EFOG's visit to Ireland in June 2013

In June 2013 eight EFOG members had a week's stay in County Wicklow, organised by Eileen.

Group member Pam has a sister who lives in neighbouring County Wexford to the south, so making use of the opportunity she asked if I'd like to go to Ireland earlier, to stay for a few days at Glenis and Stephen's home in New Ross. It had been a couple of years since I've been to Ireland – the last time with a Group holiday in County Galway – and many years since I'd visited County Wexford, and then only briefly, so I was pleased to be able to go.

We sailed from Fishguard on Tuesday 18th on fine Summer day for the crossing to Rosslare, and arrived at New Ross in the evening. It's only a two-up and two-down terraced house, so to give me and Pam a room each, Stephen and Glenis forsook their bedroom for the living room. The house was also shared by a Jack Russell, Poppy, who once he'd got over her apprehension about me proceeded to jump me at every opportunity. She was great for exploratory walks around the old port town of New Ross.

Our first expedition, on Wednesday, was to the John F. Kennedy Memorial Arboretum which was opened in 1968. This arboretum is dedicated to J.F.K. as the Kennedy ancestral home is at Dunganstown, just a few miles away. It was a beautiful, very warm and sunny, day and the arboretum is a lovely place to visit, with many fine trees.

Hello?I'd noticed on the map some islands off the coast at the S.E. tip of the County – the Saltee Islands. I'd never heard of these, and as boats were available to take visitors out from Kilmore Quay we decided that we'd go there. Thursday was another lovely day and the sea calm for the half-hour or so crossing in a small but powerful craft with cover only for the skipper and crew. Nearing the shore of Great Saltee – the other island being Little Saltee – we transferred into rubber inflatable boats for the final few metres to the only landing place, a bit of sand on an otherwise rocky coast. Visitors are only allowed on the Saltees for a limited time each day, and the boats from Kilmore abandon you there until they return at 4pm. There is no shelter – although the owner has a house there (often - as was the case - unoccupied) – but the day was so fine we didn't need any. The islands are a wonderful place for wildlife, with Puffins that come up and say hello, Seals that like to listen to you singing and a Gannet colony that you can walk up to without being attacked. It is a wonderful place and I'd recommend a visit for anyone down that way, but suspect that the weather might have some bearing on it.

On the Solstice (June 21st), we drove quite a long way into Tipperary to visit the largest stone circle in Ireland, at Grange. The whole area is a bit of a holy place if you are a Pagan, so I did my usual pagan things like having a look round and wondering how the trees in the stone circle have changed to stone – or perhaps the stones have turned into trees? We missed the actual sunrise by a few hours, and were just about the only ones there, but it was worth the journey.

Hanging on at Bray HeadAs many of the Kennedy family from the U.S. were to be visiting New Ross on the Saturday – and more particularly as we wanted to meet up with the rest of the Group when they arrived - we left New Ross before the celebrations began and drove to Brittas Bay in County Wicklow. As it happened, Pam and I got there shortly before the cars containing the rest of the Group did, and we had to do a bit of blagging with the security guard at the site (security gates, and a keypad login to a holiday-complex) before we got the code and found our cottage. The rest had misinterpreted the SatNav a bit, I think, and had almost got to the gates before deciding they were wrong and turning back.

Anyway, we settled in to our accommodation, which was a wooden dormer bungalow, I suppose. It was quite new, and had most of the facilities you'd expect, although some – particularly the kitchen – were laid out a bit awkwardly, the water supply was a bit wayward, and I couldn't stand up in the upstairs loo.

The first of the Group's walks was the next day, Sunday 23rd. From the respectable sea-side town of Bray, we walked along the promenade and steeply uphill on a very windy day to Bray Head (241m). It was so windy it was hard to stand upright by the cross at the top overlooking the town. We found some very slightly sheltered positions for a snack-break before walking the hill-side path above the sea to Windgate, some four or five miles north, and then back along a slightly more sheltered lower route nearer the sea.

Banshees at GlendaloughOn Monday 24th we went to Glendalough - The Glen of the two lakes - an early mediaeval settlement founded by St Kevin in the sixth century. Some of the group did a harder and higher-level walk whilst others did a lower and easier walk, but both groups were pestered by midges. I noted that these tended to hang around ready for the attack at places favoured by photographers. At the end of the visit Eileen, Pam and Val played at banshees in the river.

The following day, Tuesday 25th, we visited Avoca, which is the village in which the series "Ballykissangel" was set. I was surprised to see a Red Kite over the high street as I had not realised that there were kites in Ireland. A mile or two up the road from Avoca we visited the beauty spot of meeting of the waters. This features in a poem by the Irish poet Thomas Moore, and there is a memorial to him there. I not known that Thomas Moore was the writer of the lyrics for The Minstrel Boy andThe Last Rose of Summer.

Fitzgerald's, Avoca...we'd already been in!On Wednesday 26th some of the Group went somewhere, and Pam and I went to Devil's Glen, near Ashford. This is a woodland area with a deep gorge running through and again feelings of rocks and woods that have merged to become one. Almost at the beginning of one of the walks is a quote from the late Seamus Heaney: The riverbed, dried up, half-full of leaves. Us, listening to a river in the trees. And standing where we were, with the river far below us - out of sight and possibly out of sound - the noise of the wind in the trees was like a river. The next thought-provoking lines - cut into a rock – were We have lost the dog. I liked that. We were remarkably blessed with the weather, which generally was pretty good. After we had returned from the Devil's Glen we met up with Val and the three of us even managed an hour or two of sun-basking on the long sandy beach, just a short walk from our accommodation.

She's a bit shiny 'cos a lot of people are hands onWe spent Thursday in Dublin, and that was - conveniently in a way - the day we had the most rain. Dublin is a fine city and between us we managed to visit Trinity College, O'Connell Street, the Ha'penny Bridge, Phoenix Park and Molly Malone's statue amongst others. Coincidently at the end of the day we all met up in the lovely park of St. Stephens Green, right in the heart of the city. I would like to pay a return visit especially to the National Museum of Ireland; there are some wonderful things in there.

Our walk on Friday 28th was on Dublin Mountain, part of the Wicklow Mountains that stretches right to the outskirts of the city at Kilmashogue. From the high point of Three Rocks (400m) there is a wonderful view over the whole of the city and along the coast north and south, whilst behind the Wicklow Mountains stretch wildly away to the west. It is a further hike up to what becomes wild country, although the route we followed was made relatively easy by nicely placed rock paving. The conditions up on the top at Fairy Castle (536m) however, were damp, misty and windy.

The Fairy Castle on Dublin MountainWe strolled through the streets of Dun Laoghaire on Saturday morning, had a bite to eat and perhaps collected some snacks for the ferry crossing back to Britain at Holyhead. To alleviate too long a journey in one day, we had booked in for an overnight hotel stay at Newcastle-under-Lyme. Breakfast there in the morning was perhaps considered as the end of another great Irish holiday organised by Eileen.

I think the most memorable bits for me, in order, were the Saltee Islands, Devil's Glen, listening to the uileann-piper at Glendalough, and Dublin Museum. The Bananagrams in the evenings were pretty good, too.

Participants: Eileen, Fozie, Fred, Fritz, Ken, Pam, Val and me (Paul) 

Paul Ferris    8th September 2013

Hornchurch Country Park - Sunday 1st September 2013

Amina and Madeleine had a walk planned for Sunday in Bexley, but travel disruptions on the route had them cancel that arrangement. Thus it was on Thursday evening after I'd suggested an alternative walk at Hornchurch Country Park, I found myself elected walk leader.

Warm-up session with Sue, Amina and JennyI used to know the area around the Ingreborne Valley quite well. It had until 1962 been an RAF aerodrome, then became disused and overgrown. More recently it has become Hornchurch Country Park, so eight of us met up on Sunday morning at the car park in Squadrons Approach to explore. It was a fine sunny day, warm but not oppressively hot, and we began our expedition with some warmup exercises on the training equipment usefully provided for members of the public. Then off on the walk, with some comments by me and questions by others about the wildflowers we were passing. Most striking of these perhaps was the Chicory that was showing it's wonderful blue flowers in many places in the park. The blackberries were also enticing and some of us made instant use of them.

Skirting Albyns farm, we left Hornchurch Country Park to gain Hornchurch Hill. This was a landfill site but is now laid out with foot paths and bicycle tracks. Summiting Hornchurch HillFrom the summit is a 360° panorama and we picked out some places that we recognised. Looking north across a hidden Romford was the white water-tower at Havering-atte-Bower above Bedfords Park and a few degrees to the north east could be seen Upminster Windmill with the hills of Weald Country Park beyond. More to the east were the Brentwood Hills and Thorndon Park, and the Queen Elizabeth River Crossing bridge was distinctive towards the south-east. Across much of the far southern horizon the North Downs were visible. Looking to the S.W. beyond the wind-turbines at Dagenham, Shooters Hill was prominent, then the Canary Wharf complex, the Shard, the towers of the City, the B.T.Tower and the Highgate Hills to the west. Ilford's newer tower blocks were clear, with the water-tower at Claybury, Hainault Forest and the Redwood trees at Havering Country Park completing the circle. It struck me just how many of these places the group has visited and what a good place the summit of Hornchurch Hill would be for some compass practice.

A view of the Ingrebourne river valleyWe returned to the Country Park just east of Albyns farm, stopped for a drink by a fishing lake, then continued the walk to cross Ingrebourne river at one of the few bridges. I was heading for Berwick Ponds, but it all looked different here and I made my first slight mistake in direction. It has to be said that the signposting was less than clear, but we reached the ponds then made our way back to the bridge. The River Ingrebourne is about 10 miles long and has its sources around Navestock and South Weald. It is a small but important river which feeds the Thames and particularly here has valuable wildlife and ecological importance, thus it has been designated an SSSI.

One of the group noted that there were now a number of people around in flip-flops, so we must be nearing the car park. We sat on some benches for a short while near to some of the remaining structures from the airfield days: pill boxes and Tett turrets, which are one-man fortified gun-emplacements. I'd in mind to walk northwards along the river for a mile or so before returning to the cars, but everybody seemed to think they were satisfied with the expedition as was, so we left it there.

Participants: Amina, Fritz, Jill V., Sue Sell., Madeleine plus Jenny and Garry and me.    Distance: 4 Miles

Paul Ferris   4th September 2013

A Welsh Incident - August 2013

“But that was nothing to what things came out from the sea-caves of Criccieth yonder.” (this has to be said with a Welsh accent). What were they?... well EFOG weren't at Criccieth, they were at Bangor, so perhaps we'll never know.

What I knew was that I was trying to breath, sitting on a slippery slab of rock on a Welsh mountainside with my feet in some bog moss, and not much of a view through the rushes. This was the same rock that will forever bear the imprint of my head, arm, ribs and hip because it didn't like the tread of my boot. Anyway, application of arnica by Charlotte seemed to do something of a trick and I walked down off the mountainside to the car.

Where I had to stay - Nant-y-Crogwen, PenmachnoMy intention was to have joined the EFOG group when they arrived at Bangor station on Friday 23rd August. I was booked on the same train, but had instaed travelled to North Wales a few days earlier with a friend. The stay on her farm north of Betws-y-Coed became an enforced one for a few days longer than I'd expected; arnica might only do so much.

Apart from lack of mobility, my other difficulty was mobile phone communications, as there is just one spot in the middle of a horse-field where it is occasionally possible to get a signal for a moment or two. The house phone wasn't much better because the group's mobile phones didn't seem to be functioning very well either for one reason or another... bloody mobile phones coverage.

I needed to arrange to join the group on Sunday to return home with them as originally planned. This was crucial because I thought I'd not manage my luggage alone. However the mice and men syndrome came in to play. I needed to meet with them during the day, but didn't know where they'd be. Although I knew where we were staying I had no means of getting into the university accommodation that we were using; it was a bank holiday Sunday and the reception would likely be closed. Charlotte needed to leave Penmachno to drive to Pembrokeshire, and all of EFOG's mobiles seemed unavailable. She'd be able to drop me off on route either to meet someone from the group who could help me with my bag or of course at the university. I envisaged me sitting on a wall in a deserted University complex with an immovable rucksack for about three hours, waiting for the Group to return from their day.

Waiting for the bus on the return from Bodnant I had a text message from Lynne with a University telephone number to call just as we were entering Bangor; my relief explains the number of x's I put at the end of my thanks-you text to her, although she may have wondered what they were for. A few phone calls later and Charlotte was able to leave me safely at the security office from where one of the security officers carried my rucksack up to the kitchen of the block in which we were staying. I was in!

The meal that evening was at a pub, followed by a quiz. It seemed a bit of a younger person's quiz to me, and I felt we didn't do very well. After the quiz we were given bingo tickets to play sit-down bingo. Strangely, this involves standing up until - if a number on your ticket is called - you sit down. First time round I was still standing with only three numbers to be called before being able to sit down. On the second go both Lynne and I - and happening to be next each other - were the only ones left standing! The tie-breaker number was called, and you may guess who I was hoping would win. If you can't guess then you don't know me as well as you may have thought. Number 45 came up... and we were both still standing! They decided to give us both a £5 food voucher so we had to go there again the next night.

The Group at the seafront at BangorI hadn't expected there to be a next night because I thought we were going home on the Monday. Thus I found I had a whole day to spend with the group. A number of us made full use of the lovely sunny day by visiting Bodnant Gardens and as I was able to walk around a bit by then, that was good. Tuesday morning gave us the opportunity of a morning walk either slightly energetically to Penrhyn Castle or incredibly leisurely to Bangor Pier, a lovely Victorian structure at Garth. I enjoyed watching jellyfish off the end of the pier with Duncan, Ann, Fred and Christine. Unexpectedly, all the others joined us having finished their walk and a friendly kiosk was opened up for us to get teas and coffees. Where else can you get tea, coffee or cappuccino all for the same price of £1? It's a good place, Bangor Pier.

I really can't do much of a write-up from the Group's point of view, but I know four of them climbed Snowdon on one of the probably warmest days ever at the summit, and my feeling was that - despite a few people enduring injury-pain from elsewhere and elsewhen - it was a most enjoyable trip.

Thanks to Ken for organising, it and thanks to all those that helped me with my rucksack and in other ways. It wasn't an easy break for me ( luckily it doesn't seem to have been a break at all, maybe just a crack), but nevertheless I enjoyed it and I was pleased that I was able eventually to join up with the others.

I can add mobile phone coverage to my litany which otherwise includes cyclists (on the canal towpaths, anyway), cats (in my garden, anyway) and stiles (the curse of mankind, everywhere.) All of these are usually prefixed by the word Bloody, but I don't know that I should use that on our website.

As for slippery slabs - and this has to be said with a Welsh accent, too - "I was coming to that". (look up Robert Graves ... but it has to be said with a Welsh accent.)

Participants: Ann, Christine, Duncan, Fred, Fozie, Ian G., Jill V., Jinan, Julie, Ken, Lee, Lynne, me.  From Friday 23rd to Tuesday 27th August 2013

And this is what I came back to - my proposed cup of tea is beyond the book-fall...

Paul Ferris    29^th August 2013

From Pudding Mill Lane to Brick Lane - 8th June 2013

Jinan suggested that I lead a walk in East London, to finish at a Syrian restaurant she'd discovered in Brick Lane. I think she assumed that – my origins being in East London – I'd know this area intimately. Well I don't – apart from teen-age trips to Tubby Isaacs and Blooms around Whitechapel – and a stint as a postman which incorporated delivering to dwellings in Middlesex Street (or Petticoat Lane, as it is known). My knowledge is more of an area south of the Bow Road; the Roman and its surrounds is almost as alien territory to me as is Rome.

Anyway, a few weeks ago Jinan and I had reconnoitred a route I'd devised by looking at a map, starting from a fairly-convenient-to-all Pudding Mill Lane DLR station, and found our way to the said restaurant, so our next step was to offer it to the group.

This proved a slightly more complex operation than most of my walks are, where I either know them or wing them, and both ways usually work out OK in the end, albeit half the time I'm changing my mind part way through anyway. That's not a way that would be recommended to lead a walk, but it works for me and indeed this east London walk proved that my usual way is by far the better way.

So – after quite a bit of correspondence between Jinan and I relating to times and numbers – I arrived at Pudding Mill Lane Station some 25 minutes early and awaited the arrival of others. As the time went on, and no-one had arrived, I began to wonder if I'd got the right day. At about 5 minutes to our allotted departure time I got a call from Jinan saying that just about everybody who said they'd be coming were already enjoying coffee in the View Tube and only Amina was still to turn up.

Amina duly arrived by 10.30, together with an unexpected Ken and Jill, and we walked up to the Greenway to meet the others. The others consisted of a few more people than I'd expected; all of the plans thus far had catered for a known number and a couple of possibles, and thrown into the mix now was a few more with still possibilities to come.

Anyway, twelve of us began the walk by my talking about what could be viewed from near the View Tube. There was the View Tube itself, of course, but I left that out because most of the group had had plenty of time to find out all about it anyway.

The Greenway itself is an important aspect, and it's an interesting fact that we were actually standing over an immense volume of north London's sewage, being transported beneath our feet for conversion at the Beckton Sewage Treatment Works a few miles away. The Northern Outfall Sewer Bank (now re-named The Greenway so as not to offend) was designed by Joseph Bazalgette so that it not only transported the sewage but could act as a promenade and a viewpoint for the deprived people of east London. It performs both those functions today – magnificently – although some of the people of east London are now far from deprived.

Looking west, the Bryant & Mays Match Factory can be seen – originally the production point for a famous brand of match but now dwelling places and studios for less-than-deprived people. The female workers at the factory took part in the famous “Match Girls' Strike” when in 1889 about 1400 women and girls protested against the horrible and dangerous working conditions, and were a major influence in changes to women’s rights.

It was nice and sunny as we follow the Greenway northwards towards Wick Lane, crossing the Lea Navigation at Old Ford Locks and past Percy Dalton's Peanut Factory. Here there are some remnants of the old industrial buildings and factories which were so common in the area before the Olympic site was created. At the end of the Greenway Wick Lane passes under the A12 and a road bridge crosses the Hertford Union Canal with the “Top of the Morning” pub to the right. A plaque on the pub commemorates the first person to be murdered on a train.

We went into Victoria Park, with a short introduction as to how the park was created to provide a valuable “lung” for the people living in a vastly overcrowded area, and headed towards the children's play area, which Julie expressed an interest in visiting. However it was only Jinan that actually rode the giant slide – though I've a feeling that if there hadn't been so many children around at least a few more of us would have done so.

We exited Vicky Park at Gun Maker's Bridge, named after the nearby Gunmakers Arms and Gunmakers Wharf where at one time the London Small Arms Factory was situated. The factory used the Regents Canal to transport components for the Short Magazine Lee-Enfield rifle, which was used during the 1914-1918 war, to Enfield for assembly.

For much of the walk along the towpath of the Hertford Union Canal we were accompanied by a swimming and diving cormorant, who moved on into the Regents Canal at much the same time as we reached the junction of thee two canals. The Hertford Union is only 1.5Km long and had been constructed in 1830 to provide a short cut – alleviating the long route via the Thames – to the Lea Navigation. It was only a short walk southwards along the Regents Canal before we left it to gain Roman Road, which was where Julie left us to continue along the Regents Canal. Although I'd offered a quick tea-break at Victoria Park's cafeteria only 10 minutes earlier, there was quite a bit of muttering at this point about finding a pub – which I was somewhat loathe to do considering that we'd planned a visit to the Museum of Childhood where we could get refreshments anyway, and still had some way to go and things to see on route. The museum – after all – does have a somewhat earlier closing time than the pubs!

The group became further depleted as some elected to go to a pub anyway, so I continued the planned walk looking for Meath Gardens. Unfortunately – in the discussions about the pub – I'd missed the turning and so only reached the gardens at the further end – missing possibly finding a reputed London Plane tree with a plaque commemorating an Aboriginal cricketer called King Cole. His real name Bripumyarrumin, and he died on 24th June 1868 in London, where his team - the Australian Aboriginals – had played that year. They were the first Australian cricket team to play in England. The large gateway entrance to the gardens at that end has the inscription VPC 1895 – the only remaining indications that these gardens were once Victoria Park Cemetery.

We were now walking parallel to Roman Road past a variety of mostly post-war maisonettes and flats, although Morpeth Street School still has vestiges of its Victorian origins attached to some ultra-modern buildings. At Digby Street, glancing towards Roman Road we could see see a former fire station of 1888 which was converted to a Buddhist Centre in 1978.

Shortly we reached Bethnal Green Gardens – sometimes known locally as Barmy Park - passing a library which was built as the male wing of a lunatic asylum in 1896 and adapted as a library in 1922. Just before leaving the gardens by the NW corner is the Stairway to Heaven, a new memorial to the 173 people killed on 3 March 1943 when Bethnal Green tube station was in use as an air-raid shelter. Following a salvo of anti-aircraft rockets someone tripped on the stairs causing many others to fall. It was the worst civilian disaster of WWII. The memorial is very moving, with plaques inset relating people's experiences of the tragedy.

As we were right by the tube station, Peter and Maz decided to leave us there. Just across the road from the memorial is the Georgian church of St. John on Bethnal Green, a grade 1 Listed Building designed by Sir John Soane and built between 1826 and 1828. It is a fine building, but I hadn't planned a visit as the museum was so close. However, people were going in and a notice on the railings caught our attention. I was intrigued that it was written in English and Gaelic – Bangladeshi being more likely around here – and was an invitation to visit an exhibition called 'Tha tim, am fiadh, an Coille Hallaig'. Obviously, that translates to 'Time, the Deer, is in the Wood of Hallaig' – so we went in. Having been invited to have a look around the church itself – worthwhile in its own respect; it is a fine building – we went up into the belfry where there was a lovely exhibition “investigating the properties of forest memories through text, archive and a wood collection”. I'd like to have spent more time there, but the Museum of Childhood was calling, and those five of us still remaining were looking for refreshments!

We had our refreshments in the museum's cafeteria, which was grossly over-priced, but museum-entry is free and the profits presumably go to the running of the museum. The building is a fine one in its own right, and I enjoyed a solitary wander around nostalgia-ising until the get-out bell sounded at closing time.

We had made contact with Jinan, Ian and Paul G., who were spending their time in a nearby pub, so we extricated them from there to continue the last part of the walk to Brick Lane, so now there were eight.

Bethnal Green Road is – to my mind – a busy and not pleasant thoroughfare – but we were able to look at at what had once been Bethnal Green Chapel and subsequently became the United Reform Church, a building of Kentish ragstone that was built 1843-57 to cater for the increasing number of Christian but not Church of England immigrants to the area. Lying just off the main road, Weavers Fields is a larg-ish open space – well used on such a fine afternoon – Proposed as part of the 1943 Abercrombie Plan to rectify the over-crowding and lack of open space of the surrounding population, and eventually coming to fruition since the 1960's by the clearance of 19^th century weavers cottages. This was yet another example during our walk where thoughts had been given towards the health and welfare of a very deprived area of London. The name Weavers Fields is a reminder that much of the population at one time would have been Huguenot and Irish weavers spreading eastwards from Spitalfields.

Cheshire Street runs towards Brick Lane parallel with the Liverpool Street railway line, and just off this is Wood Close, at the corner of which is "The Watch House" - a former watchman's house of 1754. This was to enable the watchman to guard against the “resurrection men” - body-snatchers who provided corpses for dissection at local hospitals. The watch house was extended in 1826 to house a fire engine. We lost Ian and Paul again at this point – there are many pubs in the vicinity – but had a quick look at St. Matthew's Church which was one of 50 churches planned in the 18th century to counter the non-conformism!

We were nearly at Brick Lane, and half an hour or so early for our allotted table-booking of 7pm, so we strolled (or manoeuvred) along Brick Lane before going into the “Damascu Bite “ restaurant. Ian and Paul joined us, as did Christine who had been unable to come on the walk, and the Syrian meal made a very pleasant finish to a somewhat confused (for me, at least) but enjoyable walk.

Paul Ferris, 9^th June 2013