Walk, Marlow to Caversham, 16.2 miles

15 April

This walk was intended to be a serious test of my fitness for the upcoming trek distance. Again Ruth surprised me by offering to come, though she seems to be suffering from hip and knee pain after a certain number of miles, so I suggested that she dropped out halfway and went home if the distance was too much. Decided on a route along the Thames from Marlow to Henley, then across country via Harpsden and Binfield Heath back to Caversham (going the whole way back to Reading along the Thames Path would have taken the walk to 18 miles or so).

We took the Arriva 800 bus (an excellent service) at 0916, arriving in Marlow just before 10 am. Had only a brief wobble while walking down the high street to the river when Ruth tried to veer off into India Jane, but I managed to catch her in time before any shopping started. Set off westwards along the Thames Path, crossing the river at Temple Footbridge. At Hurley, the path crosses briefly back to an island in the middle of the river, where we stopped for a welcome cup of tea and ate the chipolatas and hard-boiled eggs we'd brought with us. Continued on past the lock and back across another bridge to the south (Berkshire) bank. Onwards past the collection of bungalows off Black Boy Lane - these form an interesting contrast with most of the properties along the river banks - and the posher houses at Frogmill.

A bit further on the path crossed in front of Culham Court and into trees before emerging on Aston Lane by The Flower Pot. Here we continued along Remenham Lane, rejoining the Thames Path at Remenham. Continued on into Henley, which was the halfway point, and sat on a bench by The Angel to eat some sandwiches. Ruth decided she was OK to continue, so after a visit to the public conveniences at Mill Meadows we turned away from the Thames Path and headed out of the town via Harpsden Road and Harpsden Way. Passed the gates of the 13th-century Harpsden Court, which appears to have been for sale last year. Puffed our way up Chalk Hill and then, after dodging traffic and golfers from Henley Golf Club, past Mays Green to Binfield Heath, passing The Bottle & Glass, which Ruth looked at wistfully.

Thames near Henley	Gates of Harpsden Court
Walking through Harpsden	Bluebells in woodland near Binfield Heath

We stopped briefly - our third and last stop - at a picnic table in Binfield Heath to have a drink and eat some sweet stuff, then tramped the last few miles via Dunsden Green and Kiln Road down into Caversham.

Map of the route:

Here's the elevation and pace graph. Chalk Hill is the steep climb at about time 3:45.

Feet a bit tired afterwards, and we did little that evening other than flop around and order a Thai takeaway, but on the whole few after effects. Am reasonably encouraged. It's still only half the bloody trek distance though.

Walk, Thames Path from Windsor to Maidenhead, 11.73 miles

8 April

Ruth surprised me by offering to come with me for this one. We took the train (well, two trains) around 9:30am from Reading to Windsor & Eton Central. On arrival, Ruth decided she was hungry and needed fortifying before we set off - this wasn't unexpected, but her sudden craving for a sausage roll was, meaning that we had to walk past lots of nice potential second breakfast spots in the 'Windsor Royal Shopping' arcade and ended up at a fairly terrible café on Thames Street called 'Lilebet's' - I can find no reference to it online which seems odd. To prove it exists, here's our receipt. The 'Misc Food' was two sausage rolls - I only had a couple of bites of mine as it was fairly dire. We agreed later to airbrush the incident out of history. Except that I've just recorded it here.

We crossed the pedestrianised Windsor Bridge into Eton and turned left to cross the Brocas, following bends in the river for a while, passing Royal Windsor Racecourse on the opposite bank, before we briefly detoured to look at the chapel of St Mary Magdalene, Boveney. Cute little church with a weatherboarded tower. It's apparently under the care of the Friends of Friendless Churches, which is nice. Very plain building but it looked well cared for.

The path passed close to one end of the huge Dorney Lake and its clubhouse, where we once held an event when I worked for Progress South Central. A while further on, more interestingly, we passed Oakley Court, a Victorian Gothic house that was briefly home to Hammer Films in the late 1940s/early 1950s. Hammer seem to have made a bit of a thing of shooting in country houses - prior to moving to Oakley, they apparently occupied another large house in Cookham Dean - variously referred to online as Dial Close and as Dial Place; I didn't manage to find a photo - before being asked to leave after locals complained about the noise. After leaving Oakley, they seem to have moved to a house in Essex and then back to the Thames again to Down Place, which became Bray Studios. The site unfortunately seems to be under threat - I guess the temptation to sell the prime Thames-side site for housing will be just too tempting. We did pass Down Place a short way on from Oakley Court, looking derelict. On a brighter note, Oakley Court is clearly thriving in its current guise as a luxury hotel - its lawns were covered in people sunning themselves when we passed.

Chapel of St Mary Magdalene, Boveney	Oakley Court
Sunny path	The former Bray Studios

At Summerleaze Footbridge we crossed to the Bray side of the river and took a rather longer than expected detour into the village to look for lunch. I had naively imagined it might have something like a café doing cheese toasties, but there's nothing there apart from high-end looking pubs and restaurants. We made for The Crown, which was the most accessible-looking one, though we soon realised it was fairly posh. The staff were lovely though and we had a very pleasant lunch in the sunny courtyard. I only discovered later that it's owned by Heston Blumenthal, who evidently owns several establishments in Bray. There's a complimentary review of The Crown here.

Map of the route

After lunch we retraced our steps to the footbridge - we'd hoped it might be possible to re-cross the Thames at Bray Lock, but it isn't (we established this from the helpful valet outside The Waterside Inn). We trundled on for the remaining couple of miles to Maidenhead Bridge and then the remaining mile through the town to the railway station.

Bray and The Waterside Inn from the opposite bank

Walk, Thames Path and South Oxfordshire countryside, 11.35 miles

25 March

Another 'training' walk today for the British Heart Foundation trek I’ve signed up for in May. First longer walk with the new Nike Pegasus trainers I bought last weekend, specially recommended by the unfeasibly young lad in The Sweat Shop as extra-cushioned for long-distance road walking. Wore them in the week for a few of my usual circa 3-mile weekday walks and they were wonderfully comfortable and positively springy.

Started out from the house and headed down to the river via the new pedestrian footbridge, now named Christchurch Bridge, apparently. Set off eastwards along the Thames Path, passing Caversham Lock and, a bit further on, Kennet Mouth via the Horseshoe Bridge. Continued on to Sonning Lock where I sat briefly to eat a home-made cacao (get me) and almond energy ball (courtesy of  'Deliciously Ella') and watched a hired cruiser make its way into the lock. Crossed the river at Sonning Bridge where the Thames Path changes sides. Continued on for a couple of miles to the boat house below Shiplake College, where I spent a few minutes scouting around for the footpath up to the church that I could have sworn was there somewhere. Did eventually find it, though it's not well signposted from the river bank - was glad I'd taken my OS Explorer map with me as well as the smartphone.

The Great House with Sonning Bridge to the right	Thames walking northeast (downstream) towards Shiplake
Countryside near Binfield Heath	Footpath across field towards All Saints Dunsden

Crossed the A4155 and popped into The Plowden Arms for a Coke and quick bar snack. Then followed Plough Lane/Shiplake Row (passing a pub I once went to for lunch with Mum some years ago when it was called the White Hart - it's now a posh-looking restaurant called Orwells) turning left at the junction by Binfield Heath Stores. Headed down to Dunsden Green and then turned right to follow the road round past All Saints Church and down to Kiln Road, cutting a couple of corners via footpaths. Walked down into Emmer Green and home via Peppard Road. Feet aching a bit at the end but no blisters or anything unpleasant. Slightly nervous though that the full circa 30-mile walk is only about six weeks away.

Map of the route

Below shows my pace (in blue) and the elevation (in red) across the route. Pace seems to have understandably dropped a bit on the considerably more hilly second half (and dropped off completely at one point, presumably while I was queuing in Budgens).

Basket of goods

Originally published on my OU study blog while studying module M140 'Introducing statistics'

Unit 2 of M140 introduces the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) and the Retail Prices Index (RPI). The CPI and RPI are two of the Office for National Statistics' suite of consumer price inflation indices, which are based on a notional 'basket of goods'. This basket of goods is amended periodically to reflect changes in consumer spending patterns.

This article shows how the basket has changed over time, and contains some fascinating stuff about changing British shopping patterns. I was surprised that the mangle was only removed from the basket in 1962 - that seems recent to me. Condensed milk stayed in until 1987 - I don't think I've ever tried it, though I believe my grandpa used to have it in his tea. The mashed potato substitute Smash was in the basket from 1974 to 1987, when it was replaced by frozen oven chips. 2016 apparently saw coffee pods, microwave rice and computer game downloads added.

Found this article in last Wednesday's Metro, headed Just How Hip(ster) Are You?, which notes that the ONS has taken account of the hipster trend in its annual basket review.

RFID and Beat the Street

Originally published on my OU study blog

Learned about RFID (radio frequency identification) tagging as part of TU100 last year. Recently tried this out by activating a Beat the Street card for the scheme running in Milton Keynes from 1 February to 22 March.

The cards, which are free, have a unique number and an activation code. You enter both while registering on the website at https://www.beatthestreet.me/miltonkeynes and it sets you up an account. The cards are used to ‘tap’ on Beat Boxes, which have been attached e.g. to lamp posts along footpaths across the town. The idea is that if you tap two within a certain time period, it gets registered as a journey and you get points. You can walk, run or cycle between Beat Boxes (I gather driving between them isn’t considered quite the thing).

A Beat the Street card

The scheme is about encouraging physical activity. The company behind Beat the Street is a Reading-based company Intelligent Health (who appear to be based on the Earley Gate side of the University of Reading's campus, near Temporary Office Building 1 where I used to work). They claim to make physical activity a way of life "through expertly delivered, measurable campaigns with long-term, community-wide benefits".

A number of my colleagues were doing this, so I decided I'd have a go. The downside has proved to be that, though it sounds a great idea, I've had very patchy success in getting the Beat Boxes to register my card. Taps on four different beat boxes one day last week only resulted in one actually lighting up, with the result that I didn't get any points. It's been reported that the MK scheme is unfortunately experiencing both technical issues and vandalism. Shame.

A Beat Box

Second Life: part 2

Aha! After a bit of research via encyclopedia Google, I downloaded the beta version of the viewer, and I’m in.

[Caveat: may have had a glass of wine]

Gave up trying to think of an imaginative username that hadn’t already been taken. Eventually settled on ‘Annonny’.

On accessing the site, was faced with the following somewhat disconcerting message:

Luckily my clothes downloaded fairly quickly.

First dilemma: how on earth do you move around? I’m just standing in the middle of the street here.

OK, just narrowly missed being run over by a bus.

Figured out how to walk, with the help of the ‘How to’ facility.

Incidentally haven’t yet met anybody else.

Just got a message saying “You have been logged out of Second Life”.

Logged back in, and teleported to the OU’s ‘Deep Think’ island. It’s lovely. There’s sea and everything.

There’s absolutely no one else here though.

Incidentally my avatar is much slimmer than I am. Perhaps I should make her more authentic by adding a couple of stone?

Second Life

Probably as a displacement activity when I should be studying MST124, I’m going to have another foray into Second Life this evening. Studied ‘Virtual worlds’ in Block 4 Part 4 of TU100 last year (ah, I miss TU100).

I first heard of Second Life in around 2007-2008, when rumours were going around at work that my then-boss had become so addicted to the virtual world that she was spending all night on it, which wasn’t helping her already dodgy work attendance and performance.  So it’s been around for a good while – and has quite probably had its heyday by now.

Here’s what I wrote last year when starting to study this part. The instruction was: “take some time (up to 20 minutes should be about right) to jot down some of your own thoughts about virtual worlds.” As often with TU100, about 1 minute sufficed, but this is what I wrote in response to the prompt questions:

Part of me thinks I’m the type of personality who could really have enjoyed and got into this stuff if I’d been exposed to it. Part of me thinks my personality type doesn’t need any encouragement and I should just get out more.

Section 2 of this part asks the question “What do you think the average game world user looks like?” Well, I’d probably give a stereotypical answer like: Hairy; has their own tankard at the pub with runes carved on it; slightly over-intense in everyday conversation.

Section 2 notes that a survey (Yee, 2006) “concluded that players in virtual game worlds enjoy meaningful relationships and significant emotional experiences, as well as developing skills such as leadership that translate into the physical world.” Well, who wouldn’t want some of that.

Second Life began in 2003, apparently. At the time the TU100 module materials were written, the OU evidently owned several virtual islands within Second Life. An embedded video in this part says that “The Open University is a trailblazer in Second Life”. The video features (former) OU Director of Learning Innovation Niall Sclater talking about the OU’s Second Life activities.

When I first had a go at Second Life while I was actually studying TU100, I only had mobile WiFi, and though I managed to set up an account and get access, it was pretty much a no go – endless buffering and moving in an extremely jerky fashion down a virtual street. I gave up pretty quickly. Now that I’ve actually got a proper broadband connection, let’s see if it works any better.

First off: I had to download the Second Life Viewer, as I’ve bought a new (Windows 10) laptop since I last attempted this. Downloaded it from https://secondlife.com/support/downloads/. Tried to install it and got the following message:

My virtual world attempts seem destined to failure at the moment. Back to calculus.