Tag: travel-writing

Oxford Travel Diary 09.08.2026

At 8 am, we left home for the trip. The ride there was accompanied by the songs of the Beegees and Burt Bacharach.

We arrived at the Park and Ride just out of the city in good spirits and caught the 400 bus down after almost going down to Redbridge instead. We had been asking a lady that had suggested it and also letting her know that we lived in Redbridge in London. The bus driver had redirected us. The journey into town was lively as there were a number of young students on the bus as well.

The first thing we did when we got into town was to dive into the Paul’s bakery where I treated myself to a blueberry brioche that was on for two pounds. It was delicious and I washed it down with a glass of water. My friend had an Americano and I was telling him that I was not a big fan of the flavour.

We got out of the bakery and walked past the town hall which was closed on a Sunday. Initially, we thought that we would just look around without any guidance or Google but then I saw what looked like a local and asked him for directions. He gave them to us patiently and when my friend enquired what it was like to live in Oxford, he told us it used to be much better.

The first stop was the Ashmolean museum. The staff on the entrance joked with us about cake and how we were too individualistic because we hadn’t shared any with them. Inside, we started off with the statues and then walked into the Ancient Egypt tour by Mary which had just started. The tour was very interesting and included the history of the Ashmolean, Great Britain’s first museum. When the tour was finished, we bumped into Mary again by a tablet in Ancient Greek and she started talking to us about all sorts of things like teaching Ancient Greek, classics and learning hieroglyphs. She answered all my friend’s questions about Ancient Egypt too. Then, she invited us to some drinks and we sat in the cafe with her talking about Oxford and things like whether museums should charge. I had a Coke while we were talking.

We meandered over to the Natural History museum next which was fun with all of the fossils. We took in the exhibition with the key materials of the future and spent a lot of time admiring the birds and insects that had been done in taxidermy. We started our adventure there with the cafe and had foccacio, mine with cheese, rocket and tomatoes. Highlights of the trip included seeing the Venus of Willendorf and seeing the skeleton of a chimpanzee as well as the skull of a hippopotamus. The Natural History museum lead into the Pitt Rivers museum which was a fantastic collection of stuff like Japanese masks, snuff boxes from different cultures and things like carved boats.

Next stop, the Oxfam bookshop. Slightly disappointing as I thought it would have a better selection. We do much better in London. I picked up a book on Imperialism though. We then made our way into the University Parks where we found a big tree to lie under and have a nap.

Feeling refreshed, we made our way into the city centre to have a look about. We did all the big tourist things. The Bridge of Sighs which I thought had been slightly over hyped. Investigating the area around the Bodleian library and seeing the Radcliffe Camera too, an area in which I had a chocolate chip ice cream and where we were surrounded with what looked like Chinese tourists.

We wandered into the Thames path next and had a refreshing walk in the greenery. We were behind a massive group of young students. My friend had a swim in the Thames. We came out and saw the music artist Devon Mayson performing the Cher song ‘Do you believe in love after love’ in the balcony of ‘The Head of the River’ and then walked into the Christchurch gardens which were wonderfully beautiful.

We closed the day at Oxford with a meal at Popeyes where we had a Cajun spiced chicken burger, mine with spicy wings and fries. Finally, it was the 400 bus back to the park and ride and then a journey home where I had to rest my eyes a little bit. I got back home at about a quarter past eleven and finally in bed at about a quarter to midnight after sharing the photos and videos of the day with my friend.

Chigwell to Harold’s Wood – London Loop (Travel Diary)

05.10.2025

Absolutely superb. That’s what the weather was like for the long walk. I met up with my friend at Newbury station and we bundled ourselves onto the Tube at nine o’clock for an early start on the day.

In the morning, it took about the same time to get into Chigwell as it would take me to get into Central London for work due to a change at Hainault and a long wait for the next service. On arriving at Chigwell, I was struck by the beauty of the place and the grandeur of the big houses out there. Really a dream destination to live in. Chigwell is called Chigwell because the name derives from an Anglo-Saxon personal name, ‘Cicca,’ and the word ‘well,’ meaning “Cicca’s well”. 

We came across some beautiful horses but I couldn’t get a good shot or composition. I have a personal ambition to ride a horse but haven’t got round to it yet. It is a very modest and achievable ambition but I am always too busy for it.

Almost at once, we came to a beautiful view and the farmlands. I had already got out my camera and was trying a few shots. As I did so, we came across some fellow walkers and they told me and my friend that they had been doing the walks on the London Loop for about two years. They were finally going to finish off the walk today. It was an old father with two young blonde daughters, one of them wearing a red jacket and looking somewhat like Red Riding Hood.

As we trailed after them when we were ready and they were already in the far distance, we worked out the percentage of weekends they had committed to their mission as we were arguing about how committed they were as walkers. If they had taken two years for about twelve walks on the London Loop, that would work out as them having invested 6% of their weekends on the trips over two years. I maintained that that was quite committed but my contrary friend disagreed with me.

My friend is a birdwatcher and I was trying to one up him by spotting more birds than him. I got a robin that he hadn’t noticed and felt quite chuffed but then he showed his experience and expertise in this subject. He spotted a woodpecker, a brilliantly yellow coloured creature that I had never seen before. It was winging its way through the air. He also spotted some buzzards and regaled me about the story of the corpse of one he had encountered recently as roadkill. On the trip, we saw about nine different species of bird, so it wasn’t a bad day: peacocks, hens, Egyptian geese, robins, a white egret, the woodpecker, crows, some little ones I forget the names of and seagulls and magpies. So for birds, it was certainly a great day.

It was a delight to stop for elevenses at precisely eleven on a little bench in the woods as I had a Dairy Milk with me. I shared the chocolate with my friend. I was watching the birds fly into the trees. A Dairy Milk always reminds me of the war. Probably it is because Roald Dahl, my favourite author as a boy, mentions being a taster for Cadbury’s chocolates in his biography and he fought in the war.

Around Chigwell and its forest, we came across an Islamic chapel with Christian gravestones in the garden which was quite an example of religious amalgamation. We didn’t go inside but looked at it with intrigue from the outside wondering what it was.

The next phase of our walk was Hainault Forest Country Park which is not too far from our local area. Hainault Forest was an old royal hunting forest. I had gone there many a time with the family. We saw the two daughters with their father there and I shouted out to them that ‘it wasn’t a contest, but…’ and they all laughed which was pleasing. They were sitting on a bench looking out at the lake. We kept on walking and didn’t see them again and probably won’t in this lifetime.

Hainault gets its name because its original Old English name, recorded as “Henehout” in 1221, meant “wood belonging to a monastic community”. The Abbey of Barking owned Hainault Forest. The name’s spelling later changed because it was incorrectly associated with Philippa of Hainault, the queen of Edward III. 

We stopped for a hot drink in the cafe and it was absolutely chock-a-block with young families. So we sat outside. Lazily, I watched two brightly coloured aeroplanes flying about in the sky and the families with their dogs all making their usual Sunday walk around the park. I was telling my friend that I should buy a dog so that I could also talk to the dog people.

After that I persuaded my friend to go to the farm and look at the animals. The goats were all butting heads with each other and the peacocks were sunning themselves. I got a few okayish shots on my camera as the light was quite good but missed a dramatic fight that the goats with brown hides were having as people had stopped to watch them and I didn’t want any people in the shot.

We walked through the golf course next and then we were back in the forest and in the farmland and then the forest again. There was a rough swing rope that someone had put up in the trees. The only way to get to it was up some precariously placed logs, so it was a challenge of balance. I climbed up it childishly and recklessly. It was only a few feet off the ground but felt like I was walking in the atmosphere and slipping about. I managed to get to the swing rope with my hands but then there was no way to get any momentum to swing about! I had almost fallen off once, but only once. And I hadn’t. So man nature was appeased. My friend shot a video of me doing it.

When we had walked through an enchanted pine soaked place with a delicious scent, I decided that we should stop for lunch. I had brought chicken satays from the reduced aisle with me and the scent was too much. Because we were accosted by two dogs that wanted to partake of the feast. The first one was a giant and was very forward and slightly menacing. Two young boys had to run up and grab him by the leash to get him away. The other dog was a black miniature hound and his owner, an elderly lady, said that he was ‘incorrigible’ as she rushed off with him.

After the forest, with its beautiful light and soothing smells and ambience, and after watching the little trickle that was the river Rom, the next thing, we were sitting in a pub called The Deer’s Rest which was in Romford itself. The whole pub was tricked out in Halloween decor. I got us some drinks and downed an ice cold Pepsi. It was absolutely delicious in a way that Cola is not always. My friend told me that I had worked enough so my body was rewarding me for the work with that delicious sensation. He said that he was having it with his drink as well. The pub had this wallpaper of framed butterfly specimens and it was something that I quite wanted for myself as I thought it looked very sophisticated and cool. And much nicer than real specimens of butterflies which I have always found slightly creepy. Because they are dead beauty.

We walked on through the beauties of nature talking about life, the universe and everything. At some point, we found ourselves in a park. I was keen to watch the young people at the skate park but it was disappointing. They were not doing any tricks! The kids were quite young, but then that Olympics gold medallist had been about thirteen. As we progressed through the park, we came across a father at the top of the slope throwing around a brightly yellow coloured glider aeroplane towards his son. The son was babbling away at us as I remarked that the dad had made a good throw. It was a really touching scene of family and its happiness, the joy of children.

The last stretch of the walk took us to Harold Wood. The name Harold Wood refers to an area of land associated with King Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England. It was about four o’clock. We had initially decided to do a bit more but decided to pack it up before the light started going and we’d done about thirty thousand steps. It was about eleven miles well spent.