Slow Travelling Man

Wednesday 29th October 2025

As a proud owner of an English Language O’level from back in the day, I thought I would spend a little time re-learning how to write betterer & a bit more descriptive like.  Following a bit of online research on the subject of travel writing I decided to invest in a real book titled ‘The Travel Writers Way’ by Jonathan Lorie (as opposed to an unreal one that is viewed on a tablet thing).  Full of brilliant hints & tips, I am now in the process of re-reading the text with a view to undertaking some of the assignments within.  In order to keep you abreast with my developments, I thought I would share with you a few paragraphs of my progress from the second assignment.

Assignment 2: Take your notebook for a walk & try & capture the character of the whole area.

Here goes….

Although I had many years ago cycled around the Arc du Triomphe in the rush hour, nothing could prepare me for stepping out on to the zebra crossing on the Oxford Road at the base of Norcot Hill.  As vehicles screeched to a halt in clouds of bluey-white smoke, I proffered an obligatory thumbs-up gesture to earnestly thank the drivers for not actually killing me & was rewarded adequately by a single-digit reply from a scruffy looking geezer in a white van.   Sweeping around a righthand bend onto Cow Lane, my senses were suddenly struck with the scent from a mobile gourmet food establishment whereby a large, red-faced rotund gentleman dressed in workman’s clothes, was tucking into something large, greasy & enveloped in a white napkin.  He gave me an upward nod & I returned the gesture whilst momentarily considering where the nearest functional defibrillator was.  Finding my route somewhat blocked with a line of parked cars, I edged past managing to shower said cars with thousands of dead pine needles from the bushes to their side.  Passing under an arched, brick tunnel that allowed vehicular access beneath Brunel’s Great Western railway line & towards the River Thames, I spotted a cheeky & somewhat, anatomically accurate fertility symbol, artistically drawn on a Network rail sign.   

Bearing left at the marina, I started walking alongside the river itself with the damp, semi-impacted gravel crunching beneath my brand-new, blue with luminous orange soled Skechers trainers costing £105.  Tunnelling my route, the trees & bushes were all in a different stage of autumnal shedding with some leaves yellow, some brown & some still a vibrant, healthy green.  Bunches of bright crimson berries hung pendulous from the thin, spikey branches of the hawthorn, possibly blackthorn, a stark contrast to the damp drabness around.  Pausing momentarily to attend to the intricacies of micturition in a secluded bush, I gazed out over the millpond like river while a fancy white motorboat chugged downstream before me, the wake slapping the banks below my feet.  With my free hand I waved, but alas I fear they didn’t see me.  A sudden wail of a siren in the distance broke the serenity & I carried on in an upstream direction progressing alongside a curved, graffiti-stained, dark-brick retaining wall structure with huge, towering galvanised steel gantries perched above.  Craning my neck momentarily to look up, a green, high-speed train whooshed by at an alarming rate, which happened to scare the f**king bejeezus out of me.  This was replaced just a minute later by the throaty womp, womp, womp of a more sedate, scarlet-coloured Deutsche Bahn goods loco, hauling wagons of pink containers.   Further along the path, the bushes now gave way to mature horse chestnut trees which at this stage of autumn were now completely bare, their once green leaves now lying dead in piles on the ground. I stood in silence as a few of their comrades floated downstream like er, corpses, er, floating downstream.  The seeds of the tree, once cherished by schoolboys, now littered the ground although amongst them I spied an imposter in the shape of a small, freshly deposited dog log.  Chiding the carelessness of the owner under my breath I flicked it with a stick into the river. Rounding a shallow bend, I caught a feint whiff of woodsmoke that soon became combined with the not so feint whiff of cannabis, which was being emitted from somewhere within a rather run-down narrowboat. A blue, weathered tarpaulin slung haphazardly over the middle roof section, indicating that time had not been kind to this vessel. Someway beyond at the edge of the bank I spied a gruff-looking fellow with sunken red eyes sat in a collapsible picnic chair, his hand welded onto a can on Polish lager.  Venturing past & to his rear I bade him a cheery good morning to which he replied just a single solitary word, “wankers”.   I decided it was now time to head on home.