Posts

Posted on

Too wet for Hughenden

I was travelling to London and I has planned to take a break on the journey and visit Hughenden. I had been before nearly three years ago.

Red brick manor set in the Chiltern Hills. Former home to Benjamin Disraeli and a secret World War Two operation.

I didn’t get there in 2025, so was on my list for this year. However as I drove down the M4 the rain was getting worse and heavy. I made the decision that it was too wet for a visit. I would have to go another day.

Posted on

Marlow #50places2026

Marlow

Marlow is a town on the River Thames in Buckinghamshire, England, 4 miles south of High Wycombe.

I was on my way to London and I needed to charge my car, so rather than stop at the services, I came off the M4 and drove to Marlow planning to eat lunch at the branch of Côte there, which had a special price on their set menu. 

Having arrived in Marlow, I drove to the car park. They had a BP Pulse fast charger (read 11 Kw), so after paying for my parking, I put the Funky Cat on charge. It took me a while as though I thought I had a BP Pulse account, I didn’t, so I had to set one up. It was priced at 65p kWh, so more expensive than a Tesla charger, but cheaper than most public chargers.

I then needed to find the Côte restaurant and discovered on Google Maps it was actually next door to the car park. So, not too far to walk. After eating lunch, the car was still charging, so I went for a walk around Marlow. It’s a pretty town, the bridge over the Thames was particularly impressive.

I was pleased to have reached my fifty places in 2025 for my #50places2025 series of blog posts.

This year I am planning to do something similar with a new hashtag, #50newplaces2026 and it will be the same rules. Each time I visit a place I will post a blog post and some photographs. I can’t repeat places, and in an extra twist I can’t use the fifty places I visited in 2025 in the list as well (though I anticipate visiting some of those places again).