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Ramblin'

Kim Gilman
3 days ago
3 min read

Hello Dear Readers,


Although our summer in England came to an end and we've been home for three weeks, I still have a couple of posts to share with you. In this one I'll relate how easy and wonderful it is to take walks -- short, medium, long, or expedition-length -- all over the UK. We enjoyed many "rambles" this summer.


My final ramble took place the day before we began our trip back to the US, when my intention was to tire the dog so she'd be calm on the plane. I finally subscribed to the All Trails app (which gives you hiking routes anywhere) and it's been tremendously useful!


Here is a preview panel from All Trails of our walk that last day. Once you start, you follow the route using the "live" map on your phone. But it usually takes me double their estimated time!



Three factors make walking in the UK more pleasant and accessible than in places I've lived in the US: 1.) There is more of a division between city and countryside -- less suburban sprawl. Once outside a town center, the landscape is pretty for walking. 2.) There are public rights-of-way across a lot of privately-owned land, so you can traverse most areas from one point to another, without getting barred by "private property." 3.) There is a culture which encourages the use of these walking routes, with trail signs everywhere. And if you want to walk on a long-distance path (some covering hundreds of miles) there are readily available maps and descriptions, so you can do a short segment or the whole thing.



There are often a slew of small, literal hurdles: so-called stiles. These are barriers to keep livestock out (or in) while letting the walker pass. They come in several forms, including simply opening and closing a gate behind you, but often you have to climb over a few wooden boards. Sophie usually could squeeze under these barriers, but she preferred to follow me up and over!



Now here are a few images from the "Mill Green & Fryerning Circular," which included St Mary the Virgin, an 11th-century church and its spooky graveyard. No, I did not dare to peek inside the broken-up sarcophagus.



In our immediate neighborhood of Doddinghurst, I admit that the walking trails weren't as nice as what we have in the woods of Carlisle, MA. However we did find some walks around the farm fields and down the side streets. Our neighbor had a gift for growing roses and I couldn't resist photographing her perfect specimens over the summer:



The day before our departure, we had lunch at our favorite local restaurant, Smith's of Ongar. I loved their fresh seafood, tasty side dishes and excellent crème brûlée. Inexplicably this restaurant automatically provides a little bucket of ice to every table. Very strange for England, where a request for ice in your drink usually nets you one small hollow cube. And wouldn't you know, we discovered in our final week a terrific bakery called Rose's in nearby Shenfield, which had really good sandwiches and cakes. Oh well, we went three times that week, and stocked up for our long drive to Paris and the flight home from Orly Airport.



I will fufill my promise to write a final "UK Summer 2026" blog about the wonderful variety of fun things we got to experience in London this summer (Virtual Reality! Musicals! Shopping! Shakespeare!). Meanwhile, I'm off to work and I hope you are enjoying this beautiful Fall.


🥾 🇬🇧 🫖 🍰



 
 

Second City

Kim Gilman
Aug 30
3 min read

I've never been to any of the major English cities outside London, so was overdue for a trip to the UK's second-largest city, Manchester. In August we took the train from London's Euston Station (about a two-hour ride) and spent one night at the Hyatt House in downtown Manchester (nice free room courtesy of a Hyatt credit card benefit!). A gourmet breakfast buffet was included - what a deal.



As the summer wanes into late August, normal rainy weather has returned to England. We don't miss the super hot days, but looking back it sure was nice to enjoy so many walks and explorations rain-free. Manchester was rainy, but the weather cleared enough for us to enjoy an open-air bus tour and to walk around quite a bit.


We arrived at Manchester's Piccadilly Station and snapped a few photos before enjoying lunch at a local brewery (the Northern Monk Tap Room). Robin liked the beer. After taking a walk to the supposedly trendy Northern Quarter, we tried out the city's tram system. (Manchester has great public transport, but no subway.) In the evening we rode the elevators to the top of the Beetham Tower (4th tallest in the city) for drinks and the views at the Cloud 23 Bar. Not surprisingly, the drinks were weak but the views were superb. I love finding a high vantage point to survey the territory when visiting a new place.



We began our second day with a 90-minute sightseeing bus, which gave us a fantastic overview of the city. Did you know that while Manchester is 40 miles from the coast, it was England's third-busiest port city in the 19th and 20th centuries? That's because they dug a canal all the way to the Irish Sea! Opened in 1794, the Manchester Ship Canal helped build the city's commerce. But it was not the first canal built there. The earlier Bridgewater Canal (10 miles long) halved the cost of getting coal from the mines to the city's mills, and fueled the Industrial Revolution when it opened in 1761. Today, the docks area is being redeveloped, but continues as a port.



On the bus tour we zoomed passed the People's Museum, which showcases the history of working people and the labor movement. Had I done my advance homework, this would have been a must-see for me. We didn't have time to go back, but I've added it to my list for next time. Once the bus dropped us back in the central city, we enjoyed a visit to the Art Museum, which proudly displays local artists including Laurence Stephen Lowry, whose style helped capture "Manchurian" city life in the early 20th century. Then we were on to the public library and the private Ryland Library (an incredible building in its own right, with a Harry Potter vibe and and never have I seen so many old books!). I'd happily return there as well.



My quest to sample local fine chocolates almost ended in disappointment when I arrived at the Dormouse Chocolate shop at 2:01 PM, hardly imagining they closed at 2:00 on Thursdays. The place was all locked up, but to my surprise, the door suddenly opened. A kind proprietor invited me inside, gave me a description of their various chocolate bars, and cheerily sold me a couple. Then I was off to rejoin Robin for a late but excellent tapas-and-sangria lunch before catching our evening train back to London.



In case you're wondering, lunch (clockwise from left) was salad with walnuts & toasted goat cheese; roasted potatoes in spicy sauce, mushroom pastry parcels with butternut puree, and chicken in a smoked paprika sauce. OH - and a huge class of red sangria.


Well dear Readers, today is August 30th and we'll be returning home to the US in a couple of days. It's hard to see such a great summer end, but no regrets for wasted days here -- there were none! I'll be back with another post sharing some of the fun times we've had visiting London these past few weeks, and then a final installment letting you know we made it home. I wish you, too, some fantastic final days of summer.


🚌 🌨️ 🖼️ 🍷



 
 

So Many Trails - So Little Time

Robin Hillyard
Aug 25
4 min read

A guest blog by Robin Hillyard



I’m using my guest spot to talk about some aspects of ordinary life here in the UK—what we experience when we’re not traveling to Scotland, the New Forest, etc.

Let’s start with the weather (see the photos above for varying shades of grass color).


London has experienced five heatwaves since May. Heathrow Airport had no rain for 56 consecutive days. Many temperature records have been broken: Kew Gardens measured slightly over 100F a few days after we visited on another extremely hot day. We suffer a little more over here because most houses (including ours) don't have air conditioning. Many houses don’t even have fans! English weather just doesn’t make the capital outlay to install A/C worth it—or at least that was true pre-global-warming. Most transport options have good A/C, including our car, but the tube can be brutal. For the three weeks we spent in Scotland, we really appreciated the cool weather.


An added bonus this summer was the partial eclipse of the sun on August 12th, which was one of many clear blue-sky days. We had something like 90% coverage of the sun, but that was still too much for the naked eye. We had special glasses for ourselves and filters for our iPhones, but we weren’t able to get good photos. Our friends Nancy and Patty went to Spain to see the eclipse in totality - so we got a great photo from them!


Photo by Nancy Olt
Photo by Nancy Olt

That brings me on to one of my favorite subjects: transportation. Although the roads can be crowded, many British people don’t even own a car, or if they do, they will use it only to drive to the station, as we’ve been doing on the many occasions we've visited the capital. From Shenfield, our closest mainline station, the trains are so frequent that we usually don’t even bother to check the timetable. If we miss one, another will be along in 10 minutes or so. From our location in the Essex countryside to the City of London it's about three quarters of an hour. The tube is even more frequent. When you reach the bottom of the escalator and the train is just pulling out, you typically only have to wait two minutes for the next train, sometimes not even that.


And there are buses everywhere: each stop has information about exactly when the next bus will arrive. Even our local once-an-hour bus into town has, at least in theory, a tracker to tell you where it is. They all take bank cards so there’s no fumbling for change. Getting around is just so simple.



Of course, it wouldn’t be fair to talk about public transportation without a mention of the roads. You’ve probably heard about those roads in Scotland and Ireland which are wide enough only for one car—but have passing places. Well, around here, we have lots of bendy roads which are just (and I mean barely) wide enough for two cars, but without passing places. When a bus, van or lorry (truck) approaches from the other direction, you are obliged to drive into the hedge, the ditch, or whatever just to make room. There’s never a dull moment! Here’s a typical busy but narrow road, less than a mile from our rental house. By the way, the two road signs indicate that you can now legally do the nationwide speed limit (60 mph for single-carriageway roads).  Good luck with that!


Just enough room for two cars to pass--just hope that you don't meet the bus!
Just enough room for two cars to pass--just hope that you don't meet the bus!

By contrast, the motorways are well-engineered, fast (up to 70 mph), and safe for long-distance travel. On the whole, drivers here are more disciplined and, because of all the cameras, they are more likely to obey the speed limits.


Kim does a great job of telling you about food. I don’t really need to say much other than that we eat well. Very well. What I do want to talk about is pub culture—and beer in particular, although almost all pubs do a good, or at least decent, job with food (I’m easy to please). Pubs are an integral part of village life (sometimes the “village” is in a town or city) and act as casual meeting places where you can go and have a good natter with people you may or may not know. Sadly, we don’t have a pub within walking distance—it was turned into a Turkish restaurant a few years ago. But we have a dozen friendly country pubs within a fifteen-minute radius, and they all have cask ale: traditional English beer which, as Kim will tell you, is too warm, flat, and bitter. But I—and many of my fellow Englishmen—love it. The heat of this summer has been tough on the beer, though. It doesn’t keep long even in the cellar when it’s so warm above ground.


 

We are blessed here in Essex with some fabulous country parks. The UK has quite steep “death duties,” which frequently means that the children of the nobility have to sell off a few assets. The county has done a great job of converting some of that wealth that formerly was in private hands to public parks. Not far from us (30 minutes) is the great Epping Forest, a 6,000-acre former royal hunting ground, that is almost wilderness, or at least it seems like it when you’re hiking there. There are thousands of fallow deer (too many really!) as well as wild Longhorn cattle.


There are three smaller, yet still huge, parks within 15 minutes of us, each of which we’ve visited several times with our two dogs. There is a parking fee that helps maintain the park. Almost all parking places in the UK are either number-plate-based or app-based. You never need coins anymore. Today, we returned to Thorndon Park (350 acres) and were exploring new, apparently limitless trails when Kim observed, “So many trails, so little time.”


🚗 🍺 🥾 🚊 🌳


 
 

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