Roaming Richmond! (Blog 595)

As I was in extreme need of a break AND a day out, I decided to go to a lovely walk in Richmond Park, yesterday. I’ll also be going to Staines in the next few days, because the walk wasn’t enough. God knows what its title will be. Will Wix let me give a 500 word title? Maybe it will, but if not, well… where do I go from my last Staines blog? Maybe I could just say ‘Staines Mega to the power of fifty million billion trillion’ or maybe it’s too much of an exaggeration? Anyway, my brother’s family said a while ago that they MAY go for a zoo trip with me on the 25th of July or the 2nd of August, and as I didn’t shave on both those days, they were totally plausible dates to go to the zoo. I guess not and making things worse, as I’m typing right now, they’re on holiday so… no more zoo for now, is it? On another note, how did my travels to London Bridge and back go on Tuesday, with one of the stations I usually go to being closed? Flipping brilliant. I totally aced to journey into the city, so much so I’d like to do it again (I’m the subway wizard) and on the way back, I soon found the route there wasn’t changed at all. Whoops, I left the meeting about half an hour earlier than usual in case I would get lost on the way home. Not only that, I was a few seconds too late to catch the last train to my hometown so I had to wait around for another half an hour. Had I not left the meeting early, I may well have got home at exactly the same time anyway. But on the place side, I aced the journey, so…

Right! As I walked to the train station towards the countryside area, my shirt sleeves kept rolling down which was almost as annoying as my trousers falling down a while ago. At least the problem with the shirt wasn’t a potential crime though, if my boxer shorts fell down too? Straight to jail. As always, on my travels I kept my eyes open for numberplates. I didn’t see any truly good ones, although I did see triple A recently which was cool. I’ve seen triple X too, is that better or worse? A is the first letter of the alphabet which is nice, but I think X has more mystery. Despite the rarity of it, triple Z would be boring though or at very least sleepy. On the train journey, I passed Sunbury station, which sounds like sun bree/brie. So, we have sun cheese. Japan is the land of the rising sun, whereas Sunbury is the land of cheese sun which doesn’t sound quite as poetic. Also on the journey, I had ‘Joy to the World’ playing in my head, possibly because I was happy or more likely because the melody simply descends down the major scale and the song Master of Puppets simply descends down the chromatic scale (well bits of it do). Naturally, I was reminded of Metallica as the train jingle often heard appears to be in the same time signature as bits of the song.

Once I reached Norbiton station, I walked a few minutes towards Richmond Park. Richmond park in Norbiton? That doesn’t sound right. Maybe Norbiton is very close to Richmond. What I do know is Kingston Hospital and Kingston university ARE in Norbiton, not Kingston. Someone out there is clearly having issues with logic. I get that, I do too but I’m not in charge of giving places names am I? When I reached Richmond park in Norbiton, I very much appreciated the sound of the breeze combined with the lack of traffic noise. Very rare! I did hear the occasional car drive past but other than that, a nice sonic experience! I did see some jumbo jets too, but as a compromise I couldn’t hear them. Last time I went to the park it was Winter and there were lots of deer around. Where did they all go?? I guess summer holidays. Where exactly? No idea, why not splurge and go to Dubai? At least the trees didn’t leave for the holidays otherwise I’d be in some strange Tolkein-like adventure. No actually I would like that, as long as there were no orcs and there weren’t so there you go, I’d like it. Try being bored, then.

Eventually I got bored of the breeze and walked back, which was easy as I just followed the path. Annoyingly, on my rambles there were people walking slower than me so I had to jog past them for a bit. Ever so slightly annoying. I’ll say it again, it’s because the sun makes you lazy! Why is there so much crime in South America? Because the police cant be bothered to arrest anyone and all the criminals are buzzing because they’re on crack, the cops have no chance. When I reached Norbiton station, I found I had a good few minutes to wait until my train home, so I went to get some food nearby. One shop was more or less exactly the same as the one I went to in university, the same food was selling the layout was just different. I wasn’t hungry enough for a whole baguette despite how nostalgic it would make me feel, so I went to a nearby supermarket to get 5 cookies in a bag. I aced the self service checkout just like I aced London Bridge, but when I ate the stuff in the station, I found I wasn’t really hungry enough for 5, just 4. I thought it would be for the best if I threw the leftover cookie in the bin so I wouldn’t get temped and eat more than I needed. Good move, I think. Then I took the train and walked home from there and that was it! Bye!