It’s always interesting when you revisit a place to see how it’s either the same or not the same. As with yesterday one of my key impressions is at the paths and streets are not in as good as shape as they used to be. I have become a master at spotting potholes at 50 yards and avoiding them as they come towards me like machine gun fire i’m taking the toll on both my bicycle and my neck.
This is a bridge I have always liked. It crosses over a small river , you walk bike across it. This is England is one would like it to be. Of course getting to it requires going under a Motorway and along a deteriorating concrete road! But it’s lovely and I always stop here. I think I’ve biked it about 4 times.
By the time I reached Harlow, I decided enough was enough and decided to take the train into London. Needless to say, the lift to get to the platforms was out of action, apparently had been for over a month so it was unload the bike and haul everything up the steep stairways. I don’t know what people in wheelchairs or passengers going to Luton airport do. Just to re-enforce the state of railway stations, when I reached Liverpool Street Station, only one ancient decrepit lift was operating and there was a family stuck in it – having considerably overload it with suitcases.
Possibly if I’d started in England I wouldn’t have notice the sad states of many things here. But coming from the continent, where everything seemed to work and was clean threw it into stark contrast.