Today, Thursday, was another muggy day in the woods.

I confirmed this with one of the volunteers in case it was just my imagination. I had hoped we had seen the last of the globally warm summer.

The volunteer had a lively lurcher and an energetic Dalmatian with him. He told me that the Dalmatians were used to running about 20 miles a day.

They used to run in between the axles of horse carriages and then when the carriage stopped would be left to look after the horses in case any one tried to steal them.

Fire stations in the USA used to have (and perhaps still do) a symbol of a dalmatian displayed on the building since these dogs were used to look after the horses that pulled the fire trucks.

Both the lurcher and dalmatian were getting restless so I moved on up the side of soldiering field. I met two men and said

“Good afternoon, it’s a bit muggy.”

One of them was more positive than me. He replied:

“Yes, but a walk is good for you!”

I could only agree but was surprised since it is unusual for someone to answer a negative with a positive in the UK. It is almost seen as impolite!

Later I checked out what the internet had to say about Dalmatians. It confirmed all that my friend had said.

Today is Bank Holiday Monday in the UK . The weather has been reasonable.
Heavy showers have been followed by warm sunshine. Hopefully, the Notting Hill Carnival will go well.

I went into the woods after lunch time. It was good to see puddles on the ground. They bring back magical memories of childhood when it was fun to wade through them in wellingtons and still keep one’s feet dry.

There was also some squelchy mud underfoot. I can’t remember when I last saw a decent layer of mud in the woods.

After I passed the Edelmann memorial, three young women on horses cantered up, turned off the bridle path and invaded the area around the memorial. Maybe they needed the bench to get off their horses.

Later, near the warden’s house, three women came cantering past. I am not sure if they were the same group. Then a more sedate group of girls came past slowly going the other way. They each thanked me most politely for standing to one side so they could pass easily.

Horse riding is fun but dangerous. Zara Phillips, the daughter of Princess Anne, recently dedicated her World Three-Day event victory to her friend Sherelle Duke, who died last week.

Sherelle, 28, died when her horse fell on her at a cross-country event in Southampton.

Zara, 25, said: “I went out today to do it for a friend of mine who died a week ago today and to try and get her a gold medal. I was just so relieved that I managed to give that to her, because we didn’t manage to go over and say goodbye.”

Miss Duke was laid to rest on Friday at Mullavilly Churchyard.

Her boyfriend had earlier told mourners at Portadown Baptist Church on Friday of his “undying love” for the former World Young Rider Champion.

A rider’s hat was on top of the coffin as it was brought into the church by mourners.

The hat symbolizes the acceptance of horse riding with all its risks and acknowledges the part it played in this young woman’s life.

A friend of mine, died in a motor cycle accident a few years ago. His family placed his motor cycle helmet on top of his coffin. They, too, did not blame what he loved doing for his death.

I walked in Petts Wood Village rather than Petts Wood Wood today.

I arrived at Iceland before they opened so took a short walk round the village instead of walking in the wood – a lazy option but better than nothing.

I met a friend in Iceland when they opened at 9 a.m. She bought two tins of dog food for the foxes in her neighbourhood.

She waves them towards her and they approach to receive their food and then go off. It is no wonder that foxes in Petts Wood and Chislehurst look on people as their friends.

One fox even entered her kitchen but that was a step too far for her and she sent it away.

I watched the Edinburgh Military Tattoo on television tonight. It was outstanding. A drum group from Switzerland was unbelievably creative with what they could do with two drum sticks, a drum and some people holding banners.

They had clearly spent hours practising and once you have mastered something, the creativity and genius can emerge.

The tattoo brought back memories of my visit with my grandmother, brother and sister to Edinburgh many years ago when we went to the tattoo.

I was so inspired that I bought a set of bagpipes and eventually played in The Brockley Thistle Pipe Band based in South East London.

Today, Tuesday, is a bright, sunny and breezy day – ideal for doing intervals in the woods i.e. shuffling then walking (in my case)!

I met a family riding their mountain bikes. They got off them when they saw me. Perhaps they felt guilty that they were riding where they should have been walking or they were just waiting for their parents to catch up.

I thanked God that I no longer needed to tell youngsters how to behave as in the days when I was a full time teacher. I still teach some youngsters in my martial arts classes but their behaviour is usually irreproachable.

I often think of Robin Hood and Maid Marian as I walk through the woods since they spent their lives in the woods of Nottingham and Sherwood Forest is the focus of so many great stories.

In fact, before my walk today, I had been watching ‘Robin and Marian’, the film starring Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn. It shows Robin, in middle age, returning to Sherwood after spending years with King Richard in his crusader and French wars.

The film paints King Richard as a monster who killed Muslim babies in the Holy Land. If what it suggests is true, you can easily understand why many Muslims hate the Crusaders and their descendants.

The Sheriff of Nottingham appears as a comparatively sympathetic character.
Maybe the film maker was just trying to be contrary. King Richard, the hero, becomes an anti-hero and the Sheriff, the former villain, becomes quite likeable!

I noticed the Latin inscription on the Willett Memorial today when I checked to see if the vandals had attacked the monument recently. It reads:

Horas Non Numero
Nisi Aestivas.

I think the first line means “Hours Without Number”

I am not too sure about the second line but will check the net to see what it means.

I almost immediately hit the jackpot when I entered the words on google. I came to the following passage which explains the meaning well. I could find no mention of the author’s name so I hope he will forgive me for quoting him without permission:

“People ask about the latin tag in my signature file. It means loosely ‘I only count the sunny hours’. I grew up in a suburb of London called Petts Wood which is near Bromley where I was born. The wood originally belonged to a family of ship builders who used the wood for raw materials.

One of Petts Wood’s claims to fame is that it was the home of one William Willett who was the promoter of Summer Time. When the housing part of Petts Wood was built in 1929 part of the wood was preserved and in the wood is a memorial to Willett which has on it a sundial with this line on it. I used to play in the wood a lot when I was a child.”

The photograph in the header above on the left is of the Willet Memorial. The latin saying is on the side which you can’t see.

I only saw one man and his boxer dog in the woods today. Did the absentees know something I didn’t?

I found out when I reached Soldiering Field. The rain began and was soon bucketing down! Fortunately, I was running or shuffling intervals and managed to keep warm enough.

I also ran up the two hillocks between the rhododenron path and the Edelmann memorial and then the larger hillock between the memorial and Soldiering Field.

Yesterday, I had felt great after running intervals so I am hoping this method of training will help me lose weight by raising my metabolic rate.

It is an inviting type of training since you can look forward to a rest very soon after you have run your intense interval. Anyone can exert themselves for about 30 – 60 seconds.

The technique of putting out effort for a few seconds is a great way of starting any task that you have been putting off. Tidy your room for 30 seconds and then stop or continue if you feel like it. Having started many people will finish.

In the immortal words of The Mastermind Chairman:

“I have started so I’ll finish!”

Today was breezy and fresh in the woods. Before I entered Petts Wood at my usual entrance opposite Marlings Park, I bumped into Ashley and his dog Myrtle who had just finished their walk.

We discussed whether I should go to a property seminar or not. A walk in the woods is a great way to make decisions. I mentioned that property developers do not always do the best for the neighbours who lived near a particular property and I do not like the idea of other people making the decisions that I am partly responsible for. I shall probably not go to the seminar.

Also if you start chasing too many rabbits you catch none of them. Ashley’s dad had loads of great business ideas but by the time he had finished a day’s work, he was too tired to follow them up. I know exactly how he feels.

Myrtle was getting impatient to move on home so I headed off to the entrance to the woods. I noticed a somewhat tough looking bull terrier ahead of me and was glad to be able to take a different path. Unfortunately I came across it later and it rushed at me barking loudly. Her owners told ‘Missy’ to be quiet.

As I walked along today I started practising interval training i.e running for about 30 seconds and then walking for about 30 seconds. This method of training is thought to stir up your metabolism more than ordinary jogging. It has a similar effect to running up hills.

I remember part of my rugby training at school was to walk for 25 yards, then jog for 25 yards, then sprint for 25 yards and finally walk or jog for 25 yards.
Interval training has clearly been around for a long time!

Today, Saturday, I visited Iceland in Petts Wood to do the shopping.

First, I went over to the cash machine in Station Square to take out some cash to pay my window cleaner who has been doing a great job tidying up the jungle that is my garden. I can now actually enjoy looking at the front garden.

I stood well back from the lady who was already taking out money so that she would not feel worried about being mugged.

I have been teaching my martial arts students to look round when they are at a cash machine. It is only too easy for a mugger to come up behind you and bang your head against the wall before taking your cash off you.

However, I didn’t bother to do this. Hopefully none of my students will have spotted me being this careless. Last week some of them saw me walking along Petts Wood High Street in code white i.e. totally unaware of what was happening around me.

They were not slow to point this out to me at their next lesson.

My excuse is that Petts Wood is such a pleasant village that any precautions seem unnecessary. Of course, that is not a good excuse. Chislehurst is also a pleasant village but someone was shot and killed there only a few weeks ago.

One should always be in code yellow when out and about. Code yellow is a state of relaxed awareness where you know what is going on and can spot trouble before it hits you so hard that you are out for the count or even dead.

I saw a fox in the garden early this morning. It was almost in code white as it walked slowly into the middle of the lawn, relieved itself and then moved on to my neighbours leaving me wondering why it chose to cr*p on my lawn rather than my neighbours’ lawn. Was it sending me a message?

As I drove back from Petts Wood in heavy rain, the rugby song ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ was going through my head reminding me yet again of England’s amazing win in the final of the 2003 Rugby Football World Cup.

In good time management style, I timed my walk today in Petts Wood. I went anti-clockwise round the short walk.

It took me 12 minutes from the Marlings Park entrance to reach the gargoyle in the tree. 6 more minutes took me to the Willett memorial and then 6 minutes to where the path diverges and one path goes down to Flushers Pond.

I did not take the pond route. Another 6 minutes took me to where the path leads to the Edlmann memorial. I reached the memorial after another 6 minutes. The walk had taken 36 minutes. I would probably have finished it in about 50 minutes.

But I then met up with Bill, Pam and her friend Joan from Wolverhampton and my timing scheme broke down. This just goes to show that even the most precise system needs to allow large chunks of space for the activity of other human beings.

We also need to mention dog activity as well. Pam had her labradors, Dinah and Esther, with her and an Italian Spinoni, called Myrtle, soon joined the group. A wolfhound walked past a few yards away.

The Irish Wolfhound is an ancient breed, known in Ireland since before the Romans invaded. They were used for battle, hunting and guarding duties. The wolfhound gradually came to specialize in hunting wolves. Their numbers diminished after there were no more wolves in the British Isles.

We had an interesting discussion though the dogs were totally uninterested and Myrtle actually started complaning by barking loudly.

Joan said that she came from the Black Country where the black comedian Lenny Henry was born. He was once told to go home by some one who clearly was not in favour of immigration.

Instead of taking offence, Lenny turned the tables by remarking cheerfully:

“I don’t have far to go. My home is in Dudley!”

If more people had the wit and humour of Lenny Henry, there would be far less hate and violence in the world.

It took me well over an hour to finish the walk!

Today was the first day we have had real rain for some weeks. I could barely recognise it.

I drove into Eltham and walked down the High Street from the Halifax Building Society to my bank at the crossroads.

If you turn left at the crossroads and walk towards Mottingham, you come to Eltham Palace where Henry VIII spent some of his early years.

If you turn right and keep walking towards Woolwich, you would pass the
place where Stephen Lawrence was murdered some years ago. The murderers still go free although many people seem to know who they are.

If you walked straight on towards central London you would pass the road on the left containing the Bob Hope theatre built in honour of the comedian who was born in Eltham at the start of the 20th century.

If you continue walking towards London, you would pass a scho0l, once called Eltham Hill School, where I taught for many years.

Continue walking and you pass through Lewisham, New Cross, Elephant and Castle and reach the great city of London.

I think I’ll stick to my walks in the local woods. Less cement and much less strain on the feet and ankles.

Some photos arrived from my American relative, David, recently. I was shocked at how much weight I had put on.

I decided I must take swift steps to get rid of Mr Roly Poly. One step, I read about, was to run uphill. This gets the metabolism going and can accomplish more weight loss in less time.

One problem is that there are not many hills in Petts Wood. However, there are quite a few little hills or hillocks.

I ran up one of these today and it was enough to make me breathe heavily.

Stairs are an alternative to hills. There are stairs in Morrison’s, the supermarket, and in the railway station. Both are in Petts Wood.

Most houses have stairs and you are not far from a phone if you have a heart attack!

A terror plot to blow up nine planes has emerged in the UK today. Hundreds of lives have been saved if the news account is true. One can only be thankful for this.

Passengers have been philosophical but have got annoyed when they have not been given sufficient information about what was going on and why they were asked to take some precautions that seemed unnecessary.