England October 2011

Three days before Christmas and I am realising that if any of 2011 remains unblogged-about after today, it will probably remain so for evermore. So I'll fly back a couple of months and give you a quick scattershot tour of our latest trip to the UK.

To start with, our flight was cancelled and we had to come home and try again the next day. Fortunately Toby regarded DFW Airport as a super-huge playground filled with nice people who smiled at him. We just had to prevent him from throwing himself under luggage carts.

Toby at the airport

Toby slept like the proverbial baby on the aeroplane, but once we arrived he started sleeping like a real baby - that is, up and screaming half the night. Our friends Naomi and Steve suffered through one night with us, although we were told they had a giggle at us desperately intoning, "You are feeling sleeee-py", in harmony, at 2 am. With very little effect. Our one consolation was that their baby didn't wake up and join the party.

Naomi and Luke, me and Toby

We enjoyed the sweeping chalk hills of the Chilterns, the unruffled expanse of the Severn Estuary, the willows delicately dipping their branches into the Thames, the weathered red brick of a house over a century old.

At Clevedon

Near Hughendon Manor

Admiring a grapevine in Streatley

Graham, Toby and Dad on Streatley Hill

By the Thames

Taplow Court

We played on tombstones and swings.

We visited hedgehogs, and saw seven swans swimming.

Rescue hedgehog at Tiggywinkles Animal Hospital

Their hedgehog museum...

...had quite a range of exhibits!

We spent time with family.

And a small boy celebrated his first birthday!

It was fun!

Comments

Where am I going now? The Portway

I should probably explain why I am pottering around Nottingham and its western suburbs, rather than roaming the Derbyshire countryside. It's not just the abundance of paved paths, although that certainly helps - I recently went on a country walk across a cow field and found myself tiptoeing gingerly across boggy mud cratered with six-inch deep hoof holes. Then I was confronted by a sign which said: Private Property, Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted. I congratulated myself on being on a public right of way, then, a few steps on, consulted the map and realised I wasn't. The path was across a completely different field. nice scenery, though I digress. Apart from the absence of cows and angry landowners, the reason I am walking around Nottingham is that it's the start of the Portway. There is a blog called The Old Roads of Derbyshire , written by a man named Stephen Bailey, who has also published a book of the same name. I can't remember now whether I came across the book fir...

Portway: Bramcote Hills to Stanton-by-Dale

I parked in the free car park at Bramcote Hills Park and set off, naturally enough, in the direction of where I'd last been. Up some steps through the woods, along the edge with marvellous views northwards, and down past a school to pick up Moor Lane again. At that point I realised I was supposed to be walking this route in the opposite direction. Oops. Well, it didn't make much difference. It just meant that the Hemlock Stone would come at the end rather than the start. Also, I was doing a figure of eight, so I could switch paths in the middle. That sorted, I pressed on along the disused Nottingham Canal. This had varying amounts of water in it. There were good views back up to the double hump of the Bramcote Hills. Nottingham Canal Also Nottingham Canal Just before I got to Trowell garden centre, I crossed a bridge and walked across a green space to a partly built housing estate. The Boundary Brook had been aggressively re-wiggled. I'm sure it will look better in a year...

The Portway: Lenton to the Bramcote Hills

It was cold. My fingers were cold, and my phone was cold too. The OS map was totally failing to find my location, and the more I prodded it the less feeling I had in my fingers, so I gave up, shoved both my phone and my chilly hands into my pockets, and set off. After all, I knew where I was. This was Wollaton Park. And the path was very obvious. Just follow the avenue of trees... ...past the deer... ...and out through the fancy gates. Crossing a busy road brought me into a neat little housing estate with unusual round street signs. This was built when Wollaton Park was sold to Nottingham City Council in 1925. The old gatehouse, Lenton Lodge, is now estranged from the rest of the park, and stands by itself next to Derby Road. The bridge used to go over the Nottingham Canal, which has now been turned back into the River Leen. The unfortunate river got shoved out of the way whenever someone came up with a new building project. This is not its original course. My hands were warming up sli...

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