Yesterdays long walk

Sunday 2 June 2013

Well no wonder I was too tired to write a descent blog last night and this morning I woke with a sore knee.

The walk we did yesterday, not counting the distance from our place to the station came in at round 8.17 miles, or a little over 13 kilometres. That’s about the distance from Wellington to Petone wharf!

With our Thames Path National trail brochure in hand we started at Barnes Footbridge, where we crossed the Thames.

The day started out a tad overcast but the weather man promised a bit of sun in the middle. We went prepared with sun hats and warm sweaters just to be on the safe side.

The first part of the walk took us along the riverbank and past the slipways of row in clubs whose enthusiastic members were already sculling up and down the river. We walked through a lovely grassy park, being overtaken by runners young and old, before wending our way along a shaded path that took us to the end of Dukes Meadow. That’s where the marker sign stood.

According to the map Chiswick House was nearby and so we took a detour away from the river and pretty soon were approaching the imposing front entrance. We were both disappointed to see the closed sign even though our English Heritage handbook clearly said that it should have been open. Oh well, never mind. The café provided an tasty interlude and the opportunity to partake in one of our favourite pastimes, that of people-watching.

The grounds of this 18^th century property were beautifully laid out and manicured. ‘Just think’ The Man said. ‘All this for just one family’.

It did seem to be rather decadent. I pictured the lady of the house ordering a comfy chair and her reading to be set up in a secluded corner, or the Lord of the estate striding about admiring the handiwork of his outside staff.

St Nicholas parish church cemetery was nearby. Buried here are artists Hogarth and Whistler. Their graves were well easy to locate and well-tended. There was also and interesting one to an Italian poet called Ugo Foscolo.

Born January 26 1778,  . He was an Italian poet and patriot.  He pinned his hope of a restored republic on Napoleon and fought under him against the Austrians, even after Napoleon's political untrustworthiness had become evident. Upon Napoleon's defeat and the annexation of Venice to Austria, Foscolo exiled himself to London, where at first he had great social success. Having spent his earnings, he was forced to give lessons and write articles and for several years before his death lived in extreme poverty. Forty-four years after his death, on 7 June 1871, his remains were brought to Florence, at the request of the King of Italy, and with all the pride, pomp and circumstance of a great national mourning, found their final resting-place beside the monuments of Machiavelli, Michelangelo and Galileo.

From there we found our way back to the riverside and continued our walk towards Fulham Palace. Last time we were here a lot of the surrounding park was fenced off, not so today. The refurbished park offered pleasant walkways around the pond and gardens. Through the children’s play area we stopped to watch the littlies enjoying themselves before continuing towards and under Hammersmith Bridge. A little further on we spotted the Harrods Depository. Built in 1914 it housed large furniture and other items that were too large for the London City store. Now though, the pinkish coloured building has been converted to apartments.

Feeling decidedly peckish we decided to stop at the next eatery. And did we? Nope.

And that was because we decided we were much too underdressed. By the look of the cars parked outside the place looked hugely expensive for us. Rollers, Mercs, Audis, Bentlys to name a few of the shiny sleek and mostly black. So we gave it a miss and walked on to a more us-friendly pub called The Crabtree.

We ate our lunch on a little deck overlooking the river. While we waited for our order to arrive we had a look at our trusty map and realised we were well within walking distance of a shop we had walked past last summer. It had lots of interesting shells in the window and its interior looked inviting. Unfortunately it had been closed.

Fed and watered we were soon on our way again. This time heading away from the river towards New Kings Road.

After a good look about we decided that there weren’t any shells that we didn’t already have. Not that I wouldn’t have like to add a nautalis shell or two to our already pretty large collection stored away back home in New Zealand. What did attract us were two horseshoe crab specimens. Both of us would have willingly paid the high price for one if we thought we would have been able to get it into New Zealand. Never mind.

On our way to the store The Man had noticed that several number 11 buses heading towards Victoria Station had passed us, so we decided to across the road and catch the next one. It should have been a quick trip to there and then an easy train trip back to Crystal palace.

Quick trip it wasn’t, well at least the wait wasn’t quick. Buses should have come about every 10 minutes or so. We ended up waiting more than half an hour, which is pretty unusual. Turns out there was some sort of protest holding up the works.