adventure

City Limits

We all know what it feels like to be in a city: tarmac and concrete beneath us; buildings, often tall and metallic, on either side; the constant hum of traffic. An unceasing human maelstrom which, after a while of living within it, starts to seem like your entire world or the entirety of human existence. Yet I also know what it feels like to. be in the countryside: quiet, mellow lanes with vast patchworks of fields either side; blue skies and birdsong overhead; the occasional farmhouse, tractor, or fellow explorer. These two terrains are vastly different: one is modern, vibrant and dynamic, but the other might not have changed in centuries. So where does one end and the other begin? Where, exactly, is the threshold between a city and the countryside?

This is a question which I currently find very interesting. After so long living in a vast, wealthy city, can I find my way out of it? Of course, if I wanted to, I know I could just hop onto a train and get out of London within minutes, but that isn’t really the point. After so many years trundling around the city, through it’s parks and along it’s great river, I now want to find the point where the city ends and the country begins: where the urban landscape I’m now so used to gives way to the rural landscape of my childhood. I think that is what I was looking for yesterday, and for a fleeting moment I think I found it. Some time into my trundle yesterday afternoon, after leaving Orpington and navigating my way through increasingly labyrinthine streets I found myself trundling along quite a main road. It still had a good, well maintained pavement, but the buildings and infrastructure on either side had given way to open fields. I could even smell horse or cattle poo! I could still hear traffic, but for a few minutes it reminded me of the Cheshire countryside I used to know as a child.

Of course, I didn’t go far before I began to fret about getting home, but I think it’s safe to say that I caught a glimpse of the interesting liminal space I was looking for. That fascinating spot where the built-up concrete sprawl gives way to green. If the countryside is a place of peace, calm and quiet, and the city is a place of vibrant unceasing chaos, then what is the space in between? A nether-world between industrial and rural, modern and archaic, which straddles them both.

Getting Home From Knockholt

I’m feeling rather pleased with myself this evening. I got rather lost this afternoon: continuing my ongoing efforts to get out of London a bit more, I caught a bus to Orpington. On the map it looked pretty close to the M25, so I assumed that once I got there I could just trundle beyond the city limits and down into Kent. The problem was, I quickly found out that the distances in question were much larger than they looked, and although I was pleased to get a few glimpses of farmland, after a while I began to wonder how I was going to get home. 

While I think I was still within the M25, I had stopped seeing any London buses. Just as I was beginning to suspect that getting home was going to be a struggle though, I came across a small, quiet train station called Knockholt. It struck me that it would be worth seeing whether I could get a train back into the metropolis: it was a bit of a long shot, but I didn’t have anything to lose. 

The problem was , rolling into the station, barely more than a dilapidated shack, I couldn’t find any staff. I gathered from the map on the wall that I could get a train from there to Lewisham, from where getting home wouldn’t be an issue; but for that I needed to find someone who I could ask about wheelchair ramps. Ordinarily I roll up to a member of station staff and tap out what I need and where I want to go on my iPad, but there wasn’t anyone in sight.

However, on the wall I noticed one of those round things were you can press a button to request help. I had never used one before as I assumed that I would have to speak verbally into it, which would be problematic. Would they be able to hear my speech synthesiser? And if the person I’m talking to can’t see me, how will they know that I’m typing into my Ipad in order to communicate with them. This afternoon though, wanting to get home in reasonably good time, I decided to give it a try; and to be honest it went surprisingly well. The lady on the other end was patient, giving me time to type and then informing me that she would arrange someone to come on the next train to help me with the ramps. Twenty minutes or so later, the train arrived, a young woman in a high viz vest got out to help me aboard, and I was soon speeding my way back into the metropolis I had just been endeavouring to find my way out of. It went pleasingly smoothly, and I immediately decided that I ought to blog about it.  

Something that I had assumed would be difficult had  once again turned out to be remarkably straightforward; panic had given way to relief, and then pride. I had mastered yet another of those systems everyone else seems to find routine. While you can say that it was just a matter of me getting onto a train and nothing to get too worked up over, the fact that I was able to communicate with the lady over the intercom and get the assistance I needed is enough to demonstrate that such things are possible. By breaking down such barriers, it feels like my world just grows bigger and bigger.