Bostall Woods to Oxleas Meadows

Yesterday I tackled the third segment of the Green Chain walk, from Bostall Woods to Oxleas Meadows. I took a tube and train to Plumstead, where I walked along the high street to do some photography -- which you'll no doubt see in coming days.

Then I took a bus to Bostall Woods, where the 2.9-mile trail began next to this neat-as-a-pin clubhouse for the lawn bowling club.

The trail led into the forest, where almost immediately I came across a large, squabbling flock of ring-necked parakeets. They were ducking in and out of holes in the trees and arguing loudly. I think I saw more parakeets on this walk than I have on any other -- dozens of them. They're pretty birds, but they're not native, and I can't help but wonder about the woodpeckers and other creatures that would normally live in those tree holes but have been displaced.

I love the quizzical posture of this parakeet: "What do YOU want?"

Not much farther along, I found a tree had fallen across the path. I gingerly picked my way over it.

The trail came out of the woods near Plumstead Cemetery, which has a rather grand old chapel building.

It led me past some houses and this neighborhood pub, the Forester's Arms, before entering another park, the East Wickham Open Space. I crossed that -- didn't even take any pictures -- and made my way through another neighborhood where the streets were named for poets: Dryden, Keats, Chaucer.

I had a weird experience as I walked past one house. A clay roof tile suddenly came loose and clattered loudly down the slope of the roof before crashing on the ground. What are the odds that would happen just as I walked by? There was no one else around, and I half expected someone to come out and yell at me. I imagined myself insisting, "I didn't do it!"

I was supposed to re-enter a green space at Woodland Farm, near where this curious goat kept watch over his domain from the roof of a shed. But the gates were closed and I didn't see any way to get in. Turns out there's apparently a long dispute between walkers and the farm over access to the trail through this area. The farm says it's not a proper right-of-way and has blocked it off, allegedly because of vandalism.

So I followed an alternate route (fortunately signposted), past more houses and then along a claustrophobically-fenced footpath that circled another cemetery. I finally emerged onto a major street, Bellegrove Road, and that took me to Oxleas Woods.

I came out of the woods at this hilltop cafe, where I had a vegetarian English breakfast and watched people exercising their dogs on the grassy slope. I asked to buy one of the cafe t-shirts, like the staff were wearing, because they had kind of a cool fried-egg design and I thought it would make a nice souvenir. But they don't sell them. Sigh.

As I sat at my outdoor table, I swear I saw Richard and Hyacinth from "Keeping Up Appearances." An older couple wandered up and the woman said to the man, gesturing to the door, "We can go inside, Richard!" And the man replied, "We ARE going inside!" He proceeded to open a different door and, well, go inside.

A boy and his father walked past. "Why didn't we get cake?" the boy asked. "That's a good question," the father said.

This area is known as Shooter's Hill, and diarist Samuel Pepys mentions it in his entry of April 11, 1661. He walked beneath "the man that hangs upon Shooter's Hill and a filthy sight it was to see how his flesh is shrunk to his bones." Apparently this was a bandit whose body was hung on a gibbet as a warning to other lawbreakers.

Fortunately I didn't see anything that grisly as I walked to the bus stop -- just the old water tower, from 1910, a landmark along the roadway. From there I caught the bus to the train station in Blackheath and made my way home.