Lockdown Walks Down Memory Lane: Surrey, England, UK

Another month of lockdown done, which also brings our walks down memory lane to an end. I wish I could say I planned this but full disclosure, it kind of just happened.

Initially, I felt very ambitious and wanted to post one story a day while self-isolating (10 days, 10 posts) to distract myself and stay somewhat sane hoping these posts might also come in handy for others stuck in a similar situation. Unfortunately, I might have distracted myself a bit too much as I was browsing old pictures which brought back memories and sparked ideas for future stories and adventures. I guess that means this ‘memory lane’-series did serve its purpose, although I do hope not only for me but for some of you as well?!

Before moving on to the stories I remembered and hinted at during some walks already — such a tease, I know — let’s wrap up this topic with a final stroll through my current homestead. If you think you’ve seen it all by now thanks to my lockdown 2.0 posts, let me prove you wrong and show you the things I came across this time around, some of them potentially looking somewhat familiar if you’ve been joining our walks from the start (full list and map at the end of the post).

The Golden Post Box

Let’s go for gold first, shall we?! As we’ve been walking through lockdown quite a bit by now, I occasionally switch it up with a run, one of them led me to this golden find the other night — Joanna Rowsell’s Golden Post Box in Cheam. Who is Joanna Rowsell some of you might ask, myself included? Miss Rowsell is a retired English cyclist and Olympiad who won the gold medal for the women’s team pursuit in 2012.

Of all things, why a golden post box might be your next question? To celebrate the achievements of the nation’s athletes at the London Olympics, the Royal Mail decided to paint post boxes in places where winning athletes were born, grew up or lived. The golden post box in Cheam is not far from Nonsuch High School for Girls, the place where Rowsell was discovered by talent scouts.

There are more than 100 golden mementos spread all over the country if you ever need a new reason for exploring your area. You never know, there might be one just around the corner — I know what I’m talking about, and still can’t believe I’ve never paid attention to this one before.

For the ones not quite sure why I included a picture of a traditional red post box sporting the mysterious letters GR — I assume you missed our little tour through Nassau, the Bahamas, which apparently still features some sights going back to King George’s times (George Rex).

Quote-worthy Street Art

Next, a bit of Bristol flair in my very own neighbourhood. While I did encourage you to check out your own area for graffiti art work when wrapping up our Bristol stroll, I didn’t have high hopes for mine, so was rather surprised about the amount of findings.

On top of that, H. G. Wells appears to be quite popular on Surrey grounds. And rightly so, very clever man indeed, encouraging us to put our somewhat insignificant terrestrial existence into perspective (bottom right) and enjoy every moment of it while we’re at it (top left) — slightly weathered and incomplete, so here the full quote to ponder about:

“We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery.”

Bench-watching

To stick with the thoughtful theme, you might remember our day in Rosemarkie which made us halt at a bench erected in memory of a local gentleman and his favourite coastal walk, a quite common tradition being fully embraced in Cheam’s Nonsuch Park as well.

While strolling through it the other day, I stopped at the depicted bench to have a read just having posted the Rosemarkie story. Lost in my own thoughts, a lady passing by must have noticed my gaze, came up and told me about the wife who had this bench commissioned for her husband who left before his time. Weather permitting, she comes to the park every day and leaves a flower in loving memory — a heart-breaking story making my romantic post conclusion seem less fantastical than some of you might have thought.

Cradle in the Sky

And speaking of fantastical occurrences, here my absolute favourite — mirror image or my imagination going wild? I let you be the judge of it.

All I can say is, a) I definitely did not manipulate the picture, I’m not that clever, and b) I wasn’t even thinking of Tassie’s Cradle Mountain when taking the shot. I just remember being mesmerised by the cloud formations which made me think of glorious mountain ranges illuminated by the sun’s slow attempt to rise over the peaks — terribly uncanny, isn’t it?

Buns and Taytos

As I’ve never let you down on snacks so far, why start today. So lastly, some memory lane inspired findings that took me back to ‘Norn Iron’ (as true Irish would say), as well as Bristol’s neighbouring town Bath, home of Sally Lunn’s Buns if you recall?

They say size doesn’t matter?! Cheam’s village baker seems to disagree on that one when treating us to this scrumptious reminder of our Bristol stroll. On the opposite end of the spectrum, taster bags of tasty Taytos, which didn’t hold me back from eating the whole lot in one go, purely for flavour research of course. The verdict? As the potato man so nicely put it: “The Secret’s in the Flavour!” and any of them shall do.

The depicted variety is typical for Northern Ireland. The Republic of Ireland has their very own version sporting a different ‘Man Inside the Jacket’. His bright yellow skin tone goes with his secret flavour which shall change your life according to my true Irish sources. Apparently sunflower oil is the way to go?! Good thing we decided to enjoy every moment of life going forward with this fried deliciousness potentially stealing a few of the final ones.

Memory Lane Takeaways

And that brings us to the end of my latest lockdown discoveries, which were strangely influenced by the stories I’ve been telling. It did baffle me quite a bit as the ones above are only a selection of the most obvious references, but I put it down to my rather colourful imagination and sometimes questionable way of seeing connections at first.

Once it happened for pretty much all of them though, it became more obvious that this must have something to do with the good old ‘Concept of Priming’ — have you heard of that one? Nope, it has nothing to do with ageing, hitting your prime and such things, although that tends to be an explanation for odd behaviour and occurrences sometimes as well, so you’re not that far off.

To step into science talk for a second, Priming is the phenomenon when the exposure to one stimulus influences your response to a subsequent stimulus. For example, if you hear the word /heə(r)/ without context, it could be either ‘hare’ or ‘hair’. If you’ve been talking about personal hygiene, your brain would most likely default to the latter, right? Another example, you bought something new, a piece of clothing, or let’s say you started looking for a new car. Now having your brain focussed on something specific, you start seeing the item or a particular brand everywhere out of a sudden, something that must have happened to all of us before I’m sure?!

Back to our lockdown walk findings. Writing down those stories made certain memories more prominent in my brain enabling me to see them more easily, and make some of them even come my way as the bonus will show. What if I said this concept does not only apply to things, but thoughts and emotions as well? That’s actually one of the reasons why I stopped checking the news in the morning these days, as it seemingly sucks the happy out of me before my day even started.

Negative things are easy to find thanks to our survival brain wanting to avoid such experiences in the future, a helpful trait in cavemen times but a bit of a hurdle these days which require us to retrain our brains, prime ourselves to more easily recognise the positive, focus on what we have rather than what’s missing, or to bring it back to Wells, acknowledge the miracle and mystery of each moment of life and the insignificance of some troubles in the grand scheme of things.

Keeping that in mind, I believe we’ve come full circle once more as I hope that these little stories keep helping you (and me) to focus on the good that was, is and will be, while the current situation sometimes makes it hard to see.

On that note, stay happy and healthy, guys! And hopefully I’ll see you back here when sharing more travel memories and outdoor adventures. I do have a few things lined up but do let me know if there’s anything in particular you’d like to hear about, just comment below or drop me a note via my contact form — I’m all ears! 🌍🏕🙋‍♀️

PS: If you are still keen on more walking, maybe re-join me on the North Downs Way, something I probably should finally finish as well. So many stories, so little time — stay tuned!

Here where we’ve been:*

*List includes bonus posts to break up the walks. If new to all of this, maybe go back to the start: UK Lockdown 3.0

Scientific Bonus

Less clever than the heading and the somewhat deep post conclusion suggests, here a little bonus that came my way just after I posted my Cradle Mountain story in which I shared some amusing animal trivia. For the ones who read it, I’m sure some of you thought I might have been pulling your leg, and I’m okay with that if it makes you google and, in some cases, even send newspaper snippets my way, like the one below proving that I’m full of …fun facts, nothing else. 🤓

A big shoutout to Dave from lovely Shropshire once more, a place of my liking giving Wombats the attention they deserve, scientifically addressing this soft but interesting matter, and thereby erasing any doubt some readers might have had in my claims that these clumsy animals are throwing shapes wherever they go. But seriously, another great coincidence and I can’t wait to see what other facts we might come across in future stories — so, don’t be square, be there!

Share me on the world wild web 🙂

05/02/2021

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