Idle Thoughts

One exhibition I like to go to every year is AstroFest. This is a coming together of the UK’s main suppliers of telescopes and astronomical accessories and is one of the few opportunities to get to talk to the suppliers about their existing products and the announcements that are often made at the show.
This year I had an ulterior motive: I was after some “ordnance survey” style maps of Spain, and had received a tipoff about a shop in London that stocked them.

Normally I do what most people do on trips into town. I get off the train and go straight onto the tube. This time I’d had a look at the online streetmaps and come to the conclusion that it might be nice to try something different (see here for a map of my journey). Astrofest is held in Kensington Town Hall, just off Kensington High Street and is, with a little extra walking at each end, diagonally across Hyde Park from Marylebone It seemed to me that this would be the best route to take.

As luck would have it, the date I had chosen for this little adventure was the day after the heaviest snowfall

I can remember since I moved here nearly 20 years ago. Not daunted by the prospect of trudging through the capital’s snow covered paths, I stuck with my plan and caught the 09:36 train from Beaconsfield to Marylebone. I have to admit, I’m not a great lover of snow, but the covering on this day did make the journey quite picturesque.

When I got out of the station in London, there was very little evidence of snow on the pavements. After crossing Marylebone Road, it took me 5 minutes to walk down Seymour Place to Marble Arch. From there it was straight through Hyde Park, following the well placed signs towards the Serpentine, then across the bridge and out the other side. As I went through the park, there was still quite a lot of snow (unusual, as the raised temperature in the city means that it hardly ever snows and even more rarely settles) and evidence of snowmen scattered on the grass. In the area around the lake, there are many different types of water fowl. Some I recognised and for those that I didn’t, there were strategically placed identification notices. On the other side of the lake, the walk down to the impressively sized Albert Memorial was quite short. This brought me out just opposite the Royal Albert Hall. From there I was back on normal roads again, for a ten minute walk through Kensington to the town hall for the exhibition.

Astrofest is spread across three floors of the hall, with some lectures taking place in rooms off to one side. Personally, I’m not too interested in the lecture side of the event as they are mainly concerned with space and cosmology, rather than using telescopes to see things. However, it must be said that the lectures are well attended and obviously form the major attraction for a lot of the visitors. My main interest was to see what new toys were available and to have a chat with some of the experts that some vendors have manning their booths during the exhibition. This was very successful (even more so, that I managed to keep my wallet in my pocket the whole time) and gave me lots of ideas for things that I’ll have to start saving for.

After an hour and a half looking around, I’d fulfilled my objectives and decided it was time to head off towrds my second destination for the day: Sandford’s map shop in Long Acre.
Since I didn’t fancy the walk back along Kensington High Street to Hyde Park Corner, I took one of the many buses that run that route. While there are many embassies along the road, it’s otherwise populated by large, anonymous buildings on once side and the park on the other. I’d had my fill of snow covered grass for the now and time was pressing on.

Once at Hyde Park Corner, I picked up the street signs that pointed towards Buckingham Palace and followed their lead down Constitution Hill. This long, straight and wide road has earthy lanes running alongside the tarmac for the horses used in ceremonies like Trooping the Colour. This does mean that for people making the journey on foot, there are a few equine hazards on the pavement that should be avoided!
Past the palace and on up the Mall towards Trafalgar Square. Fortunately the weather, although cold and with a bit of a breeze, stayed mostly dry (but not apparently in Beaconsfield. where rain washed away the snow that had been there when I set out).

After crossing the square, I headed north towards the National Gallery on my way to Charing Cross Road. I was trying hard not to look like a tourist, although I may have overplayed the “man who knows where he’s going” role, as a couple of times people stopped me and asked for directions. Fortunately, the first time it was how to get to Buckingham Palace - easy enough as I’d just come from there. The second request from a german couple who wanted to know the way to Piccadilly Circus was a little harder, but I think I sent them in the right direction.

A short walk up Charing Cross Road and then right into Long Acre for about 100m brought me to my goal. Sandford’s shop is impressively sized. Once inside, I realised I had seen the place before. The interior, with it’s dominant illuminated globe, had been used as the backdrop for a TV programme. I don’t recall the programme, but I did recognise the globe.
The section with spanish maps is towards the back of the shop and was roughly organised into one section of maps for the islands (Balearics, Canaries) and three more for the mainland. I must’ve spent about half an hour picking through the selection, looking for the most detailed map I could find of my little region. In the end, I concluded that a 1:200,000 road map was about as good as I was going to get. This was rather frustrating as there were many other regions of the country that had maps in much larger scale, showing a great deal more detail.

I was just about ready to admit defeat and I was heading to the tills to buy the road map when, halfway up the shop I spotted a board, lent against a display, that showed the outline of Spain and a grid superimposed over it. I recognised some of the numbers in the grid to be the numbers of some of the detailed maps I’d seen earlier. This looked very promising. After I found one of the shop assistants, we had a little chat and it turned out that yes, these were indeed maps of spain and yes, Sandfords did sell them. If I could wait there, she’d see if there were any of my particular area in stock. After several minutes away, she came back with a flat (i.e. unfolded) map that not only covered the Baza/Benamaurel region, but if you looked closely enough you could actually see my house.

This was the grail as far as I was concerned. Being flat, the map was ideal for mounting in a frame. The assistant duly rolled it up and packed it into a long plastic protective cover. Having paid fot it (and the road map, too) I was back on the road - all missions accomplished.

The last part of my walkabout took me up Charing Cross Road, past Foyles and a collection of other bookshops that had gravitated to the area. When the road came to an end and Tottenham Court Road started, I turned left onto Oxford Street and fought my way through the morass of shoppers. A ten minute walk along Oxford Street and I was still in possession of my wallet, mobile and purchases. As the shops start to peter out at the western end of the street, I got to Baker Street, turned right into it and headed north back up towards the station for my train home.

Having set out just after 9:00 that morning, I’d spent about an hour walking to Kensington. The trip across to Sandfords took me about 40 minutes as the bus arrived promptly. Getting from Long Acre back to Marylebone was probably another hours walk. The trains to Beaconsfield run roughly every 15 minutes and I was fortunate enough to get a fast service in each direction, arriving back at my car at around 4:30. All in all, I did everything I set out to achieve. I had an interesting walk through parts of London I normally miss, and I didn’t get lost: a good day out.