Riding with Ravilious
We sweep down from the opera singer’s house past Virginia Woolf’s to the Ouse flood plain, the first of our Ravilious rendezvous. A heron nonchalantly flaps overhead. The riverbank into […]
Winding On
An old point and shoot, one roll of film. A week off work. Aeroplane mode, wider world switched off. Perhaps an audiobook in one ear. The sun stays close to […]
Beach Bivi Beach
8pm Thursday to 8am Friday
(Not The) White Chalk Hills UCX
Island Hopping
I make coffee in the almost-light that waits for sunrise. Shouldering the bike down the front steps into a silent city, the main road empty other than a gang of […]
Grey
No one bats an eyelid, raises an eyebrow, or tuts when a suggestion is made to drop down from the Downs to find coffee and some tarmac, maybe even the […]
Between the Storms
As the day tilts into action a thin gauze of cloud stretches across the sky. A meek light casts weak ghost shadows, there out of the edge of vision but […]
The Old Ways and New Ways
Jump on a train west to Chichester to make the most of the forecast weather. Head for home with the wind on my back and scudding clouds and an intermittent […]
Ernest Journal issue no.9
I wrote something about the South Downs and familiarity of place through the repetition of commuting by bike for issue 9 of Ernest Journal. There a whole load of interesting […]
From the South Downs to North London
Saturday – Rule 5 Bikes Summer Send Off Meet up with friends at Freedom Bikes, sign on and collect brevet card…and a pen, as usual I’ve forgotten to bring one. […]
Easter Bivi
Easter weekend offroad pootle around the South Downs, Pevensey Level, the High Weald, and Winchelsea beach. Thanks Claire, Jim and Andy for the company and laughs (and Jo on […]
May Day
Awake before the alarm and sun rise. Fall out of bed, flick on the radio. The World Service, still too early for Radio 4. Thick black coffee, teaspoon of sugar. […]
Out of the Shadows
Paths past garden gates, those neglected places where stinging nettles and wild flowers thrive. Next to a railway line and over a stream that is obscured from view throughout […]
Reliability
From the regularity of the straight lines between the fields of the flatlands around Ripe into the twisting roller coaster of ancient ways of the High Weald. Rolling over sandstone […]
Hidden
Hidden Valley. That’s what they called it. Not everyone, just a few friends, some of the ones that ride mountain bikes. Not everyone knows about this place. Hidden Valley. It […]
Bookends
I love a commute that initially sets off deliberately in the wrong direction and then loops almost back home some time later, before reluctantly turning for work. Between me and […]
