Home Counties

A couple of blogs ago I mentioned that should I be exiled from Britain I know exactly where I would like to go, namely British Columbia in Canada. Were that exile just to banish me from Scotland, a much more likely scenario, I’ve found somewhere else I’d consider though I may need to rob a bank to be able to afford it. The Home Counties – that is, the counties that surround London, are much derided by those who don’t come from or live there. They are, we hear, rather bland places where people spend way too much of their lives commuting into the big city to work, only returning to sleep. They have dreadful traffic problems. The house prices are way too steep. The people aren’t friendly. The list goes on. However, like most prejudices, this is a huge over simplification (apart from the house prices which is spot on) and whilst not everywhere can be described as desirable, there are places down there where I could happily spend the rest of my days. Elaine is a Home Counties girl, being born and brought up in Essex, which is a place I’ve come to know well over the past thirty-odd years. Essex is to the east of London and recently we had a chance to discover just a little bit of the Home Counties to the west. We spent a few days in Buckinghamshire with friends and then a few more days in Surrey on a houseboat we had rented through Airbnb.

I’ll talk about our Surrey stay first. The boat was moored on the Thames at the bottom of the owner’s garden in Shepperton. In that part of the world one town pretty much merges into another and Shepperton is no exception. It lies within the M25 ring, just outside the London Transport fare zones and is part of the borough of Spelthorne which abuts Greater London to the east. It is nearer to the centre of London than quite a bit of Greater London so most observers would think it is, well, part of London. It isn’t, though you could argue it is not in Surrey either. Historically it was part of Middlesex and when that county was abolished in 1965, most of it was consumed by Greater London. The area that is now Shepperton was, however, transferred to Surrey. Middlesex continued to exist as a postal county and…. It’s complicated. The upshot of all this geographical nonsense is that whilst not part of London, Shepperton feels as though it is part of London, albeit a peripheral one. I do like to visit London but certainly don’t want to live there. This bit of London/not-London has its merits though. Relaxing on deck watching the world go by on the Thames was quite pleasant. The boroughs round that area are quite well-to-do and away from the more stabby parts of the metropolis. We walked along the Thames Path, to Windsor in the West and away from the city one day, to Teddington in the East and towards the city the next. It was a grand total of 24 miles of the Thames and for much of that length at least one bank, and sometimes both, were lined with houses. They ranged from tiny shacks to huge mansions and in a couple of cases, royal palaces. Many houses were surprisingly modest though undoubtedly their riverside location and mooring permits would push the prices way above what those in the rest of the country could afford. The boats that were moored outside them ranged from rubber dinghies to large cabin cruisers via 70ft long narrow boats. It gave the river an inclusive feel, even if reality suggests otherwise. The houses were seldom the same as the one next door and yes, I sort of get it. If you are going to live in that part of the world, a house on the river would be a more than acceptable place to be. It wasn’t all houses of course, there was plenty parkland, a bit of industry (though not much) and plenty reservoirs to syphon off the water essential for the huge population that lives in that area. We really enjoyed the walks and will have to do other sections of the Thames Path some day.

That was Surrey ticked off the list so what about Buckinghamshire? Our friends Julie and Paul stay in a small village near Aylesbury. It is at the foot of the Chilterns, a range of not exactly large hills that lie to the northwest of London. Those hills and the adjacent plains give the area a rural feel and whilst there are plenty of towns scattered around the place, these tend to be small and apparently genteel, though we only really passed through a few of them so we may have missed some genuine horrors. We went on a few walks round the local area. It was glorious. Yes, the weather was good which always helps but there’s another plus – the weather is always good. That might be an exaggeration but the sun-baked earth was testament to the total absence of recent rainfall. The village had an old church on a hill, other villages had a cricket pitch on the village green, local pubs were very welcoming, farmland and woodland abounded and all in all it was a lovely area. Whilst it didn’t come as a complete shock to find such a pastoral scene so close to the country’s capital, it was hard to believe that the M25 and the start of the vast conurbation that is London/Greater London/Not Quite London was just a few miles away on the other side of the gently rolling hills. You may have guessed by now that I liked it. This might seem odd for someone from Yorkshire, aka God’s Own County. To a Yorkshireman, even one that hasn’t lived there for forty odd years, there is supposed to be no better place on the planet. Well, to placate the great gods of Trueman and Boycott, I say there isn’t. Living in the Chilterns would run it close though, even once HS2 scythes its way through the idyllic countryside.

To conclude, I’m I about to upsticks and move there? No. There’s a couple of reasons. Firstly, Elaine still works up here and it would be a hell of a commute for her. Secondly, I’d need to win the lottery to afford a house that is remotely similar to the one we live in at the moment. Lastly, it’s just an ideal really. A few days in the sunshine, Red Kites and 747s circling up above, walking someone else’s dog and discovering the nooks and crannies of somewhere new may present the area in a positive light that could not be maintained if I was there permanently. Maybe in a year or two though when the crappy Scottish weather has got to me? Perhaps I should start doing the lottery right now.