Category: travel

Essex extremes

I do like a mix and match day. So we started with a couple of kilometres of walking round Rainham Marshes bird reserve. Not many birds to see, but there’s not much to beat a marsh in the sun; a beautiful morning, a stolen September summer Sunday, wandering about in shirtsleeves with the end of…

September 25, 2011
Folkestone Triennial: Art-on-Sea

A and I are a bit last-minute with exhibitions and regularly miss things because we think we’ll go ‘later’ and then just forget. However, we actually made it to the Folkestone Triennial with two days to spare. We followed the yellow seagulls sprayed on the pavement from the station to the visitor centre. There was…

September 25, 2011
Open Queue

It’s day two of London Open House and we’re off to Crossness Pumping Station. This has been a long-held ambition, but with so much to choose from over the weekend it has taken, ooh, six years? to get here. The instigator of this sudden resolve is our friend J who phoned and said: I’m going,…

September 18, 2011
London is Open

Every year in September, buildings of historic, architectural and ecological note open for the public for free. In London Open House is in full swing. Take a look at the overwhelming website – it’s all going on tomorrow as well. Most years I go and feast my eyes and wear out my feet: holidays are…

September 17, 2011
Clytha Castle

Clytha Castle has been on my list of places to stay for a long time – a folly in the best sense; it is a pinkish rendered, Gothick, castellated and turreted confection on a small hill in Monmouthshire – with panoramic views of Skirrid Fawr and Sugarloaf. It is gloriously daft – every opportunity for…

September 10, 2011