This is the Easternmost station in London, which is Upminster. Crazy Beat Records, the Easternmost Iceland and the Easternmost library. If you're looking for vinyl, frozen party food or a classic hardback, there's nowhere Easter. Cranham. 2020 when McColls sold up and the unit is currently occupied by London's Easternmost tanning shop. London's Easternmost post office is now down the road inside Cranham's Tesco Express, which I believe is also London's Easternmost supermarket. If you want freshly baked sausage rolls, a funeral planned or a plate of pie and mash, there's nowhere Easter. Cranham. The Thatched House, which is two minutes further down St Mary's Lane than the pub which would otherwise take the title which is The Jobber's Rest. They like their pubs out here in Cranham, ideally with full-on table service including pie of the day, king prawns and a special menu for dogs. Jaxon's at the golf course also does Essex-friendly sit-down meals but it's not a pub and it'll be trumped by one further Easternmost restaurant we'll get to later. If you count marine dealers selling outboard motors then Boating Mania opposite The Jobber's Rest is London's Easternmost shop, or alternatively you might count the gift shop at the Thames Chase Forest Centre, but my vote is with Sea Fish, the chippie in the previous paragraph. If you want cod wrapped in paper and slathered in vinegar with a gherkin side, there's nowhere Easter. North Ockendon. North Ockendon is famously the only inhabited part of London outside the M25 and really ought to be in Thurrock. But it isn't and thus contains London's Easternmost church, which is St Mary Magdalene, the Easternmost car lot and the Easternmost reptile showroom. The most convincingly Easternmost business is Fenlands Nursery, a mini garden centre brimming with attractive shrubs and plants where you pay for your wares in an open shed. North Ockendon is also home to London's Easternmost bus stop, which is Home Farm Cottage, and boasted London's Easternmost pub until The Old White Horse closed in 2022. If you want to buy begonias, flash your Oyster or bemoan the decline of pub culture, there's nowhere Easter. Fen Lane. This is the Easternmost golf course in London, which is Top Meadows. Top Meadows has 18 holes, was built on the site of a former gravel pit and is 40 years old this year. More to the point it also has several bedrooms and a bespoke dining suite so doubles up as London's Easternmost hotel and Easternmost restaurant. It marks the edge of the village of North Ockendon, beyond which everything is fields, as Fen Lane slopes gently down London's Easternmost hill. It looks idyllic out there, or at least scenically agricultural, although all this may be swept away in the near future to enable the creation of Europe's largest data centre. An incredible 200 acres of digital storage is planned, I suspect solely because this is the very very edge of London so almost nobody will notice. If you want environmental damage, 1000 jobs and the hum of network servers, there'll be nowhere Easter. Home Farm. newbuild under construction - but although they back onto Fen Lane they're actually in Essex so they don't count. If you want a roadsign indicating a double bend, a final pylon and a track leading to a solar farm, there's nowhere Easter. Mardyke. We're now almost two miles down Fen Lane from the last T-junction in North Ockendon, a ridiculous distance to have walked and yet still somehow remain within Greater London. The Mardyke is the longest river in Thurrock, a good 11 miles all told, and the drainer of considerable fenland hereabouts. It's name means "boundary ditch" so you'd expect this bridge would mark the edge of Greater London, but not so because the boundary deviates away from the river here to accommodate two further fields. If you see that row of trees in the near distance, behind the tallest tree closest to the road, that's the actual edge of London along the line of a less significant ditch (currently dry). If you want a hedgerow, some discarded fast food wrappings and a concealed gas pipeline, there's nowhere Easter. Fen Lane. A ditch passes beneath the road almost unseen but you can't miss the cacophony of signage indicating you're passing from one jurisdiction to another. Both sides have street signs naming the local authority, although the Thurrock one has suffered some serious vandalism and been bent back on itself. Thurrock have also erected signs warning about court injunctions and automatic numberplate recognition, suggesting they're joyless souls, but at least they have an official 'Thurrock' boundary sign whereas Havering's has vanished since I was last here in 2008. Speed limits change too, from 50 on the Thurrock side to a positively nannyish 30 in Havering, and you can also see the divide in the tarmac where maintenance responsibility changes. Havering's side is definitely potholier. If you want to stand somewhere in London, there's nowhere Easter. ditch beside Bulphan Fen. precise spot is just down there in the water, where the dry ditch beneath the road meets a broader trench which carried the main flow of the Mardyke before the fens were drained. To get here you have to walk on towards Bulphan for a couple of minutes and then back down the Mardyke Way, a waymarked path which starts at Harrow Bridge and continues 7 miles to Davy Down. The banks on the Thurrock side are thickety with long grasses and a brief grass dip where you can step down to the water's edge at the precise boundary turn. The banks on the London side are denser with overhanging foliage and currently blossom, with one of these being London's Easternmost tree at London's Easternmost point in London's Easternmost corner. If you want to experience how utterly ridiculously remote East London gets, there's nowhere Easter.

Which means you need to get off dry land, and get in the water.  You’ll need a teacher. They work best with you in the water too. It’s gonna be scary at first. It’s gonna be wet. You’ll need to rinse after. That’s what it takes to learn to swim. (Applies to everything else too.) […] The post You learn to swim by swimming… appeared first on Herbert Lui.

10 Routes To The Summit of Box Hill 1) Burford Spur Box Hill, the one I keep coming back to, the route with the great views where you get the knackering bit done up front. It kicks off at Burford Bridge by the hotel and the bikers cafe, i.e. all the facilities, then slips through a gap in the hedge. One of the best things about it is that you can alight from a 465 bus and be climbing the hill literally five seconds later, so well positioned is the bus stop. The chalky slope can initially be a slippery scramble after wet weather but it's bone dry at the moment so a solid ascent. What you're encouraged to do is use the steps that start a short way up but I much prefer to bear off to the left up the open path, or more specifically the grass bank to one side because that always feels less hassle. It doesn't take long to rise above the treeline opening up ever-improving views across the valley but only if you look behind you, so it's perfectly OK to stop panting and pause several times on the climb. It's always worth another look. The higher you go the more you see - dual carriageway, vineyard, country houses, ridgetop woodland, Dorking. You may also have to dodge between groups who've properly paused and sat down on the grass to better enjoy the panorama. Keep going and the view becomes partially shielded behind a row of trees, then follows a broad chalky path into woodland, ever climbing but nowhere near as breathlessly as before. A sheer chalk cliff is hidden just over the rim. Keep right if you want the viewpoint or left if you want the summit, the latter a tad quicker and taking in a derelict fort along the way. It's less than twenty minutes from bus to National Trust cafe if you didn't dawdle, and perhaps a more satisfying pot of tea if you did. 2) Below Burford Spur Zig Zag Road and the path should be pretty obvious. You'll join up with route 1 partway through the second paragraph. 3) Zig Zag Road twists satisfyingly up the hillside, perhaps watched over by marshals if some kind of organised cycling activity is underway. If you're walking best take the decent path which continues upwards at the first hairpin because doubling back is a waste of time. If you're cycling the best view is on the third leg. If you're driving prepare to be patient as cyclists wish you weren't in their way, but how else are you going to get the kids and the pushchair up to the car park where you can proceed to enjoy the hilltop expanse without any of the effort the other visitors have expended. The Easter Egg Trail setting off from the Shepherd's Hut is a seasonal treat, with cardboard bunny ears for younger visitors and a choice of dairy or vegan chocolate egg once completed. 4) via Juniper Top 5) via Juniper Bottom 6) via Lodge Hill Saxon church, a proper pub and a parking problem that regularly impedes the progress of the 465. Take the path up the side of the churchyard for the longer tougher walk in, or alight from the bus at Juniper Hall for a less humpy walk up Headley Lane. Once past the mini car park the choices open up, branching one way for Juniper Top and one way for Juniper Bottom - the contours will make it obvious which is which. One of the National Trust's waymarked walks heads out down one and back up the other, but that's from the cafe. My preferred route veers off a short way along Juniper Bottom, or more accurately veers up via a precipitous set of steps. Precipitous steps are commonplace in the Box Hill area but can generally be avoided if you pick your path well. At the top of this set is the path to Broadwood's Folly, a flint tower that used have two storeys and a spiral staircase but is now just a shell. The great storm of 1987 did for the beech avenue out front. Much woodland remains for you to walk through as you ascend Lodge Hill, a minor summit just above the Zig Zag Road, before proceeding to the proper trig point on Box Hill itself. 7) Across the Stepping Stones car park, and also to the 465's North Downs Way bus stop (southbound only). Seventeen hexagonal stepping stones span the river Mole at a conveniently narrow point, just challenging enough that an eight year old would find it an adventure. Eighty year olds probably shouldn't risk it, also best not go this way if it's rained a lot because I have seen the stones overtopped by a slippery torrent. Come on a bank holiday and you should expect to join a queue to cross, not least because those going one way have to wait for everyone going the other way to cross. 8) Over the Rambler's Memorial Bridge footbridge dedicated to the memory of lost wartime souls. A good way to reach it is from Burford Bridge along a crescent path at the foot of the chalk cliffs, although you can also get there from the Stepping Stones because the two routes deliberately connect. But the ascent is then exactly the same 270 steps as before, entirely the same challenge, so again do be aware what you're letting yourself in for. 9) From Dorking If you stand at Salomon's viewpoint on the brow of Box Hill the town of Dorking is laid out beneath you, enticingly close. It looks like you could walk down the steep grass slope, then cross fields and be in the high street with ease. But in fact those fields are private and beyond them is the wiggly River Mole which along this stretch is entirely bridgeless, so I recommend you're not tempted. Anyone attempting to ascend from the south instead has walk out of town past the cemetery at least as far as Castle Mill, or park up by the garden centre, then take a duller slog across the railway and then some. 10) From Box Hill Village hundreds of people to live there. Most of the properties are mobile homes but many are plotland homesteads and little mansions as if this were the most normal place to have a home. The North Downs Way heads in via this route, also umpteen other feeder footpaths and obviously an actual road which is the least challenging way to arrive gradientwise. Arriving from the east is definitely the long way in so not ideal if you're here for a day trip experience, but it is a genuine alternative and has its quarry-top moments. If you think you've climbed Box Hill what I hope I've proved in today's post is that there are so many other ways to do it which is why it's always, always worth coming back.

Do most people get stuck with their creative work because they didn’t create momentum? Or do most people create momentum, but need more time to think out a breakthrough idea? Which direction sounds more correct to you? To me, it’s very clear the first direction applies to more people. Most people’s creative ambitions die from […] The post What the jellyfish knows: A compilation appeared first on Herbert Lui.