Today I had what felt to me like quite a dramatic realisation: in thirteen years of trundling around (east) London, I have never actually been outside of the city. Of course I have been outside Greater London when I visit my parents or go on holiday etc, but my daily trundles have always been confined within the M25. That’s not necessarily a bad thing- I still have a heck of a lot of the metropolis left to explore- yet I also remember that London is not the entire world, and as awesome and thrilling as the great maelstrom can be, surely there are other places I can get to.

I’m not yet sure how, but it’s surely time to put that right. There must be busses which go outside the city, or paths which lead under the M25. The weird thing is, that somehow feels far, far away, almost as if the rest of the UK is a totally different country from where I now live. Perhaps I have been living in this self-important place for too long, but it makes you think that all that is worth seeing or visiting exists here, so there’s no need to go beyond. Yet I remember towns and villages which are separated by dozens of fields, and which it took time to travel between. Places with their own character, which weren’t part of the same vast urban sprawl. I think I miss such places, so I now want to explore more of the area outside London in my daily trundles. Surely there must be places down in Kent or Sussex which I can get to and look around for an afternoon or so.