Third night
Rained what seemed like all night. Slightly cold. David's plan was to carry a light bag and wear his spare clothes in bed. Seemed to work.
This is the night we discovered the universal word: Pudding. Perfect for every noun, adjective and verb.
What a Puddingly Pudden of a word to Pud around with!
Third day
This was the best day weather wise and Jackie had calmed down enough to reason that the walk to the bus stop today was quite long, so we might as well carry on as planned.
Today was quite short - about 3.5km, but the plan was to pitch the tent early at our next stop and explore Waylands Smithy and the White Horse. Even so it was a little worrying to realise we woke up at 9:00 and didn't actually leave until 12:00!
Glorious sunshine accompanied us all day today as we reached the path to Britchcombe Farm, met Paul and his partner, a friendly pair who reminded me of the characters in The Archers.
As we were sorting out the tent David found a pigeon with a broken wing. We took it up to the house, but learned that the nearest vet was 7 miles away, and he was likely to put it down anyway. The only solution was to put the bird out of its misery, which Paul did with an air rifle. Everyone was visibly upset by this, including Paul it was refreshing to see. He explained that his job was looking after game birds and he was always sad when he had to put one down.
Paul also offered to take us to Waylands Smithy, as he was going that way anyway, so we could walk
back passed the White Horse. This was very welcome as by now we only had a couple of hours of
daylight left. He would be leaving in about twenty minutes, just perfect for David to disappear into the toilet!
As I was climbing into the back seat of the car, a small nervous Jack Russell came to greet me, and
showed how clever he was by weeing all over the back set! (of which there was only one) (sigh)
There was alot if people around the smithy, and people obviously still regard this as a special place
as there was a scented candle inside along with what looked like rosemary and hawthorn berries and there were more 'offerings' around the outside.
As we walked back towards the white horse, still in glorious sunshine, we met more and more people, strolling to and from the burial mound.
We took a picture at the trig point and gazed over at Uffington Hillfort before dropping down
to The Manger on Dragon Hill.
The White horse was a little disappointing - you could only see it up close because of the angle of the chalk, but then you couldn't see the whole figure.
The views out across the vale more than made up for it - so clear. You could see all the way to Didcot Power station.
We watched two children race each other up 50m or more of steep hillside, amazed at their stamina, full of giggling extravagant energy.
We laid out the tarp and cooked and ate our last dinner (Beef bourgignon and mash, followed as always by pots of sponge) watching the sun set in a glorious blaze of red and gold, before picking out the stars as they arrived across a clear darkening sky.
It occurred to me that this was the campsite that Jackie and I stayed on fifteen years ago, and ate chilli con carne and rice!
The views out across the vale more than made up for it - so clear. You could see all the way to Didcot Power station.
We laid out the tarp and cooked and ate our last dinner (Beef bourgignon and mash, followed as always by pots of sponge) watching the sun set in a glorious blaze of red and gold, before picking out the stars as they arrived across a clear darkening sky.
It occurred to me that this was the campsite that Jackie and I stayed on fifteen years ago, and ate chilli con carne and rice!
Fourth night
Fourth day
Oatsosimple and tea, cereals dished out for lunch.We watched sheep being driven across the road into the farm and then a little while later driven back (how odd).
The plan was to walk to Kingstone Lisle, visiting the blowing stone on the way, and pick up a bus to Wantage.
Our hosts suggested a walk to Uffington would be quicker, so we plumped for that.
They were having a laugh!
The footpath started off ok, but the stiles disappeared around the outskirts of the village, just after we had crossed the ' stiles of death' (see pictures) and traversed a gate to avoid a sticky end.
 |
| 'Styles Of Death' |
A pretty village. When I spied a pub I thought a celebratory pint was in order, after all it was lunch time, but it was shut.
A short meander later we found the post office and David started foaming at the mouth when we spied some Real Food! (i.e. not cereal bars).
 |
| Eating 'Real Food' |
We ate our sandwiches waiting for a bus.
Bus to Wantage, Bus to Grove.
I left my 'lucky' walking stick (the holly one) on the bus (twice!). Well, served me right. The plan from Grove was simple: A practically straight set of footpaths from Grove to the car. Foolproof. Hah! Should have been a 2km walk.
Had three attempts to find the start of the path.
Followed the path halfway, ran out of path.
Thought the map might be wrong: it is 15 years old.
Followed what looked like the busiest path instead of my nose. BIG MISTAKE!
Ended up walking 5.5km!
Sorry David.
Found car in the end, phoned Jackie to learn through tears she had lost even more keys (poor Alex)
Drove home, hugged Jackie.
All the way through David didn't whine once, put up with it all and even suggested we do
this again! What a star.
And my torch worked perfectly!
END
No comments:
Post a Comment