In the Dead Dark of Night I Wanted You:Tracey Emin at the White Cube.

"Outside it's still dark and soon I will see a crack of light above the curtain rail. It appears like something supernatural. A deep, deep relentless exhaustion comes over me that at times is so consuming I feel like I no longer exist. Trapped between the dead and the living I fade in and out of worlds, my mind living in a twilight zone. The road to death, my body in a wooden box, being carried on a cart. Rocks and rubble splinter beneath the wheels, a cloud of dust follows me. This is how it feels, my painful journey to sleep - Insomnia, it's back with vengeance. The mind churning over again and again. No release - every mistake, every minor note of guilt comes back to haunt me. I swear to God that it's a slow killer. No rejuvenation, no time for the mind or body to rest. It's like dying from the inside. I lie here feeling semi haunted and alone, listening to the birds' spring dawn chorus" - Tracey Emin, 2019.

Never mind Tracey Emin's unmade bed. Instead, have a look at the turmoil that is her mind. On the surface, that's a far messier place. But that would be too pat a take on Emin's art and, specifically, her fairly large new exhibition in Bermondsey's White Cube gallery, a Fortnight of Tears. Yes, Emin has her demons, her regrets, and a fair bit of history - but don't we all? Those who don't, it could be argued, haven't really lived.

Where Emin differs from most of us is that instead of piling it all up beneath the emotional carpet she's laid it all bare for us to see. She's both picking her scabs and allowing us to watch (and even join in) as she does so. Using the mediums of photography, painting, sculpture, film, and even poetry Emin has eviscerated her soul for her art and, in doing so, has attempted to exorcise the demons that lurk within. Demons that, in her particular case, relate to rape, abortion, bereavement, and insomnia. An insomnia that, very likely, comes from thinking about those first three things.

The Memory of tears (2018)

You may not like Emin's art (her reputation precedes her) but you can't say she doesn't mean it, you can't say she's afraid to touch on the big subjects, and you can't say she's not prepared to work hard (and suffer for it). 

She can draw a bit too but we have to wait for that. This show, following the poem I headed up this blog with (one that must speak to anyone who's laid awake at night wishing they could turn their brain off), kicks off with a room full of photographs. Selfies of Tracey taken when she's been unable to sleep. No make up, bags under the eyes, blown up to twice the actual size of her head. It's hardly an exercise in image control. More an opening gambit that says "this is me. Take it or leave it".

Insomnia Room Installation (2018)

Insomnia Room Installation (2018)

Insomnia Room Installation (2018)

Insomnia Room Installation (2018)

I took it. I was glad I did. This was a show that improved the more time one spent with it, much like most people do. If you make quick and easy judgements on either people or art you're most likely missing out on a lot of important stuff, and important stuff is what Tracey Emin is all about.

There's technical ability in her scratchy, impressionistic, expressionistic paintings and drawings but, more than that, there's passion. If her unorthodox appropriation of capital letters initially jars a touch, it soon seems to fit with her slightly skewed, yet somewhat romantic, worldview. The titles alone ('You kept watching me', 'And There was Love', 'There was a time when I only Thought of you') speak of a mind, a body even, consumed by passion, desire, regret, and, most of all, love.

You kept watching me (2018)

There was a time when I only Thought of you (2018)

The Picnic (2018)

A Fortnight of Tears (2018)

Apparition (2018)

No Love (2018)

And There was Love (2018)

Whilst both decisions made in love and decisions in anger can backfire on us, those made in love should never be regretted in the same way. Tracey Emin's art seems to be the art of a person who'd rather bleed herself dry than injure anyone else. She's in her fifties now but there's something splendidly childlike in both her drawings as well as exhortations such as "NOT TO LOVE THE PERSON YOU ARE WITH IS A CRIME' rendered as if spray painted on a garage door, even the drips imbue it with a deep authenticity.

They have the overt and vulnerable sexuality of an Egon Schiele (without the appropriation and male gaze we've come to associate with that particular artist) but they're mixed with the frank emotional trauma of a Munch or a Van Gogh.

High praise indeed but, I think, deserved and it seems those who curate Oslo's Museum Island agree as one of Emin's sculptures is to be permanently installed there from spring 2020. These sculptures, I'm about the size of one of the legs, are both monumental but also very human. There's something of the Lucian Freud in the way Emin works base materials into a fair approximation of flesh and then beyond into intimations of desire, lust, and motherhood. Alternately, you could view them as Giacomettis who have stopped marching in tune to the diktats of fashion and embraced their real bodies.

 

The Mother (2017)

Angel (2017)

While the sculptures are, for the most part, celebrations of the human, specifically female, body and the works that flank the corridors are mostly about love and sex  - there are other works here that come, quite clearly, from a place of heartbreak. Two large side rooms are given over to these and one has been renamed The Ashes Room and is being used to house the works Emin made following the death of her mother, Pam, in 2016.

There are vitrines containing intimate, and personal, paper works as well as memorabilia and these are worthy additions to the show, but most powerful of all are pieces like I Could Feel You and Mum. Mum is an intentionally naive purple drawing of a lady watching TV under the slogan "Another day of Summer without you" and I Could Feel You sees perhaps the same lady, Emin's mum?, prepare to take the wooden hill to Bedfordshire for what, we must sadly assume, will  be the last time.

I Could Feel You (2018)

Mum (2018)

I watched you disappear, Pink Ghost (2018)

I was too young to be carrying your Ashes (2017-18)

Whilst death is the end for the dead, that's not the case for those that are left behind and Emin has worked up spectral pink and blood red apparitions of herself in mourning, in one instance carrying a box of her mother's ashes. An unbearably sad image to ponder. One wonders if it was cathartic to paint? Or just plain difficult?

The fact that Emin has never shied away from tough subject matter can't have made it much easier. I'm not sure anything much can prepare you for the death of a loved one. If I'd been wearing a hat I'd have removed it in respect. Instead I headed to the huge South Gallery II and was confronted with further sadness. This time of a quite violent and visceral nature.

I am The Last Person (2018)

I sent kisses That came back to me (2016)

Every Part of me kept Loving you (2016)

I made you Happen (2018)

The Abortion Waiting Room 1990 (2018)

Titles like 'The Abortion Waiting Room 1990' and 'They Held me down while Fucked me 1976' don't leave you in much doubt as to what they're about - and as this is Emin we can be pretty certain she's speaking from personal experience. Any life looked back on will contain more than its fair share of horror, injustice, and regret but Emin's work makes it patently clear that for women this can be exponential. 

Emin isn't a feminist artist per se but it'd be as difficult for images that painfully show the results of toxic masculinity and how females are often dealt a subservient role in our society not to carry both a poignant and, hopefully, empowering message. As a heterosexual man it would be crass of me to claim I could possibly fully understand a lived experience that I have never, and will never, have.

So instead I marvel at just how much power she can invoke with these simple, often just three colours, acrylics on canvas. How much life permeates her work as surely as the ever present threat of death. Both one's own and one's loved ones  - and that's why, I think, she's so good. Because while we're alive both life, and that threat of death, are always with us. Again, I wanted to turn my brain off, just for a bit.

They Held me down while he Fucked me 1976 (2018)

And So It Felt Like This (2018)

Mum & Dad (2017)

In The Dead Dark of night I wanted you (2018)

The last thing I saw before leaving was Emin's 1996 short film 'How it Feels' in which she revisits the area around the surgery where her abortion was carried out. She explains in frank, sometimes upsetting, detail about the events that led up to it, the procedure itself, and the aftermath. There was a warning on the door as I entered that graphic medical detail would be given and being more than a bit squeamish I considered leaving before we got to that bit (some, I noticed, did) but I'm glad I didn't. As a man I may be a bit 'funny' about some of the workings of the female body but as I'm happy to sexualise female bodies perhaps I ought to try to understand them a bit more.

As it turned out, it wasn't a biology lesson I got though but a lesson in listening. One I was even more in need of! As Emin explained the very peculiar and very particular circumstances of this event in her life (and explained all the various emotions that were rushing around her head at that time) I realised how easy it is to judge, how easy it is to succumb to confirmation bias, and how difficult it can be to listen. When you listen you often realise people's lives are far more nuanced, far more complicated, than they seem from afar. 

As with art, to get up close is to see a different picture entirely. Emin bravely allows us to do this. Others are more protective. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try to make connections because without those connections we're all on our own in a terrifying, frightening (and, indeed, beautiful and fantastic) world. Life's a journey and, like most journeys, it's vastly improved by a fellow traveller. On Wednesday afternoon I was happy to share my metaphorical motor with Tracey Emin.

 

When I Sleep (2018)

I Longed For You (2019)

It's Oh So Quiet:Moments of Silence at the IWM.

"Words are very unnecessary. They can only do harm" - Enjoy the Silence, Depeche Mode.

Of late a tradition has taken hold in which the passing of a person, or of a group of people, is marked by a minute's cheering or clapping instead of the more traditional minute's silence (two if the situation is deemed suitably grave). That's probably down to all the badly observed silences at football matches caused by partisan rivalry and, let's be honest, no little booze.

The Imperial War Museum's current, frankly quite peculiar, exhibition Moments of Silence holds no truck with that. Very possibly, when dealing with war, silence is the only respectful option. It suggests a break from the sound of gunfire, the screams of pain, and the noise of bombs exploding. I dare suppose that, following a war, silence (or at least peace and quiet) is the most sought after sound. Pity some don't find it 'til they're dead.

All good stuff but as an exhibition, Moments of Silence is certainly an odd one. I really wasn't sure what to make of it, what I was supposed to do. "If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?" is an oft-asked rhetorical question but this show had me wondering "If a one minute silence is observed but no one is around to not hear it, was it really silence?".

I mean, I've been to unusual exhibitions before. Weird ones, fun ones, confusing ones, and even absolutely fucking shit ones. It's not all looking at nice paintings, I get that, but, usually, there's at least something to look at. The theme of Moments of Silence, it seems, is absence. Not just absence of sound but absence of vision. There's a few darkened corridors that lead, with one exception, to even darker rooms that you stand in and listen to pre-recorded silences that, for the most part, are not totally silent. There's a sort of ambient hum of background noise. A bit like walking into a Wetherspoons pub at 11am on a Tuesday morning. But not quite as depressing.

As such, it's difficult bordering on impossible to credit any of the artists (sound or vision) because there's nothing to say who made these works and even if there were, for the most part I'd not have been able to read it. As I walked from one darkened room to another pondering the cruelty of life and the meaningless of existence I realised I probably could have stayed at home and experienced much the same feeling.

At least the first room had something going on. An illusion of pebbles or gravel falling on a shore. I presumed this was to symbolise the tragic waste of life and a brief information board before I entered seemed to confirm my interpretation. The back story is that, following the end of World War I, the British government had proposed a National Hall of Remembrance but when this wasn't built, memorial instead took the form of a series of two minute silences (alongside other, smaller, physical memorials).

It's a pity they didn't build it (not least because Charles Holden had accepted the gig and had already started designing it, and artists like Paul Nash and Stanley Spencer created artworks for the interior) but the tradition that came instead is now, football matches etc; aside, one that has become firmly entrenched. We all know how to observe a silence respectfully and we've all done it more times than we'd care to remember. We probably shall again.

In a crowded stadium, at work, or even (following the 2005 London bombings) on the streets it has a power, undoubtedly, but in a gallery that's already completely quiet it's kind of pointless. I walked down a dark corridor into another dark room, nearly bumped into some foam, had what would have been an awkward encounter with my only fellow visitor had I been able to see him and him me, and wondered how long I should 'enjoy' the 'silence' before moving on.

Nobody was looking so it wasn't long. Following yet another long dark corridor (is this what dying is like?) I came out in a surprisingly well lit room. But don't, for one moment, think that meant the darkness of the experience had lifted. Quite the opposite. Inscribed, very faintly, on each wall was a list of names of all the civilian casualties of the Iraqi war. 13,482 in total. Oh, and it was part of an addendum to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission which lists 1,058,937 entries/deaths from World War I. What a lovely world we live in.

Though it's both useful and necessarily painful to be reminded just how many people have been killed due to the lies of politicians, myths of nationalism, greed for money, and desire to run our cars 'efficiently', this room, alas, marked the end of any political element to the show and my feet ushered me into what I'd hoped would be some kind of explanation of it all but was in fact the end of the exhibition. My art experience had ended as quickly as some people's war did. Though with less blood and amputation.

On exiting this rather odd show I was informed the moments of silence I'd 'heard' had come from such disparate places as Somerset House ice rink, a McVitie's biscuit factory in Harlesden, the African and Caribbean War Memorial in Brixton, St.Paul's Cathedral, Everest Base Camp in Nepal, St Ann's Square in Manchester, St Boniface Primary School in Tooting, the Cenotaph, and Derby County Football Club.

There was even a short film of various individuals, lots of school kids, marking their own silences. While it's undoubtedly good to remember, and to let people know you remember, it seems that the Moments of Silence show at the Imperial War Museum will be consigned to history pretty quickly. Like war, a spectacular failure but, unlike war, at least a noble aim.

I went to Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park and sat silently reading my paper and taking in the world around me. It was better than the darkness but, perhaps, just maybe, the darkness made the light shine brighter.

Fleapit revisited:Capernaum.

"Life is dog shit. Filthier than the shoes on my feet. Life is hell. Life is a bitch.”

At the very end of Nadine Labaki's heartbreaking and righteously angry new film we see a smile break across twelve year old protagonist Zain's face. That's not a spoiler alert (honest) but it was at that point for me, that the penny dropped, it was first time I'd seen Zain (an exceptional performance by the Syrian actor Zain Al Rafeea) beam in the entire two hour plus film.

So, it's not an easy watch - you need to prepare yourself - but it is a rewarding one. This is a film that if you don't come away from it furious with the governments of the world, hell - the adults of the world, that you maybe need to take a long hard look at yourself and whatever you're passing of as your soul these days.

The premise is easy enough to comprehend but trickier to understand. The story makes perfect sense but you ask yourself time and time again, why would these people, these supposed grown ups, continually do such awful things? Zain, a twelve year old Lebanese boy, lives with his parents, Selim and Souad, and several siblings in a less than salubrious part of Beirut.

In fact, their home is positively squalid and the lack of warmth, compassion, and love dished out to Zain and his brothers and sisters is scant consolation for their penurious, borderline criminal, and sometimes actual criminal, existence. Zain and his favourite sister Sahar (Cedra Izam) sell beetroot juice to passing drivers, pocket goods from local stores, and, at all times, keep a streetwise vigil about them to avoid becoming the victims of their elders.

Zain's love for Sahar is one of the film's beacons of hope. He looks after her on the street and when he spots a patch of blood on the eleven year old's shorts he washes them for her and tells her to shove one of his t-shirts down her 'panties' so her parents don't notice she's started having periods. The fear being that now she has 'blossomed' her parents will marry her off to a much older man. She's ELEVEN so it was unlikely to be a younger man.

Both parents regularly clout Zain. Mother Souad (Kawthar Al Haddad) being the chief instigator of the abuse while weak father Selim (Fadi Kamel Youssef) either lies half-asleep on a moth eaten couch or looks for others to blame for his circumstances. When Sahar is wrested away from Zain's protection (this is early on so, again, no spoiler), Zain decides enough is enough and hops a bus to a seaside town where he's taken in by Ethiopian refugee Rahil (Yordanos Shiferaw) who seems to be in some sort of problem with local tradesman and, from the start,  obvious wrong 'un, Aspro (Alaa Chouchnieh).

Rahil's had a baby, Yonas (Boluwatife Treasure Bankole), that she hasn't declared to the Lebanese government so an agreement is struck that Rahil will give Zain a roof over his head if he looks after Yonas while she's out mopping the floors of the cafeteria in the local amusement park. Zain being too young to find gainful employment.

It's here where the story, and the lives of Zain and Rahil, really begin to unspool. There are warm touching scenes between Zain and Yonas as they bond with each other and equally tender scenes between Rahil and Zain as, with Yonas, they form a very unconventional family, but there are also peeks beneath the very thin veneer of respectability that Aspro's stall at the nearby souk provide.

Zain meets a Syrian refugee, Maysoun (Farah Hasno), and she outlines her plans to escape to Sweden where she can finally be safe.,Zain pulls Yonas around in a bizarre improvised go-kart, they wash using hoses in a garage, and, at all times, their very existence seems utterly parlous. In fact, at times, due to Zain's lack of papers and Yonas's unofficial status, it's suggested they barely qualify as human beings at all.

This seems to be where ideas of capitalism, nationhood, and adult pride lead us. To a society where there have to be winners, and if there have to be winners then there have to be losers. Often those losers are the children. The whole film begins with Zain in court attempting to sue his family for birthing him into such a vile world. It's a trifle hard to believe, perhaps the only touch of magic realism in an otherwise veracious account of lives lived in the margins, but it serves to illustrate the deep and uncomfortable truths I've outlined above in a way that, briefly, cuts through the grime and pollution that are constant companions in Zain's ever more precarious existence.

I've never been to Lebanon, much less Beirut itself, so I can't vouch for how accurate a depiction of the city this is. But, at all times, it feels utterly real. You get that sense of looking at the world through the eyes of a child and all the hurt and confusion that instils in a person, but you also get to feel the pain of an infant forced to grow wise beyond their years, deprived the pleasures of an ordinary childhood, and yet, somehow, still managing to guide themselves through life with a more powerful moral compass than the adults that should be looking out for, and looking after, them.

What a mess of a world we're leaving for the next generation. Let's hope there are, genuinely, kids like Zain out there growing up who are prepared to make a braver future than our generation's moral cowardice and craven grasping for consumer goods has passed on to them.

The fact that all of this came across so passionately, and so clearly, in Capernaum is down to taut, though never suffocating, direction from Labaki and a host of wonderful performances from Al Rafeea, Shiferaw, Al Haddad, Youssef, Hasno, and Chouchnieh as well as a special mention for Bankole as Yonas. Unsure exactly how much direction one can give a baby, or a baby can take, but you get a terrific sense of vulnerability each time Yonas is on screen. Perhaps because both the fear and the oblivion that we're all born with in some ways never really leaves us.

File alongside Hirokazu Kore-ade's recent Shoplifters in what's becoming both a vital new genre of international social realism and a necessary corrective to a world that is once again swooning under the spell of 'strong' leadership, yet failing to use that leadership in any way other than to make the rich even richer and the poor even poorer.

The London LOOP. Part XIV:Chigwell to Harold Wood (Essexual Healing).

I didn't expect to be eating alfresco in February, I didn't expect some of my fellow walkers to be worried about sunburn this time of the year, I didn't expect to see croci flowering on the Essex hillsides before the clocks go forward, and I didn't expect to be eating my end of walk meal nearly fifteen miles from where the actual walk ended - but these are the mysteries and surprises often throw up on the epic walk, now nearly completed, they call the London LOOP.

It had been a pretty emotional couple of weeks. I had been preoccupied (and greatly concerned) by the health concerns of one of my oldest (and closest) friends as well as those of a dear and much loved family member, I'd been worried about my own, increasingly penurious, existence and my own health, I'd been drinking too much, I'd been eating crap, I'd been upset by the continuing (and deepening) catastrophe of Brexit and the far right fervour it's given way too, and I'd been sleeping abysmally.

 

So, to put it mildly, I was looking forward to getting the ol' walking boots on again, catching up with friends, and hitting (for the fourteenth time - not including aborted attempts) the LOOP. I was so excited I was up before 5am which gave me plenty of time for Cornflakes and chores before making the relatively quick (if involving FOUR changes) journey to Chigwell, bumping into Pam at Woodford along the way.

On arriving in Chigwell we briefly kidded ourselves we'd actually beat Shep to the start of the walk. Of course, we hadn't. We soon received a WhatsApp message informing us that him and his workmate Tom (a firm Liverpool FC fan and one from the area too) were having a coffee in the nearby Village Deli. A place Marvin Gaye would surely have described as "hot just like an oven".

We picked them up and headed off up Chigwell High Road, past apartments that looked as if they should be facing out to the beach, past increasingly large houses (ones that didn't so much boast of taste or architectural prestige, but cold hard cash), and up to St Mary's, described as "a typical rural Essex church" with a "weather-boarded belfry" and "a broach spire". Most amusing to us was the fact that the rector was a Reverend Ben King. Please turn to page 444 in your psalm books and join me in a recital of "Stand By Me".

Just across from the church stands what used to be the Kings Head pub. A fairly large timber-framed building that seems to lean precariously into the road. It's where, when Chigwell used to lay deep in the forest, the Verderer's Court used to meet but it now houses a top end and, I think, Turkish eaterie called Sheesh.

The next building of note was the brick schoolhouse founded and endowed by one Samuel Harsnett in 1629. Harsnett, once the area's vicar, made it to Archbishop of York and that's perhaps not a surprise when you consider pious, or pompous, statements such as this one describing his conditions for future occupancy of the schoolhouse. The occupant should be "neither papist nor puritan .... no tippler, haunter of alehouses or puffer of tobacco, but apt to teach and severe in punishment".

That ruled all four of us out so, instead, we dipped through a hedge, crossed Vicarage Lane, and climbed up into the Essex fields along farm tracks and beside hedges. The sun was high in the sky and was illuminating vistas more spectacular than you'd have thought possible on the outskirts of Chigwell. It really was a beautiful day for it. One of those days where conversation and laughter flow easily and wrong turns don't matter much because nobody is in much of a rush.

We rambled along Pudding Lane (seeing the first of the day's more irregular signs), passed by a waterworks, and came out on Chapel Lane where the yellow brick chapel had been described in our trusty tome as 'charming'. That's allowing a fair bit of artistic license but it was pleasant enough. In a municipal kind of fashion.

As well as unorthodox signage another feature of the day's walk became damaged signage (some tipped into nearby ditches, others defaced, and some simply no longer there) and peculiar gates and stiles. Though none as odd as the one Tom recalled Shep opening with his chin during an outing by one of their other walking groups. One we tend not to talk about on here. Lol!

We read a little history about Hainault Forest. How it never found local defenders like its neighbour Epping and, after Parliament gave its consent in 1858 over 100,000 trees were felled and the land drained and fenced, how it is now a shadow of its former self and, thus, much much less famous than Epping.

It still seemed a pleasant enough area though. We ambled over Chigwell Row Recreation Ground with its swings, roundabouts, and tennis courts and took in the view of the Victorian church and the boarded up Maypole pub before crossing the busy A1112 Romford Road and dipping between two 'squeeze-posts' (see!) and through a kissing gate into Hainault Forest County Park. Where we got lost. Not for the last time. It's part of the LOOP experience. There's no point complaining - and none of us do/did.

Once we were back on track, cutting through some felled trees and overgrown shrub, Hainault Forest Country Park proved a delight. Shep, unlike the rest of us, was unimpressed with Woodhenge but he was cheered up, as he always is, with the sight of an impressive amount of waterfowl on the lake. There were swans (upping), coots, moorhens, mallards, tufted ducks (misidentified by me as pochards), and geese. Hundreds of geese. Making quite a noise. One Shep thought sounded like Tom and his mates in the pub before a Liverpool game.

The lake, and the birds, were beautiful but, perhaps, better still was being able to sit outside the Global Cafe (a surprisingly diverse menu, though Tom was unlucky with his orders, for a parkside cafe) for our brunch/lunch/whatever you want to call it. I had cheesy chips and a veggie hot dog (not proper hot dog sausages but plenty of tomato sauce from an impressively stocked condiment corner sorted that out) while I sipped a cappuccino. Children kicked balls. Birds flew overhead. All felt well with the world.

It took us a short while to get back on track and there was no sign of the advertised Millennium Beacon (the book is getting old and some things aren't as they're described) but the sun was only getting brighter and the great expanse of the country park made for an impressive sight. After a few forested hills we opened out into a golf course (as regular a feature on the LOOP as it on some TADS walks) and took an overgrown path through the Mile Plantation (that seemed to almost involve hurdles at one point) to avoid being struck by the errant balls of a wannabee Sam Snead.

Once we came out from beneath the canopy we were afforded views of Havering Country Park and, beyond, a Romford tower block reminding us that we're not so far from civilisation after all. If Romford can be called civilisation, that is!

Children rode horses along muddy bridleways and farm equipment sat idly on its weekend break as we trudged along a difficult path, occasionally stopping to look back at the hazy views of the London skyline. So hazy was it that if you squinted you could kid yourself you were in LA.

After a reasonably stiff climb, one that had me regretting the donning of my winter coat, we turned right into a broad avenue where soon we were flanked by giant sequoia. I didn't even know we had these in Britain but, apparently, Havering Country Park has England's second largest collection.

Also known as redwoods, or wellingtonia, they became 'fashionable' (can trees be fashionable? guess so) after the Californian Gold Rush and these were planted here not long after to make for an impressive entrance to the no longer there mansion of Havering Park. These trees are about 150 years old and they're still pretty huge but to see how big they've grown in California then you should check the photos recounting the trip Simon and I made back in 2016 on this little blog here.

The wellingtonia lined avenue brought us out past an old church (where I think I may once have been best man at a wedding), an unlikely burger van, and expansive views across the Roding Valley to the pretty Essex village of Havering-atte-Bower. One that looks like it should be far more rural than the Romford outpost it really is.

On the village green we took a look at the stocks and the whipping post but these days the worst punishment you can get is a pint of Courage Best at The Royal Oak pub. According to Shep and Tom, anyway. They took theirs back and got a Moretti like me. Pam took a Guinness. The landlady and her friend had, it seemed, the best idea. They sipped cups of tea and ate buttery toast as France beat Scotland in the Six Nations on the television.

On a sunny day like this I'd been looking forward to a summer ale (they didn't have any, lager sufficed) and a beer garden (they didn't have one, we sat inside) and, for such a pretty village, the pub was underwhelming. We laughed at how much their Charles II (behind a fruit machine) looked like David Mitchell, perhaps working through some ideas for a pilot of Upstart Crow.

On leaving the pub we noticed a car (bearing the numberplate G666WAR, Satan's War?) had crashed outside while we'd been resting our legs and we took a little snicket round the back of the garages, sadly no discarded porn - the internet is destroying British culture, and continued through various fields full of almost stationary horses and past some iron gateposts (not quite as 'magnificent' as described by Sharp & Saunders) that once graced the entrance to Pyrgo Park.

As ever, there was some GPS (and map) consultation to keep us on track and we even met a fellow London LOOP walker (an anti-clockwise one) who we briefly exchanged rambling anecdotes with before dipping down into Paternoster Row, a peculiar collection of heavily fenced properties, ramshackle cottages, and static caravans.

This lead us down a slip road and to The Bear pub on Noak Hill. Famous, you can discover, for once having real bears in cages there. Something for the kids to play with it while you drink. There's no bears there now - and, again, very little ale. Or even decent lagers. It looked nice outside but, truth be told, it was a bit tatty within. Not unpleasant but hardly a place to settle in. I had a Carlsberg, there was more rugby on TV, that says it all. Essex pubs, at least so far, don't seem to do ale. Or character.

It was starting to get dark when we left and we wandered into a field of heavily antlered, and twilit, deer. Right in front of suburban homes. Not sure I've ever seen deer in such an unlikely environment before.

They watched as we passed by and as the skies darkened our pace got brisker. Eager now to reach our final destination. The last hour was a pretty straightforward schlep along a pathetic brook, crossing various roads, skirting brutalist playgrounds (thanks, Pam), and traversing Dagnam Park Drive, Central Park, and Paines Brook Play Area before, quite suddenly, reaching Harold Wood.

The (King) Harold pub did not look good. It was as brightly lit as a fast food takeaway joint and as we pondered our next move we were approached by a local lady, out in her slippers, who told us it was horrible and that a kid had died there recently (something confirmed by a brief Google). She went on to tell us there were no nice pubs in the area and that the only Indian restaurant was awful too (though Bombay Palace smelt good to me). She said not to go to Romford on a Saturday night because that was terrible too. It's fair to say she didn't work for the Harold Wood tourist board.

There was a bus replacement service so we hopped a bus to Newbury Park, took the Central Line to Liverpool Street (a journey so dull I ended up talking about biros), and all got off there. Pam, who was struggling to stay awake after a White Denim gig on Friday night and a stressful week/month/several years of work, said goodbye and headed off to Shepherds Bush for a night of Ukrainian music and Tom, Shep, and myself wandered circuitously towards Brick Lane. We had a pint in the Pride of Spitalfields and then I had chana masala, tarka daal, pilau rice, and a chapati (washed down with a nice cold Cobra) in the Brick Lane Brasserie. As with most places on Brick Lane it was serviceable, it was decent, but it was not outstanding. Shep and Tom had never eaten on Brick Lane before so I thought I'd give them the full tourist experience and they weren't let down there.

Legs tired, belly full, they left for Aldgate East and, eventually, Waterloo and I headed to Whitechapel to catch the Overground to Honor Oak Park. When I got home I'd walked nearly 37,000 steps and I was in bed before midnight (which is far from always the case on the LOOP). The day may have been a long one but, for me, it had been both a good, and a much needed, one. The title of this blog, Essexual Healing - I ask you, may be corny but sometimes in life the corny things are what matter. Friendship, laughter, countryside, and more condiments than you could ever wish to consume.

Next time it's the final stage of the LOOP. The book claims it's thirteen and a quarter miles from Harold Wood to Purfleet but we're psyching ourselves up for many more. Maybe we'll even find an Essex pub that serves decent ale. In the meantime, TADS resumes in a fortnight for a stroll from Gomshall to Dorking and it'll be great to see as many old (and new) faces as possible. Last year's season end walk got messy but, this time - at least in March, we're gonna do it clean (know what I mean?). See you soon.