I had a lovely long trundle yesterday. When I go out in my powerchair, I usually head up towards central London to check out the vibrant cultural hubs of Greenwich, Canary Wharf or Stratford. Getting into the metropolis proper is now easier than ever thanks to the Elisabeth Line. Yesterday, though, I headed in the opposite direction, south across Eltham towards Sidcup and Bexley. I seldom head that way, but yesterday I fancied a change. It wasn’t long until I noticed the traffic beginning to get quieter and the birdsong more noticeable; the landscape was also getting greener. An hour or so after setting out, I was fairly astonished to see I had found myself among fields! When I was young, I used to adore fields and the countryside of Cheshire: it seemed so pretty and wholesome. Now that I live in London, I have grown used to the vast urban labyrinth of tarmac and concrete. London’s parks are awesome, of course, but they are no replacement for the quiet, melancholic lanes of my childhood.

Yesterday, however, I had a taste of them once again. In fact I even passed a sign saying I had reached Kent! Of course I was still well within the M25, but at that point I decided that I would head that way a bit more. London feels smaller and smaller these days: no longer the vast urban expanse I once took it to be, but an easily navigated, walkable city. If the countryside is not in fact that far away, perhaps I’ll head that way again. Perhaps it’s time for me to get out of the city a bit more, daring to cross it’s orbital motorway which often feels so much like an impenetrable boundary.