You may have noticed a certain decline in the intellectual level of the blog since Day Four. From unreliable narrators in novels to “Hamburger Feet” seems like a little allegory about the dumbing down of society.
Today’s walk was eleven miles (oops, I miscalculated again at the end of yesterday’s post, this time simply because I was stupid from exhaustion), all of it alongside the canal or the river. That left me time to think big thoughts and to serenade myself with Peter, Paul & Mary songs remembered in amazing detail from the albums played repeatedly in our home in my childhood. “Flora,” “Stewball,” (which could make Dad go all misty-eyed if he sang along), “Long Chain On.”
All day it was clear that I had entered the big circle of development around London. I could hear the low background ssshhhhh of traffic pretty much all day, and the smells have changed from the pure green smells of newly mown hay and wild plants and sheep and cows that I had had for most of the first eight days to a new mix of combustion engine pollution (it’s not like I was smelling exhaust all day, but it’s there as a background smell) and the odd smells of factories and gravel plants and whatnot along the canal. Not a stench, I should be clear, just a change.
In some places I’ve been, the canal has been scenic and beautiful, with lots of decorated canal boats and a pretty, well-kept path alongside it where people walk dogs. But today, the path was compacted dirt with big stones sticking up, littered with beer cans and snack wrappers, and I saw few people. There are still canal boats, but the ones tied up seem forlorn, and those in the move seem to me as if they are in a rush to get somewhere else.
This got me thinking about how cities grow, and how often getting into big cities by any means, in a car or by train or on a bike or on foot, tends to be sort of depressing, because you pass through this big sprawl of un-thought-out building. These are the unloved spaces.
And it’s astonishing how much building turned its back on the canal near the city. Of course, I understand that these canals were first built for commerce, and so would not be something you’d want your front yard looking out on. But long after the canals stopped being clogged with coal barges and whatever else, the building along the way has turned its back on the canal. Though I passed by a lot of housing estates, for much of the way in this liminal space that is not yet the city itself (where waterfront views command hefty prices), they were not built to embrace the canal. In fact, there was usually a high fence or a hedge with only rare entrances, discouraging people who live near the water from going near it. That means it is abandoned to the teens who, I am assuming, go there to drink beer, and to the people on the margins. I saw a man sitting by the path with a car tire in a shopping cart. This is not the place to muse on eye contact and greetings and stop for a chat. I should be clear that I never felt unsafe. I just felt like I was passing through the neglected back of the city surround. On today’s walk, I started about 27 miles from the center of London on the path, so figure that I am within the 20-mile zone around the city.
After seeing some of the ways we can build and shape to make the world lovely (the sublime but manicured Blenheim), it’s a stark reminder that when we grow without a plan, we often make ugly spaces right around our beautiful ones.
The day was, in short, a bit sober, and I had to remind myself that tomorrow I will finish this walk, and that the last stretch will be along the Thames and will include parts of the river that, while industrial in some stretches, have been made if not always beautiful, at least more attractive.
And again, today was not all ugliness. I watched canal boats going through locks.
I saw pretty flowers.
I got a good laugh imagining a little mini-play around one of those canal boats:
A: I’ve bought a boat!
B: With our savings? What about our retirement?
A: We’ll cruise the canals. We’ll call her the Waltzing Weasel.
B: I want a divorce.
My day ended at Kew Bridge, right by Kew Gardens. My B&B is pleasant, though near a railway line, so in the evening I can hear trains whoosh by every five or ten minutes. I had a nice little meal at a fancy gastro-pub. Two starters (appetizers to you Americans) rather than one big dish: sweet spicy fried squid and pea feta and mint arancini balls, followed by a slice of blueberry and lemon cheesecake. And two glasses of wine. Living dangerously.
Tomorrow I walk 16 miles to the Globe Theatre and I’m done with phase one of this trip. Then, after a few days doing the big-city version of tourism, seven days in the South Downs.
ramblinghank 
Good idea on the two wines after the last few days you’ve had Hank! Love the “waltzing weasel” and dialogue.
The wine was the Grape Gatsby, a pretty good South African red. Good enough to overlook that name.