Pootler

  Section One is about the blog and how to use it. Section Two   is bike routes, maps and notes. Section One  The dictionary defines 'pootle' as 'to move somewhere slowly and with no real purpose'. This isn't a diary or (usually) a diatribe. Rather, it is a home for: * My collection of  bike routes in the countryside outside N & W London.  * A  gallimaufry of virtual  post-it notes. Some provide generic background on history and landscapes for the bike route and others are simply things about offbeat places that interest me.  The format  is configured primarily for reading on a phone so  brevity is (usually) my lodestar. One result is inconsistent formatting between platforms, and typos are almost my trademark, but at least it proves I am not using AI!  Everything will always be 'work in progress' and I do this to enjoy it and grant myself a dispensation to  digress, widely, frequently, pointlessly and to update older stuff when I see fit.  By way of ge

This is a pause in our trudge through the stygian gloom of geological history, to take a closer look at mud, mud, glorious mud, in all its various flavours, gloopy, crumbly and hard in the form of rock. The stuff of Golems.  Apologia. The passively interested reader might find this the most stultifyingly tedious post on this blog, with  graphics that are awe-inspiringly uninspiring. And  I am aware that there is some competition. It is here  for the sake of completeness and  because, worryingly, I think that mud has a story to tell. But you might find it helps you to doze off.    While tootling around the planet on its way toward its current position on the globe, South East England often found itself in a liminal zone between land and sea, sometimes one and sometimes the other, depending on the sea levels. The foundations of our landscape are the compacted sediments of sand, gravel and biological detritus that slowly accumulated on the old sea floors. In short, they began as as mud, w

  Brass Point nr. Beachy Head 'The Chalk' hills surround London and the Thames Valley, with rolling downland, capped with pure white stone. The bleached clean bones of old England,  Tolkien's Barrow Downs.   Wonderful stuff.  There aren’t many places in the world where pure chalk rises to the surface and England is blessed with the largest proportion of them.  If you are walking, it is usually dry and springy underfoot and on a bike the slopes are merciful. Cretaceous Earth It's origins are described in the first two posts in my 'Deep Past' series; Links: ' From Hell to High Water '  and ' Coming Up For Air '. It crops up again in my musings on local stone.  Mud   A short reprise. The white chalk of the downland has its origins at the bottom of an ancient sea, a long way from land and as deep as the scarps hills are now high. Sharks swam in it, crabs scuttled along the bed and coiled carnivorous cephalopods called ammonites floated about.  Throug

The country cottage. Warped ships' timbers, honeysuckle, pixie-cut thatched roof,  a misshapen chimney, the aroma of baking and  Vaughan Williams 'Pastoral' drifting out of the small paned window. Very twee.  This post is about the oldest, visible surviving rural housing used by the common people; not the manors and mansions. The aim as ever is to help you to make sense of what you can see. It is impractical to include much detail in a post aimed at mobile phone readers so  I have added notes and links in a postscript i n case you peek behind the floral curtains and take a closer look,  Do you ever wonder whether those cottages are ancient or just more recent fakes? It can be hard to determine. The only original part of my old bike is the custom frame, and even that has been messed about with. Every other part has been repaired or replaced. So is it still my lovely old bike? Old cottages are much the same. H ome extensions, reconfigurations and improvements are not just r