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Just a quick update today, given I’m sure you all can't wait to find if I completed my first pilgrimage or not. I didn’t. I should just leave it there, but I might as well explain the ridiculously middle-aged reason why I didn’t make it. I dropped my hearing aid at the start of the walk, and only realised three miles in. I walked back and somewhat miraculously, immediately found it in the grass. This stupidly dull delay meant I didn’t have time to reach Canterbury, as I had t

After the somewhat dubious content of my previous blog, I felt the need for something a little more wholesome and life-affirming this time. So obviously, I decided to go on a pilgrimage. Now, to be honest, I know pretty well the square root of fuck all about pilgrimages, other than the fact that lots of middle-aged people who end up taking up hiking as a hobby (er, that'll be me, then) blather on endlessly about pilgrimages (er, as I’m now doing). Hearing people say they’re “

Alright, alright, I’ll get to that bit in a minute, you dirty-minded perverts. First, you’ve got to read my ever-so-exciting musings about the Isle of Sheppey, which sort of sets the scene for the stuff you really want to read about anyway. So, the Isle of Sheppey. It’s a bit, well, crap, isn't it? I realise this will open up the blog and therefore me to a deluge of abuse from anyone from Sheppey who happens across this site, but that’s pretty unlikely to happen, so it’s a ri

Way back when, Facebook was fun and for me, really quite addictive. It got to the stage where every time I did something funny/stupid (mainly stupid, it must be said), I would instantly think about how I could write about it on Facebook. Fortunately, way back then I did a lot of stupid things, so I always had something to post. Then Facebook quickly became crap and after a few years I weaned myself off this totally pointless habit. Then I started this photo blog thing, which

So, the launch of this blog has been met with a shower of praise, none more so than from the person who summed it up nicely by saying, “It’s a bit dull, isn’t it?” OK, that person was me, and who am I to argue with myself? So, in an effort to spice things up, this week’s blog seriously dices with death. Multiple deaths in fact, through various deathly means. Because last Sunday, on what turned out to be a particularly cold, grey and horribly windy day, I set off to hike Brit

When I first visited the Isle of Portland, I remember seeing signs saying ‘Keep Portland Weird’. I liked that. Weird is good. But ‘Keep Portland Weird’ was actually co-opted by the locals, as the phrase originated in that other Portland, the one in Oregon, USA (it’s a great place, I’ve been, definitely one of the best cities in the USA, although what constitutes weird in the USA these days is almost impossible to define, given the whole country is so fucked up). This Portland

A week after my first walk, I was out again. It was a grey day, like almost every day since this interminable winter began. The light seemed pretty good for photography though, with no harsh overhead sun. My vague plan was to walk as far as Erith. When I walked this section with Jo back in summer 2010, the weather was baking hot. The fairly lengthy detour around the River Darent and Dartford Marshes was hard work given we had no water with us and there was zero shade along th

Back in 2004, my good friend Jo and I went for a walk along the Thames, from Woolwich to Canary Wharf. It was a cold, grey Sunday in January. I loved it, and I probably have more memories of that day than most of the parties I went to back then. Over the next ten years, Jo and I walked upstream as far as Hampton Court, and downstream as far as the fascinating Hoo Peninsula in the Thames Estuary. I took a lot of not very good photos along the way. Sometime around 2016, I carri