Warlingham Green's festive spirit

Christmas tree on Warlingham Green.

This photograph marked the start of our ride to the Tatsfield Churchyard on the weekend of the 8th and 9th December. We cycled back through Tatsfield Village to see if the village tree was up, but it wasn't. Last year's Tatsfield tree wasn't switched on when we cycled past it around a year ago.

The Kona on the urban ride

The Kona on Saturday 15th December during a nice urban ride.

Photograph of the Week...from Oslo

An interesting statue I stumbled across in Oslo on Friday 14th December

Urban ride....on Saturday 15th December

"I'm not cycling today. I sent you an email. Enjoy your ride." There was a smiley face after the message, I noticed, as I stood on the doorstep, rucksack on back. But there was no point in going back in the house. I was outside now so I might as well make the most of it. Had Andy's text arrived any earlier (following one from me stating that I'd be ten minutes late) then I might have said no to a ride, but I'd done the hard bit – woken myself up and made the tea – so I resigned myself to a ride.

Through the industrial estate off the A23 heading towards Stafford Road.

And I was pleased with my self-motivation, although a little unsure of where I was going to go; definitely a short ride to the bus stop was my first thought, but I considered an urban ride to Carshalton (a 12-miler there and back) to see mum and have some breakfast. It was a good ride. The weather was good too and it was easily one of those mornings when everything seems right. Cycling is a very spiritual thing and I was feeling uplifted by the freedom of it all as I cut through the industrial estate off the A23 and headed down Stafford Road towards the top of Wallington High Street.

The traffic was building but it wasn't anywhere near troublesome and I reached mum's at around 0800hrs. After placing the Kona in the garage to keep it out of sight from thieves (if there were any in a tiny Carshalton cul de sac at such an hour) I went in for breakfast and four cups of tea, courtesy of my own flask and teabags.

Breakfast at mum's. What could be finer after an urban ride on the Kona?

Breakfast consisted of a boiled egg and fingers, some bread and marmalade and Alpen. Mum and I chatted about this and that and then I headed home, going back through the famous Dog Shit Alley, through Grove Park and out on to Acre Lane towards Wallington Green then up towards Five Ways, through the council estate (along Denning Road) and then a brief spurt on the Brighton Road before hanging a left and joining the Selsdon Road towards home.

On Sunday, Andy and I cycled to the Tatsfield Bus Stop.

Minus 12 and snowing, but it doesn't phase the Norwegians

The 1505 Oslo to Skien train leaves Torp...and check out that snow!

A bit of snow or the wrong kind of leaves and it all comes to a standstill in the UK, but not in Norway. Last week, while in Oslo, the temperature plummeted to minus 12 degrees, but guess what? The trains were on time and so were the planes.

Snow on the tarmac, but we were ready for departure

The view from my Oslo hotel window...

Proof, if any was needed, that international travel isn't what it's cracked up to be.

In Oslo...

Lone figure in the snow. Shot taken from my hotel.

In many ways, December is probably the best month to visit Oslo because it's cold and there's plenty of snow on the ground. In fact, it's minus 12 degrees here and there's a light dusting of snow everywhere.

I flew in here yesterday on a Norwegian Air flight from Gatwick, which was very, very smooth and took just under 90 minutes. I'm staying at the Anker Hotel in the centre of town and it's very good. There's no restaurant, which is a bit of a bind, although it means I have to go out (in the cold) to find something to eat.

I wandered around for a bit, being careful of my footing. The worst thing about Dr. Martens shoes is that they have slippery soles. I managed not to fall over and eventually found a nice Italian trattoria just across from the hotel where I enjoyed a glass of Cabernet Sauvigon with some Italian ham and a very pleasant and colourful risotto.

The restaurant was crowded and, as always when I travel on business, I was the only one dining alone with just a copy of Chavs by Owen Jones to keep me company. Although, having said that, the light was poor so I resorted to simply enjoying the ambience of the place.

I'm really sad, but I love this photograph.

I write this from the ground floor of the hotel where the WiFi (which is free) seems to get a better reception than when I'm in the room. Outside now it's cold and white and there's not many people around.

Somebody told me that the temperature was up on yesterday's minus 12. Today I think it's hovering around minus 3 or 4 and believe me, you can tell the difference. It was snowing this morning when I went out to buy razors and toothpaste.

Two paragraphs back, the one starting 'I write this from the ground floor...' it was the morning of the 13th December. Now, two paragraphs later on, it's 1750hrs in the evening and I'm back in the same place I was sitting earlier, listening to Amy Winehouse, which is on the sound system, and drinking a glass of Frydenlund, a Norwegian beer. Alright, lager. My work is now done and I'm taking it easy, checking emails, writing emails, that sort of thing.

You might be wondering about the shot of the toothpaste. It's like this: when I was in Qatar the other week I didn't have any toothpaste so the hotel gave me the small tube of Colgate. I've never seen a tube of toothpaste so small. I mean, I've heard of Tinie Tempah, but never Tiny Toothpaste, but there it is in all it's glory. Zendium is a Norwegian toothpaste brand, by the way. I know, I'm sad. Very sad.

The hotel's not bad at all, although, as I mentioned earlier, no restaurant. I am beginning to wonder whether the Anker Hotel has a letter missing somewhere.

Room 520 in all its glory. Nice hotel, despite no restaurant, but it does have a bar.

I like Norway. I like all the Scandinavian countries. The people are laid back. I was going to say 'cool' but that would be an understatement with snow on the ground and temperatures below zero. What is refreshing is the way the Norwegians deal with the poor weather. They get on with it. The trains and the buses continue to run, the workmen in the streets continue drilling. Life goes on and doesn't come to a standstill.

Happy Birthday to me!

Here's a very young me with all those exciting birthdays
ahead of me.

I always keep quiet about my birthday these days, mainly because, once beyond the age of 15 they have become progressively less exciting. In fact, the moment somebody suggested that I should be asking for clothes for my birthday – instead of train sets and toy soldiers – it was time to crawl under a stone and die. Well, perhaps that's a bit dramatic, but when socks and underpants become a key focus it's time for something. Time, perhaps, to admit that I should grow up?

For me, however, socks and underpants are things I should buy as a matter of course and should never be considered as birthday present territory. It's like waking up to a wrapped present, opening it and discovering a box of 80 English Breakfast teabags or a tube of toothpaste, shaving foam or toilet paper. Imagine gift-wrapping your weekly shop for somebody: a tin of baked beans, an orange, a loaf of bread...whatever next?

So, these days, birthdays go and come (but Earth abides) and they are nothing more than another day in the calender. There was a time when my adult birthday meant quite a lot. I had a pal who shared the same birthday – rather annoyingly he was one year younger than me and if he's reading this, Happy Birthday – and we used to make a weekend of it: a few days in Suffolk with our respective other halves, a curry, a few beers, some invigorating walks in the countryside; but those days are long gone and now, as I sit here looking out on what is a fairly pleasant day (I'm off work today) I'm looking forward to doing 'practical' things, like a bit of Christmas shopping.

I hate the word 'practical' as it shares the stage with 'sensible' and the phrase 'grown-up'. And, of course, they're all things I should be by now: practical, sensible and grown-up. In many ways I am all three: I'm married, I have kids, a mortgage and so on, but I yearn for the old days of childhood when there was little to worry about and plenty to look forward to. Now I'm sounding miserable, which I'm not and to be honest with you, what the hell would I do with a train set today? Where would I put it for a start? If I did have one, I'd be taken right back to my childhood and my mum telling me to take it upstairs 'out of harm's way' – except it would be my wife telling me to grow up and why did I waste the money on a train set when I could have bought (ahem) a washable suit from Marks & Spencer?

In the old days, once a toy went upstairs it found itself sharing the same status with the older toys from Birthdays and Christmases past; it was no longer the new kid on the block as it was on Christmas morning.

When I lived at home with mum and dad and my sister and brother, Christmas was a big, big thing. Dad would arrange our new toys in the living room and when we tip-toed our way downstairs around 4am to see what 'Father Christmas' had brought us we would be presented with what amounted to the window display of Hamley's in Regent Street. However, the person whose toys were on the dining table had to find space somewhere else in the room as lunch time approached and that would mean finding an unoccupied corner and attempting a reconstruction of dad's inspired display (it was never as good). Far better if your toys were already on the floor, somewhere away from the television and out of harm's way (as mum might say).

Christmas, of course, was far more egalatarian than a birthday. With the latter, one person was in the spotlight: the birthday boy or girl. One could say, of course, that on Christmas Day Jesus was the birthday boy, but most people have lost the true meaning of the festive season, which these days is more about greed, getting drunk at the Christmas party and then going on a diet during the month of January.

My dad tried to make birthdays more egalitarian than they would otherwise have been by giving smaller presents to whoever wasn't celebrating a birthday. This made other people's birthdays quite exciting as, on 10 December, my brother and sister knew they would be getting a present too, which made things a little more bearable for them when the 'birthday boy or girl' was parading around like Lord Snooty, getting out of doing virtually anything because it was their birthday.

There came a time, however, when the birthday cards would have to come down and make way for the Christmas cards and this was always a sad moment as it meant that my ever-diminishing 'birthday boy' status had finally ran out of juice and wouldn't be getting new batteries for another 52 weeks.

Being born on 10 December is better than you might think, mainly because it's just far enough away from Jesus' birthday to warrant separate presents. In the old days it meant that the month of December was a rollercoaster of fun as nobody would dare to suggest a 'joint birthday and Christmas present', the scouge of all December-born people. If you were born any later than the 10th, the risk of a joint present was very real.

But now, as I look out on the world from my conservatory window – it's a bright day with a mix of blue sky and cotton wool clouds against which the branches bare trees are silhouetted – all of these concerns of yesteryear are irrelevant and mere memories that bring a smile to my face. I've been fortunate enough never to have received a joint birthday and Christmas present and, over the years, I've had some great toys. My toy fort (known as Black Cross Fort) still lives round at mum's; my remote-controlled Tiger Tank – which once entered a disused war-time mortuary in our local Grove Park in Carshalton – is a pleasant (and mildly harrowing) memory and there are many other great gifts that made 10 December a special day. In other words, I'm not bitter and I'm not miserable (well, not about my birthday).

In short, I'm a grown-up with my own children to think about. My only child-like fun these days revolves around cycling at the weekends on my Kona Scrap, which is far from a sensible choice of bike and for this reason, I love it. I'm rambling now, so I'm going to stop and enjoy the rest of my day.

For a related article, click here.

Snow falls over London...and then disappears!

December 5th 2012, snow started falling around 0730hrs.

It's snowing in London and here's photographic evidence from my back garden to prove it.

With the snow falling outside I figured it best to find the warmest coat in the cupboard and put on the old walking boots. It was a good move, but only for the walk to the station. Snow was everywhere, cars were driving slowly to avoid skidding and I trod carefully as I made my way to the station, thinking: there won't be any cycling this weekend.

However, once on the train, which was running on time, and then, later, when I reached Redhill, the snow had disappeared. By lunch time there was nothing – although I heard that very little snow fell on Redhill – and when I reached home, it was as if there hadn't been any snow.

Still, my golden rule will always apply: once it snows, you can bet your life there will be more.

Frosty and cold...

A cold-looking moon matched the weather.

Saturday was so cold that Andy and I had trouble speaking as we rode along. There was a thick frost on the grass when I left the house, later than usual due to faffing about, and the cold air assaulted my face all the way to the Green.

Halfway along I called Andy to say I was only a couple of minutes away from the Green, but it seemed that he too had been faffing about as he was roughly the same distance from our meeting point. In fact, he'd already had a bit of a morning. The lock on his garage door had frozen so he rummaged about for a match to heat it and then, having retrieved his bike he closed and locked the garage door only to notice, out of the corner of his eye, that his bike was falling to the ground. In an attempt at rescuing it, he grabbed it by the rear mudguard, which promptly snapped off.

We headed out towards the Tatsfield Bus Stop, it was too cold to go anywhere else, and sat there warming ourselves with hot tea, cereal bars and this week a bag of Cheeselets supplied by Andy. Very nice. Along the way we briefly discussed possible destinations with cafés, but could think of none within seven miles from the Green. There was the farm shop at Godstone, but that meant a steep climb on the return journey and neither of us fancied it; then there was Westerham, a bridge too far in this cold; and we figured the caff at the reptile centre would be closed – when was it ever open, I wondered?

A cold sky and bare bushes. Winter has settled in.

"Imagine cycling home naked," I said later, looking out from the Tatsfield Bus Stop.
"You'd die of hypothermia," said Andy, matter of factly.
"You reckon?"
"Definitely."
"I wonder if you'd get to Botley?"
"Yes, but you wouldn't feel too good."
"Imagine if you'd been camping out all night. You wouldn't want to get out of your sleeping bag."
"But you'd have to get out to have a piss."
"Not good."
"Nope."

It was soon time to cycle home.

"It's going to be bad cycling back down to 269," I said.
"Yeah," replied Andy, and we mounted our Konas for the return trip.

Once Andy and I had said goodbye halfway along the 269, I took my mind off the cold by making up rhymes and quietly singing them to myself. Silly rhymes that meant nothing. I passed a couple of large groups of cyclists heading in the opposite direction and acknowledged them with a polite wave.

It was cold all day long, even later in London's Portobello Road, and I went to bed early, waking at 6am on Sunday morning to similar-looking weather. I put on seven layers of clothing before heading downstairs to make tea and buttered toast (alright, margarine). The mobile vibrated on the console table in the hall. A message from Andy. "Abort. Not feeling too good." Fine by me, I thought, as I typed back 'Ok' and returned to the halogen glow of the computer in my conservatory. There was no point going back to bed.

Images by Andy Smith.