The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames is long and skinny with most of the population, including Kingston itself, in the North of the borough. And as you travel south and the width of the borough steadily narrows with its contents the definition of middle class suburbia. The A3 is then crossed, on its way to Portsmouth, with the A3 also being roughly the boundary of the borough in the northeast. Keep going south and with the A3 now forming the western boundary of the borough you approach Chessington, with yet more houses. After Chessington's two stations, aptly named Chessington North and Chessington South, the train line terminates (a small spur of track continues and it was originally planned for this line to go to Leatherhead) which marks the end of suburbia. After you leave the last part of Chessington, with the borough still narrowing, you approach Chessington World of Adv...

I'm on the M25, for the first time in a while, and there is traffic. Not a lot of traffic for the M25 but I'm travelling nowhere near 70 mph. The M25 is an almost circular motorway around London with the Dartford Crossing (which travels northbound) and the Queen Elizabeth II bridge (which travels southbound) and the surrounding roads leading to the M25 in both directions part of the A282. Almost all of Greater London (the proper definition of London) is inside the boundaries of the M25 except two parts. The first is a tiny section near Heathrow which only contains half a roundabout and is probably the way it is to follow a river. The second section is much larger and is on the complete opposite side of London in the east, near Upminster, and contains many fields and a few houses. This section of London outside the M25 is served by the 347 which is London's least frequent bus route (exc...

Christmas lights are wonderful things and bring a lot of joy to the darkest month of the year with the amount of light in a day diminishing until the 21st and then slowly increasing. The earliest sunset is before then and the latest sunrise after because of the Earth's elliptical orbit and the tilt of the earth in relation to the elliptical which is the plane of the sun and planets rotation. Christmas lights come in many different levels of effort and beauty. On the small side we have houses with one singular set of lights, then the quantity of lights increases with houses with many hundreds of lights which catch your attention as you walk by. Then we have the houses (or streets) that go above and beyond and are defined by being featured on slow...

It's christmas so we must talk about christmas and how wonderful it is after a disaster of at least 18 months, we can hope for a better 2022 with no corona restrictions but I think it is a false hope. With Omicron increasing and rumours of another lockdown we can hope this is the last time things will get bad, but I doubt it. So on this christmas day you should enjoy yourself and whilst being prepared for whatever comes don’t let it hinder your enjoyment of today and every other day. If you want to go to a Christmas market and you're anywhere near London, you go to Winter Wonderland. And as I had a special request to go to a Christmas market, we went to Winter Wonderland. Winter Wonderland is in Hyde park, one of the few royal parks (so I as...

Most trains run pretty often with the vast majority at least hourly with significantly better frequencies in cities (up to 24 trains an hour with crossrail). In fact on the Victoria line at peak times there are an astounding 36 trains an hour in peak hours. This means that there is a train every 100 seconds and with a bit of maths with the doors being open for about 15 seconds, it means that 15% of the time there is a train ready to swift you away to your destination. But a parliamentary train is the exact opposite, usually running once or twice a day to fill contractual obligations to have a specific service. And the one I tried to ride runs once a week in one direction only. The Service ...

What is the 969 The 969 is London’s least frequent bus with only 2 return journeys between Whitton and Roehampton Vale a week. The last survivor in London’s once large mobility bus network with these route numbers being in the 900. The 969’s runs on Tuesdays and Fridays with the route starting in Whitton at 10:00 and travelling through Richmond, Barnes and Roehapmton to the ASDA in Roehampton Vale arriving just after 11:00. The return journey follows roughly the same route and departs ASDA at 13:15 and arrives in Whitton at 14:15. The Penultimate Mobility Bus The Route 965 Bus ro...

Being a regular swimmer I have been to many pools. Some old, some new all the same but slightly different. The vast majority of Swimming pools in the UK (and I think the world) are 25 metres long with some pools used for large competitions like the Olympics and Commonwealth Games being 50 metres long. Other pools can be of various lengths with some not just being a box with added features like slides and lazy rivers. Most swimming pools are indoors but some are outdoors. Most swimming pools are heated (thankfully) but others not. Every "heated" pool has its own unique temperature within a small but noticeable range, this goes from "are you sure the boilers are working" to "I didn't pay for a jacuzzi". As I have been to many poo...