Monday 19th October 2026

And so, once again, I am on my travels.

And Monday was brought to you by track defect at Stratford International.

I actually laid in to gone six, so late it was nearly seven. Giving me two hours to get my act together.

I had coffee, had a shave and shower, dressed, before packing and getting the camera gear packed, checking memory cards and batteries.

A post from Southeastern suggested ten minute delays at Stratford due to a track defect. No worries, I have 40 minutes to get my connection at St Pancras.

So, come quarter past eight, Jools drove me to Priory station, so I could catch the ten to nine train.

The train was eight minutes late, but could make that up after Ashford, no?

No, the track defect issue was ongoing, and would delay us further. But up to Dagenham all was fine, as we plunged into the tunnel under east London.

The the train slowed.

To a crawl.

Time passed, continents moved.

We crawled into Stratford. Half my 40 minutes was gone, any more crawling then I would miss my connection.

But soon after leaving the station, all horses were engaged and we sped up, but I had seventeen minutes to get along the platform, through the gates, across to the other side of the station, up again, then find a seat on the 11:35 train to Nottingham.

I made it with 4 minutes to spare, my hands shaking so bad I couldn't get my ticket in the reader at first.

But then did.

I got a seat at a table, opposite a student who took notes, tapped at her computer, laughed at her phone, then wrote more notes, tapped furiously at her laptop. And so on.

We slipped through London, I saw West Hamstead, but after that we were going to fast to see names of stations. And suddenly out into the countryside.

At Leicester, loads of folks got on for the fifteen minute rattle up to Nottingham, but they all got on, and I looked out of the window.

There was a refreshment trolley, so I bought some crisps, but they had no Coke, only diet. So I bought wine instead.

Wine in a can.

We arrived at Nottingham on time, but I had forty minutes to kill, so found a micropub on the corner of the main street and made a half of maple porter vanish in a couple of gulps.

Now, where to meet the coach and the leader? His mail just said Nottingham station. Its a big place.

So a couple of others on the tour and myself, stood on the side of the street watching buses come and go. No coach.

John appears like the shopkeeper in Br Ben, and says to go down the side of the station, and the coach will be down there.

So our little flock, dragging cases, made our way through the students and shoppers, and there on the left was a half sized coach.

The driver loaded our cases, and we climbed in. And once we were all aboard, we set off across the city, over the tram tracks into a housing estate that used to be meadows.

Water meadows.

And there was the Victorian pile of St George.

The driver let us off outside, and we filed in, to see what had been created at the height of the industrial revolution to serve the rows of workers' houses.

St George is an Anglo-Catholic church, with all the bells and whistles you'd expect. But in a good way.

We had a warm welcome from the priest, who waved enthusiastically as described his church. The large golden curtain behind the altar was very fetching.

I foolishly left my big lens on the bus, so didn't get close up shots of the fine windows, but that wasn't a mistake I'll make again.

Back on the bus again for the short hop to Gotham.

Yes, you read that right, Batman!

We drove for half an hour through countryside filled with fields and small sandy-coloured stone built villages, until we came to Gotham.

Parking near a shelter, bedecked with flowers, the church rises with its spire pointing to the sky.

Inside, two impressive memorials were our main point of interest, on walls stripped of plaster so showing the rough-cut stone from which the church was built.

The cooling towers of the now redundant Ratcliffe on Soar power station are visible for miles around, but our way to the final church of the day was right past them, and the spire of the fine village church could be glimpsed as we joined the dual carriageway heading, possibly, west.

The church of Barton in Fabis is very simmilar to that of Ratcliffe, set down a quiet village street, and the same stone spire we saw at Gotham.

Inside there were tombs, an ancient clock mechanism, and a heraldic memorial, quite splendid.

But time had now beaten us, we were behind schedule, and had to get to our hotel near the university. And getting there meant mixing with the rush hour traffic.

Towns and villages blur into each other, as the main roads leaps from roundabout to roundabout, but our driver knows the way and the correct lane to be in, so gets us there for half five.

A modern pile, four star, with a large lobby and dining area.

We get our keys, and so have an hour before lunch to unpack and freshen up, before meeting at seven for drinks and taking to our tables.

Talk was of churches, of course, as we waited for our meals to arrive, it being busy meant that we didn't finish until well after nine, by which time Spurs were 2-1 up, and as I listened to the radio, score a third in injury time.

Three churches down, just seventeen to go!