the escape, the stimulation to the mind, the love of the good story. The love of the good story had been instilled in me through the stories that my grandfather gave me. Yes, in fact, everything went back to my grandfather, this educated, cultured, wonderful man that had nourished my love of narrative and wisdom. I wanted to be the storyteller, just like my grandfather. It was the family tradition. We are Indian. We follow the family traditions. I said so much to Alfonso.

‘You desperately want to become your grandfather. Can you not become your own person?’

‘There is this phrase ‘role model’. Am I not entitled to choose and follow my role model?’

‘Of course you are. If you find good, why would you not want it for yourself? All I am asking is, have you reconsidered your motivations for writing and for this addiction that you cannot control?’

‘It has not taken over my life, has it? The routine of writing a few times a day. It is not all that I do. I do many other things.’

‘It has gotten you into much trouble.’

‘My middle name is ‘Tiger’. If I were not to get into trouble, I would not be writing properly. The one that points out what is wrong with this world, he will always be in trouble. They cannot brook just criticism.’

‘You should relax your critical attitude.’

‘They that hurt me hurt the community. They that exclude and reject, they should be criticised. Their selfishness, greed, racism and intolerance should be criticised. The way that they have exploited the people and the world should be criticised. The way that they judge unjustly should be criticised. Their worship of money above all things should be criticised. Their rape of the planet should be criticised. This is why the writer is here. The writer is freedom. That cry for freedom, for The Revolution that has come from the lips of Punjab, that is why the writer is here. My grandfather was born in the time of Independence. I carry the torch of freedom. That is why the writer is here. That is why the writer is addicted to writing. Because writing is freedom. The expression of our self. The writer wants to be the grandfather, the storyteller of freedom.’

Was it enough for Alfonso? It was enough for myself. There is a reason in all things. And the best reason. Because, alongside freedom, there was love. Love for the storyteller. Love for my grandfather. He had given me love. And I? I had given him love back. That was why I was the writer. Love is something that you can never have too much of. It is love that is the addiction.