Giving my winter coat its 2019/20 season debut I'd slept fitfully and for just four hours after arriving home just after 2am the night before (3 trains and 2 buses back from Tony's 50th birthday get together in Kintbury) but once I was up and showered I felt alright and it wasn't long before I was taking another three tubes out to Uxbridge, pausing to meet Pam at Harrow-on-the-Hill station.
We headed straight down to Grannies where I ambitiously tried cheese omelette'n'chips with bread and butter, a cup of tea, and a can of Coke and Pam tucked into a veggie breakfast that looked delicious apart from having the 'wrong' sausages. England were beating Argentina in the rugby world cup on a television in the corner and it wasn't long before we were joined by Neil, Bee, and Eamon.
None of whom would have had a very long journey, all being local. Others were faring less well. Shep had had to grudgingly pull out the night before due to family commitments (scuppering his chances of turning in a clean card for TADS 2019), Adam and Teresa seemed to be on an interminably long bus journey from West Drayton, and Colin had decided to watch the aforementioned rugby game in Oxford before setting off.
The second half in a pub. We wondered if he'd be tanked up before we even set off but luckily he'd shown (some) restraint. We finally headed out about half-an-hour to forty-five minutes after we'd intended but it wasn't to matter much. I'd not planned too challenging a walk.
The eight of us headed out of Uxbridge, across the river Frays (essentially a branch of the Colne and named for 15c lawyer/parliamentarian Sir John Fray who owned various watermills around the country), and over the Grand Union Canal before turning right, spotting our first waterfowl action of the day - an adolescent swan, and following the canal northwards.
It's a stretch some of us had walked before as part of the London LOOP (though I'd been keen to include enough new stuff to keep it interesting) so I won't go into the story of the Crown & Treaty pub again (click on the link for that) but will remark upon how Uxbridge was garrisoned by the Parliamentary Army on the 1642 outbreak of the English Civil War and how its name derives from, not a bastardisation of a bridge for oxen to cross as I'd previously guessed, but from 'Wixan's bridge'. The Wixan being a 7c Saxon tribe from Lincolnshire who had begun to settle in Middlesex.
The most notable of Uxbridge residents was Christine Keeler so I didn't linger long on listing legends (and certainly didn't give their incumbent PM a mention) and instead gave some brief facts about the Grand Union Canal to a remarkably disinterested group of friends. It's 137 miles long - shrugs of disinterest. It has 166 lochs - who gives a toss? It came about, in its current form, in 1929 - when do we reach the pub?
Ah well. Not every fact can be a humdinger. At least the narrowboats and abandoned chairs looked photogenic as we headed north out of Uxbridge (the administrative HQ of London's most western borough - Hillingdon - and the location of Brunel University). The weather was holding out too. As it would all day. I'd not really needed that winter coat and the rain that'd been forecast as about 30% likely was not to appear until I was nearly home round about the witching hour.
We passed under the A40, I took a few of my standard photos of signposts and pylons, and just before Fran's Tea Room we came off the canal and, crossing the Colne river, picked up the South Bucks Way. The Colne, a Thames tributary, flows from North Mymms in Hertfordshire to Staines where it empties into its father river. The South Bucks Way, were we to follow it for many hours, would lead us eventually to The Ridgeway. We headed NW, roughly parallel to the Misbourne (a river we'd seen in much closer detail back in April), through a lovingly created adventure playground and a golf course, before coming out on Village Road in Denham.
There are some mighty fine houses in Denham and most of them seem to be situated on Village Road. Several of the red brick mansions covered in wisteria have been used for location filming and many actors and other high profile types have made Denham their home. Cilla Black, Sir Roger Moore, Mike Oldfield, Paul Daniels, Dennis Wise, and Brian Connolly of The Sweet have all chosen to live there.
The Marshall family did too - but they didn't choose to die there. That decision was made, according to a stone in the otherwise pleasant churchyard that Eamon led us too, by one John Owens - "a travelling blacksmith who was executed in the county gaol at Aylesbury" for his act of mass murder in August 1870.
Not being fortunate (or rich) enough to live here but being fortunate enough to have not been murdered in cold blood here, we stopped for a drink (passing a house in which I learnt that the wonderful artist Ben Nicholson had been born in Denham).
Remarkably Denham had a choice of three pubs. The Falcon was hidden round the corner and The Swan (which I'd intended to take people to) was deemed more of a restaurant but The Green Man was just right for our 'needs'. It was earlier than normal for a pub stop but too inviting not to take one. I took a Rebellion Smuggler and we sat in the garden with a cuddly Moroccan camel as Colin angrily, and quite incorrectly, threw shade on the fantastic Sleaford Mods and Adam attempted, successfully it turned out, to revive a distressed bee.
We supped up (one or two managed a 'two pint mistake') and carried on through the centre of Denham past the village sign proudly boasting of its seven separate victories in 'best kept village'. past some tacky dictator chic gold gates, and down a road with the tempting name of The Pygthle.
The Pyghtle soon became a track that chicaned beneath Denham railway station in a subway festooned with what I presumed to be children's paintings of hot air balloons, horses, and boats. From there we passed briefly through a nondescript housing estate and picked up a busier road that took us back over the Colne and, soon enough, to the towpath of the Grand Union Canal again.
A long and mostly featureless, though very pleasant, stretch took us 2.5k on to The Coy Carp. We'd seen the gnome in the tree on a previous walk and admired the weir though the lovely red fire looked the most tempting proposition, even on a day that was none too cold.
In fact, we sat in the beer garden of the Coy Carp as I nursed a pint of London Pride while others necked gin, wine, and lager much faster than I was managing. It was the only part of the day when the lack of sleep really caught up on me and it was hard to drag myself away from the pub - and not for the usual reason!
But we managed - eventually - and passed through an area of evocatively named lakes (Broadwater, Korda, and Harefield) spotting the odd swan (including what looked like a dead one) if less of the promised grebes, cormorants, shovellers, gadwalls, and tufted ducks. Judging by the amount of anglers idling away their Saturday lakeside there's no shortage of fish in those lakes either.
We were back on the South Bucks Way and we could see, in the distance, the M25 and hear the distant rumble of its traffic but first we had to negotiate a very muddy section. My pumps were not fit for purpose and soon I had a wet foot and a muddy sock. Jeans and winter coat got a good splashing with muddy water too.
My attempt to lead the way had succeeded only in showing the others the way not to go. Pam had more success and made a path for the others to follow. There was a long straight walk ahead of us. To our right we could see unused heavy plant (we believe for the postponed high speed rail link) but to our left glorious spindle berries and bright red leaves displayed resplendent in the autumnal air.
Our main concern now was a sign informing us the path was blocked. I ruled we move ahead anyway before spending ten minutes rushing ahead and wondering what would happen if we couldn't get across the M25. No matter how good you might be at Frogger crossing the M25 on foot would be likely to result in either immediate death or fairly immediate arrest.
I was so relieved when I reached the long dark tunnel of corrugated iron that passed under London's orbital motorway. So was everyone else. Not only did we get to the other side, escape London if you like (!), but we got some great snaps in the darkened tunnel. It's not a place you'd wish to walk through alone late at night.
On exiting the tunnel we passed along another country path, briefly down a moderately busy road, over a golf couse, past Chalfont Heights Scout Camp (which offered such fun activities as abseiling, tomahawk throwing, and, er, crate stacking), and through a meadow which took us to the outskirts of Chalfont St Peter where we descended a quite vertiginous hill flanked with enormous mansions of varying architectural merit.
It was quite soulless and we soon reached the busy A413 which we crossed via a bridge into Chalfont St Peter's High Street. The takeway joints, branch of Corals, and the pub we entered (showing Crystal Palace win away 2-1 to West Ham) suggested not all those who live in the Chalfonts are as well to do as those who live in those mansions on the hill.
We necked a brief pint or two in the cramped but friendly White Hart pub and I told my friends the two facts I had written down about Chalfont St Peter (Lewis Collins lived here before moving to Los Angeles in the nineties and it's classed as one of the UK's largest villages - not exactly thrilling stuff). I also booked a table for later. I'd first tried Malik's but they didn't have a table big enough at the time we wanted. Bawarchi came good though and as it was described as an Indian/Bangladeshi place we hoped we'd be able to smugly ping WhatsApp images of cold Bangla beers over to a jealous Shep who was not doubt crying into a warm can of bitter at home by then!
We had about a half hour walk into Gerrards Cross for food. It's a place that didn't exist, formally, until 1839 when it was formed by taking pieces from Chalfont St Peter, Stoke Poges (where Pat Still once told me he saw a man sucking another man's testicles), and Upton cum Chalvey. Stanley Kubrick filmed scenes from Lolita in Gerrards Cross and in another piece of cinema history, the 1977 film Wombling Free was made in the town. Those who have called the place home include Roy Castle (yay), Linford Christie (yay), Amal Clooney (yay), Dominic Raab (boo), and Peter Stringfellow (who fucking knows)!
Eamon sloped off quietly and the remaining seven TADS took our seats in Bawarchi. No Bangla but the Cobra was good, the poppadums too. No paneer shashlik or paneer jalfrezi on the menu I reverted to my old favourite of tarka daal, pulao rice, and paratha - which was a touch bland but filled a hole. Others reported more successful meals, including Colin whose veganism was initially, it seemed, mistaken for an allergy!
Meal finished, strollers sated, and after dinner chocolates guzzled we headed back to Gerrards Cross station (Colin and I stopping for some train booze - I didn't finish my solitary bottle) for the train to Marylebone. Neil and Belinda hopped off at Denham, Adam and Teresa rushed off at Marylebone in what proved to be an unsuccessful attempt to catch an earlier train, and Pam, Colin, and I hopped on the Bakerloo line. Colin got off at Baker Street to get the tube to Victoria and the Oxford Tube home and Pam and I departed at Elephant & Castle where my 63 bus came immediately. I was home about midnight and in bed, and asleep, within minutes.
Thanks to Pam, Colin, Belinda, and Neil for proving the photos for this blog and thanks to them and Adam, Teresa, and Eamon for making the day such a fun one. Quieter fun than normal (perhaps because of Shep's no show) but fun nonetheless. Next time we go it's the last TADS walk of 2019 from Crystal Palace to Greenwich (the usual London season finale). Last year rain stopped play early and things got pretty messy - but it was great fun. What could 2019 hold? Watch this space!
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