More places confirmed, and my thoughts on a dark night for football

Hello again! Today's been a good day in parts, as I've been able to book tickets for my visits to Oxford, Cambridge, York (again), Thornaby, Leeds (again), Birmingham, London and Falmouth: and for less than £40, I'll have you know. Add this to the fact that I've found a place to stay for free in Cambridge, and I think we can agree that I've had a pretty productive day: though from a week tomorrow onwards I'll have a lot on my plate!

However, despite the fact that Spurs have yet again gone to Yorkshire, walloped their opponents 5-1 (it was Doncaster this time) and gone home again, I am not an entirely happy football fan. As you may well have seen, Upton Park and the surrounding area saw a number of violent clashes take place between West Ham United and Millwall fans last night: I say fans, but with any luck, the people involved will be banned from going to watch football for life, and will therefore no longer be fans.

I am aware of the rivalry between the two fans: my Gran lives quite close to Millwall's ground, and I know a few West Ham fans personally. But COME ON! How many of you work for rival dockyard companies these days? Or work for the Krays or the Richardsons, come to that? It really is quite depressing: admittedly Spurs and Arsenal fans are supposedly bitter rivals, but over the years I like to think we've come to admire their style of play; whilst they've beaten us so many times recently that they don't mind our taunting in the slightest.

The fact that someone got stabbed; that the game wasn't stopped; that both clubs haven't been banned from competing in the Carling Cup for at least a year; all of these are pretty worrying. If Great Britain actually wants to show the world it's the best at sport, then it could at least start by not trying to have a pitched battle right next to the future Olympic Village!

So sort it out West Ham and Millwall: your rivalry was relevant 60 years ago, but no-one was impressed then, and they're certainly not impressed now.

Rant over :) Thanks for reading, Gloucestershire's section in T-minus 10 hours!
Chris

Coming up next: Walking in Gloucestershire

Hello! Been doing a bit more planning since I last blogged: all the remaining stages have been planned, and I've almost sorted out the travelling and accommodation.

The first stage of the ten that are left should be completed by Thursday, as I'm doing a 21-mile walk round the Stroud area for my feature on Gloucestershire. The walk will start from Stroud Sub Rooms at 9am, then calls at Brimscombe, Chalford, Minchinhampton, Rodborough, Selsley, The Stanleys, Stonehouse, Randwick and Whiteshill, before finishing in Stroud by 7pm. Kind of like Stroud's version of the Circle Line, then, only not as slow :) Hopefully the weather will hold and it'll be sunny all the way round: but who knows? After all, this is walking in England.

After that, it's a week's break before heading to Bath, Dorchester & Weymouth, Cardiff, Caerphilly, St. David's & Haverfordwest, Ludlow & Knighton, Birmingham... well, you get the idea. In any case, I should be blogging regularly throughout the next four weeks, so with any luck you'll know where I'm off to without me having to rattle off the full list.

Take care, and thanks for reading,
Chris

York, Sheffield, York, Retford, Lincoln, Retford, Doncaster, Hull, Doncaster, York... phew!

Hey guys! As you can see, the past few days saw me shuttling around a fair few places: from Tuesday to Thursday I was mainly staying in York, but I also visited Sheffield (again), Lincoln, Retford (in Nottinghamshire) and Kingston-upon-Hull. And I had a snoop around Doncaster's shopping centre, Frenchgate, but I'm not sure if that counts.



Though I did hear a band from Doncaster... www.myspace.com/presentingwipeout. They're excellent, heard them in Lincoln and they played some good covers of Whisky in the Jar, Sex On Fire and All Day And All Of The Night.



Of course, a bit happened before that: Saturday's visit to Hereford seems an age away! Found one of the best cafes so far there btw; No. 10, near the Cathedral. Very good grub indeed. And the Hereford United match was pretty good, the Hereford goalie Adam Bartlett excelled with some saves that would not have looked out of place in the Premier League. Ed also took me and Chris Parry to see Ross-on-Wye, though that wasn't quite as eventful. Nice town though, the sort that looks good on a postcard.



Then Tuesday saw me pootle around Cheltenham again (there was someone giving out free hugs: I couldn't refuse), where there was a Dalek and a Tardis in town. Could it get much better than that? On arrival to York, the answer was yes :) I have always liked York, ever since I first visited it six years ago. Interestingly, the first thing I did was to check into the hostel I stayed at on that very visit: definitely a moment of nostalgia.

Then it was off to Sheffield in order to see a bit more of the place: this time I caught the tram into town (£1.20 for a single is pretty good, and £3.50 for the whole day is fair enough), wandered about the centre a bit more, and then went to see Sheffield United take on Leicester City: I felt I should get Leicester into the tour again after what was a flying visit, and I've sort of made it a goal to watch one football match from each of the top five divisions. Have to say you won't see a better goal than Keith Treacy's equaliser in a 1-1 draw: proper belter, lad.

On Wednesday I went up to Lincoln and saw the Magna Carta, again :) Lincoln's famous for having one of the four copies. And for having a whacking great cathedral too. However, the most impressive thing about Lincoln is not being out of breath after going up Steep Hill: that street's got several tea rooms on it for a reason!

After that, it was a quick jaunt around Retford (I had a long wait between trains), which was a nice if modestly-sized town: decently located though, having two adjacent stations on the East Coast Line and the Sheffield-Lincoln line. A quick change in Doncaster later and I arrived in Hull...

Hmm. The City of Hull, superb. Hull City: awful! I liked the pubs in Hull (especially the George, home of England's smallest window), had a good chat with a Hull fan called Roger and admired the Victorian buildings and the waterfront, but it went a bit downhill at the KC Stadium. Obviously I was happy that Spurs won, but there's nothing that wrecks an atmosphere quite like a 5-1 win for the away side. I wouldn't have minded Hull scoring a couple more goals to make it interesting, especially as I was in the home end.

A quick snoop around Doncaster (changing trains again) and I was back in York, where I bumped into Jess, an ardent Man City fan and a York lass born and bred. Her friends were the worse for wear, and she clearly wanted to be shot of them, but when you're working-class and down on your luck like she was you can't afford to lose too many friends. It was a good chat, though it did make me realise that York is not perfect: the poor girl had been there for almost all of her life, and she described her situation as "Being like a tiger in a cage: with the door open, but a chain around your neck, holding you back."

Not that this stopped me from finding York a great place to explore the next day: it reeks of history, is full of awesome northern accents and has some great places to eat, as well as a thriving music scene. But it does seem a cruel injustice that while us tourists get treated like kings, people like Jess - who actually live there - get a considerably harsher deal. And judging from the front page of the Yorkshire Post I bought on Thursday, it's the young people of Yorkshire who are suffering the most. Makes me feel extremely lucky, to be fair: I may not always get what I want, but I've been fortunate enough to do all this travelling, and I can understand it if people envy what I'm doing, or even resent it. If I were in their shoes, I probably would too.

Epic updating manoeuvre! Coming up next, the Shire, to be confirmed. Thanks for reading!
Chris

Worcestershire's done: 37 down, 13 to go...

Hey guys! As you can see from the title, Worcestershire has been crossed off the list of areas still to visit, which means I've visited almost three-quarters of the isle. Worcester itself was overall very good: grimy in places, and in need of some new industries, but it is a nice enough city and in the Commandery it has one of the best history museums I've ever been to.

I'll be writing in greater detail about Worcester later on, but my overall impression was that it was a place that has done well for itself despite taking numerous batterings: it's been a battleground for the Civil War (twice), flooded by the River Severn on numerous occasions, and has suffered the effects of slums and overcrowding. Nevertheless, it is still internationally renowned for the excellent Worcestershire sauce, is a decent sporting venue, and has a impressive array of local shops. Just don't make your way to the centre from Worcester Shrub Hill station: you pass through the former industrial area, and it makes for grim viewing.

Coming up next on the tour...

• Tomorrow sees me take on Herefordshire, as Ed Stevens, Chris Parry, Tom Hards and Andrew Hartley accompany me to Hereford. We're hoping to visit the National Cider Museum before watching a thrilling encounter between Hereford United and Cheltenham Town: bit of a local derby that one!
• On Tuesday I head off to York in order to discover a bit more about the supposed gem of the North. Hopefully it won't rain as much as it did last time...
• Finally, Wednesday is a pretty hectic day, as I go from North Yorkshire to Lincolnshire via Nottinghamshire (again) to visit Lincoln Cathedral and Castle, before going to East Yorkshire via South Yorkshire (again) to watch Hull City vs Tottenham Hotspur. Keeping track? Excellent...

So there you have it: by the time I finish all that, I'll have done 40 out of 50. Whoop! But now, back to working in the office at Stroud. Thanks for reading, I'll have a brief report on Hereford soonish!

Chris

Back from Being Busy!

Hey guys: it's been a while since the last update, as I'm sure you're aware. Quite a lot has been happening since the last blog: the Americans showed up at half 6 (and left again 4 hours later), I visited East Grinstead and the Bluebell Railway (which was awesome), and I'm now back in Gloucestershire, or as I like to call it, the Shire.

These past few days in particular have seen me working at my Dad's office, and thrashing out a few plans for visiting Dorset, Bath (again), Wales, Shropshire, the West Midlands, Staffordshire and Warwickshire. Oh, and Buckinghamshire (again). And Cambridgeshire. Told you I'd been busy, hadn't I?

Here are a few of the places I've put on a so-far unfixed itinerary:

1. Dorchester
2. Bath
3. Cardiff
4. Caerphilly
5. Swansea
6. Ludlow
7. Knighton
8. Birmingham
9. Stafford
10. Warwick
11. Coventry
12. Milton Keynes
13. Cambridge

And at present, I should be visiting all those places in the space of a fortnight. Let it never be said I'm not mad. Of course, I could argue that I'm staying put for almost a month in order to compensate for all this moving about, but on Saturday I'm up in Hereford, and next Tuesday I'm heading to York, so that's more of a whacking great fib than an argument.

And I might be heading to Worcester mid-week...

So much for staying put! But I have been working a bit in order to raise funds, and being in one county for six days is extremely restrained compared to thirteen in six days. And to be honest, although there's a lot still to do, the bulk of my travelling has come and gone. But Wales should still be very awesome indeed, especially if I get to visit Knighton: where the town is in Wales, but the station's in England. Confusing times, non?

I'll let you know when I'm on the move again!

Thanks for reading, Chris

August Angst

Come in Seattle, we've lost two of your citizens...

I wanted my next post to be about how awesome Norwich was (and don't worry, it definitely was awesome), but at the moment I have other concerns. Larissa and Cassie, who I mentioned in the previous blog, have decided to go AWOL this evening, despite the fact that:

• They're Rose's friends
• All their stuff is at my Gran's house, which is where they're sleeping
• They have no mobile phones (that we know of), and as such can't be contacted.
• They have a flight tomorrow from Gatwick at 2pm.

Enough said, really. Rose is fuming, I haven't seen her this mad in quite some time. To be honest, I'm not particularly happy after: going round most of Norwich wore me out a bit, and the last thing I need is to stay up until 3-4am waiting for two presumably drunk Yanks to start hammering on the door. You guys know my thoughts on alcohol, and it's definitely at fault in this situation.

One more place to go before I head back to Gloucestershire, and that's East Grinstead on Monday for the Bluebell Railway. Then it's home time, woo! I'm looking forward to seeing Stroud again: I know it won't have changed, but I still like the old place. You can't really beat home at the end of the day.

Right, time to get some semi-shuteye. This should be interesting...

Chris

P.S. 70% of the way through now, whoop! If I can get to at least 80% by the end of this month I'll be doing okay: that's five places, btw.