Headlines
Giffard House: breakfast and a packed lunch
Deb Celebrates Mothers Day: with a short walk to Exton
Picnic Lunch, Friends Join in, We Walk Further
We Stop for a Drink at a Not-so-Quiet Pub
Grandad Picks Us Up, Isaac Shows Us Round
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Stream of Consciousness
Giffard House: breakfast and a packed lunch
From the outside, Giffard House looks like a medium sized mansion. Inside, it has been divided into rooms with en suite. At least nine, since we are in room nine. To get to room nine:
In the front door (or the back). Up a flight of stairs, turn at the landing, up another flight. Along a short corridor, up another flight of stairs. We are at the top, far, corner of the house. It's very lush.
Not very big but feels luxurious. In an over-padded style. Two pillows and two cushions -- each. One small, hard chair. But there are lounge chairs in the corridor and a sitting room downstairs. Not that we use them. Good quality finish, good enough that it looks as though the room were built as it is.
To me it has a feel of over-padded old fashioned. Very comfortable but decorated for pensioners on a near-luxury weekend away.
Breakfast is said to start at 8:30. We turn up a couple of minutes early -- and the dining room is packed. Hmmm... Anyway... I try muesli and yoghurt -- bland muesli and unpleasant yoghurt. I overhear the host saying that the usual natural yoghurt was unavailable.
Neither Deb nor I feel that we want a hearty breakfast... It's like pre-long run nerves... We're uncertain how we will go on today's walk. And today is the "short" walk! Not to worry, we'll be fine once we get started. The cooked breakfast takes a while. Again, overheard: the cook just left for (somewhere in Eastern Europe) and the replacement is finding her feet. We get our food, it's good. Though "omelette" turns out to be flat and thin.
Upstairs again. Pack. Bring our cases downstairs... We've left some stuff in the car and it's easier to carry the cases. Of course, today it's only carrying down stairs :-)
We pay 35 pounds... cash... to park the car at Giffard for the week. (Then we get a train back to the car.) Pick up our packed lunches.
And we're off !
Deb Celebrates Mothers Day: with a short walk to Exton
Deb had emails from the boys. (Or, rather, I get emails for Deb. I'm the one who uses and checks emails.) The boys say, Happy Mothers Day !
To celebrate Mothers Day, Deb gets to walk eighteen kilometres, from Winchester to Exton. At home, she'd get dinner cooked by the boys... Ah well, next year... :-)
From Giffard we know the roads to follow. An interesting walk through Winchester. Across the river. It takes us a while to find the first South Downs signs... Deb is reading the guide book -- which is good -- so it's just a matter of following roads and features. Then we find signs -- and it's easy.
A brief walk through rather posh suburbia. Looking down onto an area that looks a bit less posh. Onto a footpath through grass and trees. Across the motorway -- and we're glad that today we're walking!
Suddenly -- we're in the countryside! Wide sweeps of bright green crops. Gently rolling hills. Hedges. Our first geocache for the day! We walked almost 100m past before I noticed. Then back. Luckily we did find it after that extra walk !
And then it's a couple of hours of walking. A couple of busy roads to cross. A few cyclists going in either direction. Some walkers. Including a couple with a dog who slowly overtake us. We think of lunch. Can we find somewhere with a good view? Well... just about anywhere has a good view :-)
There is also a rider on a horse. We admire the horse and rider in matching flouro ! The rider wears a flouro shirt labelled, Horse in Training. The horse's flouro hat covers its ears. Possibly to stop it being spooked by sudden noises.
Picnic Lunch, Friends Join in, We Walk Further
We find a nice spot for a picnic lunch. Near a gate, sheltered from the wind by the fence / hedge. There's a barn -- an "old" barn, according to track notes, though it looks less that 100 years old to us -- and a cow grazing on the horizon.
It's warm and sunny. The grass is dry. Lunch is good. A few more cows appear on the horizon. That's in our field, a bit up the slope. A few walkers and riders go through the gate, in either direction
We're almost finished lunch. Just on the final snack, a packet of chips. Deb suddenly says, What's going on ?! I look round...
The entire herd of thirty or so cows has walked up to us ! Do we look like a bale of hay? Whatever it is -- they are very interested in us ! I'm ready to have stern words with the cows. Deb is ready to leave this field... We pack up and leave.
We go through the gate into the next field. The cows stare at us and push against the gate. Fortunately they don't possess opposable thumbs. I pat a couple of the leaders. They just stare and push. I wonder if the next people will have trouble getting through this gate :-)
And now it's back to walking...
We Stop for a Drink at a Not-so-Quiet Pub
There's a small village on the walk. No more than a few houses -- including two with "Manor" in the house name. No shops. There's a pub, further on, with no village. A good place to stop for a quiet rest and drink, we think.
Today is the TVR Club outing.
The pub carpark is full of sports cars. A Maserati, a Porsche, lots of TVRs -- which we've never heard of. British sports cars, we're told. Deb can't understand the attraction of looking at other people's sports cars. As a former Cobra owner, I can see the attraction. Though the Cobra had a much more solid roar! I never understood what a "hottie cam" was -- but I know that my Cobra could set off other people's car alarms with its exhaust vibration :-)
We find a couple more geocaches. We find a trackside water tap (with its own geocache). We stop for a final snack on Beacon Hill, inside a nature reserve. From here we can see Exton -- our target for tonight -- a few kilometres away. Mostly downhill.
Grandad Picks Us Up, Isaac Shows Us Round
Finally, Exton... We're to be picked up by the b&b owner. She's still in Winchester so her father-in-law picks us up. It's a kilometre or two -- along a busy road -- to the farmhouse b&b. Grandad was born in Ceylon, spent many years in an African country, came to this part of England in 1954. He passes us on to the son, Isaac, who shows us to our room.
The house is a bit of a maze, successive generations built on to the original. We're up one flight -- our cases are in our room :-) -- and our bathroom is across the passage. Quite spacious. Nicely updated but the original is still visible underneath.
The b&b owner gives us a lift to the village, she's booked us a table at The Shoe Inn, the only pub. She's back from rehearsals for As You Like It, as part of the Shakespeare 400th. She comes from northern Devon. Her husband is still a farmer. The old stables are offices which they rent. Farming now is all about diversification.
The carpark at the inn has BMWs. A Maserati. Other flash cars. Plus a few more ordinary makes.
At the inn we meet the only other residents of the b&b. Oldish blokes (our age? older?) who have done a lot of these walks, from b&b to b&b. Mostly in Britain. There are so many great walks! We chat a while, while waiting for our meals. There are some difficulties understanding each other... they speak some English accent. While we, of course, have no accent at all :-)
They go for a walk round the village but are back quite soon. Small village, they say. We get the barman to phone Susanne of the b&b. We all four travel back together.
The other two are taking eight days for the walk, we are taking seven. So tomorrow we walk to different points.
We ask for an earlier breakfast -- 7:30 -- so that we can leave a bit earlier. And not feel too rushed. Tomorrow, it's a 27km walk...
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Dr Nick Lethbridge / Agamedes Consulting
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"The greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing." — William Arthur Ward.
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