The Germ of an Idea

A month or so ago a friend of mine told me about his plans to walk a couple of legs of the Thames Path from Oxford to Reading (Reading being where we both live). A good idea I thought. After seven years of living in Reading, I’d only walked on a few short stretches of the Path, the only National Trail that follows the length of a river.

But this was the seed planted in my head and it led to looking at Thames Path websites and then buying the official Ordnance Survey guide. From my Internet research it quickly became clear that the Thames Path had been extended in recent years. The official National Trail, identified by a little acorn on the signposts, runs from the Thames Barrier to the Source. The Extension, not officially part of the National Trail, runs from the Thames Barrier eastwards on the southbank to Erith and Crayford Ness. I decided that I had to do the extension as well, so on Easter Monday 2006 I made the trek by train from Reading to Slade Green (sharing some of my journey with some Portsmouth fans on their way to a crunch match at Charlton).