18:00, Friday 17 August 2012 UTC
It's time for my summer holiday again and this time I really have very little idea where I will be g...

18:05, Friday 17 August 2012 UTC
Another view of Reading.

18:32, Friday 17 August 2012 UTC
The big stone plaque says "READING CORPORATION TRAMWAYS POWER STATION". The smaller plaque...

My hotel, or possibly the bar next door, seems popular with cyclists. I was surprised to find that t...

This hotel has a Charles Dickens theme. It's not at all evident in the rooms but from what I could s...

11:01, Saturday 18 August 2012 UTC
This Dalek seemed to be on wheels so that people cold just push it around.

12:12, Saturday 18 August 2012 UTC
I'm intending to treat this year's trip as more of a holiday than a challenge so, unlike in some pre...

12:51, Saturday 18 August 2012 UTC
There's no cycling today, I'm afraid. That will start tomorrow. Today, I've come to a 1980s music fe...

... as are the cast of ...

Right Said Fred, who didn't release their first single until 1991 but nobody here seemed to mind.

The crowd is bigger than I expected. It stretches all the way to those food stalls at the back.

Soul II Soul.

The Bangles.

Doctor and the Medics, with another Dalek. I would later see three people in Dalek costumes.

Sinitta.

Starship, the band which started as Jefferson Airplane.

Heather Small, who was the lead singer in M People.

Five Star, whom most of the crowd here seemed to remember rather better than I do.

Now I'm just playing with my new camera. I think this is pretty good considering that the airport is...

Jimmy Somerville. I've always liked his music but I've rarely met anybody else who did. It appears t...

And of course Mr. Richard Paul Astley, who is brilliant live.

Just a couple more pictures.

Okay, all done.

05:18, Sunday 19 August 2012 UTC
Early morning mist on the road out of Reading. I'm making an early start in the hope that I will be ...

05:26, Sunday 19 August 2012 UTC
Twyford, the village where I saw the steam train last night.

06:02, Sunday 19 August 2012 UTC
These heads gave me a surprise. I don't know what they are doing here. Apparently, this is a place w...

Windsor.

Windsor Castle.

This probably isn't of interest to anybody else but I'm a big fan of the 1973 film ...

In the film, Ronnie Corbett got locked in a van in this alleyway.

The view from a level crossing.

These aeroplanes are much closer now.

Here's one for ...

This road seems to get wider every time I see it.

Landscaping amongst the high-tech businesses of Brentford.

The Sun is reflecting off the coloured panels on the building on the left and making patterns on the...

Kensington High Street. I was here a few weeks ago to watch Ciar�n Hayes of the Department for Educa...

Kensington Palace, where several members of the Royal Family live, including the real Duke of Glouce...

A statue of William of Orange. I don't know why Mary isn't with him.

Kensington Palace Gardens.

Boris Bikes.

There's a picture of the Albert Memorial from my 2005 trip but from this angle, you get to see the A...

Horses.

I've been through the British capital on three previous trips but never taken many pictures of its b...

The Wellington Arch at Hyde Park Corner.

Buckingham Palace.

In front of Buckingham Palace.

The Blues and Royals, part of the Household Cavalry, on their way from Knightsbridge Barracks to Whi...

The Blues and Royals in Parliament Square.

I'm on quite a tight schedule today so I decided that I wanted to have reached Westminster Bridge by...

A view of the Thames.

How often do you get a sky like that around here?

Pretty lights under a railway bridge.

The Shard, the tallest building in the European Union.

The Shard, dwarfing its neighbours.

The base of the Shard.

I normally only see brides and grooms wandering around like this on Saturdays in the former Soviet s...

Now three views from Tower Bridge: the Shard and the mayor's office...

...HMS Belfast, the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral and, on the right, the monument to the Great Fire.....

...and the Tower.

Up to this point, I had still been hoping to catch the ferry this evening. I made good time for the ...

The sign seems accurate enough.

Strange name for a house.

Brentwood.

For some reason, I always like it when I can see my bike from my hotel room. I don't know why; it's ...

My attempt at identifying a nearby hotel while I was in the little villages and back lanes was hinde...

10:22, Monday 20 August 2012 UTC
A police bike.

10:46, Monday 20 August 2012 UTC
I think the sign used to just say ...

11:03, Monday 20 August 2012 UTC
Ongar.

This is a steam train. Ignore the diesel locomotove in the foreground. The steam engine is at the ot...

Just a crooked barn.

Slightly excessive chimneys.

Essex scenery.

Thatched buildings.

Great Dunmow, where I didn't go yesterday.

Houses in Great Dunmow.

More scenery.

I've never seen a car showroom like that before.

Pretty flowers. I don't know what they are.

A tractor and some birds.

The village of Thaxted.

Here's a better one for the Airbus Lover.

Thaxted. Gustav Holst lived in the lilac building to the right of the red one, and named his tune fo...

Thaxted.

For about 15 miles, pastel-coloured houses like these were a common sight.

...

More of those coloured houses.

On what grounds?

Some of the houses are also textured.

Debden.

In Saffron Walden, they go for brighter colours.

Saffron Walden.

That's the kind of thing they have in the Cambridge area.

Cambridge.

Cambridge, with Gonville and Caius College in the middle.

The clock in Corpus Christi College. It's a strange contraption, with lots of little LEDs and a mech...

The classic Cambridge view. This is King's Colege.

Cheers!

There's a brick college, rather like my own, although it has the same name as my college's main riva...

A tourist taking a photograph of a map for later reference. I used to do this a lot before I could g...

A big sweet shop.

A film crew.

A park in Cambridge.

I think this man must be setting up a hash race. He's just created that arrow in what I think is flo...

This is the first time I have ever used a yarnbombed bike rack....

07:14, Tuesday 21 August 2012 UTC
Cows in Cambridge.

08:24, Tuesday 21 August 2012 UTC
Just a curve in the road.

08:31, Tuesday 21 August 2012 UTC
I followed the cyclist who appeared in the previous photograph for a few miles. I was just thinking ...

Haverhill.

Haverhill had a very large cinema for such a small town...

...and some oddly specific rules.

So, China is the new England, eh?

Did the chicken lay a second one?...

An interesting wall.

Here's the one on the opposite side of the road.

According to the plaque, the oak tree on the left was planted in 1863. The history of the huge stump...

I'm not sure what the bottom creature is supposed to be. Its nose is too pointy to be a manitee.

An unusual-looking hospital.

Earls Colne.

The viaduct at Chappel.

An interesting seating arrangement in a pub garden.

A pretty stream.

The Old Courthouse Inn. It seems like a strange place to have a courthouse, out here by a rural cros...

Two symbiotic plants.

They gave me a honk.

There's the sea!

And a ship. Not mine though. That's already in the harbour.

That's my ship in the background behind the railway lines. The Swedish motorbike and side car overto...

Track