Spring is in the air - 18 February 2006

Spring is in the air, foggy walks notwithstanding. After a walk in the area of Hertingfordbury we went on to look at the snowdrops at Benington Lordship. Snowdrops are quite amazing in that much of their beauty is concealed from the casual viewer. Take the double snowdrop for instance; unless you get down and turn the flower upside down you have no idea of the beauty within.

Then it was on to the Gardens of Easton Lodge for more snowdrops, but they were not that fantastic. We did find another flower having a ‘bad hair day’ which was quite attractive.

There is no grand house at Easton, the last Lodge having burned down in the winter of 1918 in unusual circumstances that could only happen in the UK. “A sick monkey was hospitalised in the night nursery. It was given a coal fire and a blanket to keep warm. It put the blanket on the fire and ran around the house with this blazing torch.” The house was razed; the fate of the monkey is unknown. Image produced from the Ordnance Survey Get-a-map service. Image reproduced with kind permission of Ordnance Survey and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland.

Snowdrops - 11 February 2006

Snowdrop time has rolled around once again so it was time to hit the road and go snowdrop hunting. Since there was a small task requiring attention in Reigate we headed to the south of London once again.

Painshill Park (visited in December) advertised Snowdrop Sunday for 12 February so it was a fairly safe bet that the snowdrops would also be there on Saturday 11th. Added to that was the fact that we could not see the Grotto last time as Santa was in residence. The grotto at Painshill Park turned out to be the best we have seen so far, The whole Painshill project bankrupted the chap who built it and when you see the effort that went into the grotto it is not hard to see why. (Note the small daylight opening in the photo: when viewed from a grille by the entrance it provides a marvellous optical illusion that the grotto is much longer than it actually is.)

He attempted to recreate nature as in the caves he had seen on his Grand Tour of Europe: volcanic caves lined with stalactites. The “volcanic” rocks are hot-house cinders and the stalactites are crystals of gypsum, calcite, quartz and fluorite held in place by plaster on wooden formers.

After inspecting the grotto and the fake underground waterfalls and streams we wandered over to the snowdrops and then drove to Leigh (pronounced lie) to start a walk to Betchworth and back.

There was no particular attraction that drew us to Betchworth: that was just where the walk went. However, the Betchworth church was the scene of the first wedding in Four Weddings and a Funeral, and the Dolphin Pub offered delicious Broccoli & Stilton soup for a winter lunch. We came across snowdrops in the wild along a stream bank on the return journey.

Image produced from the Ordnance Survey Get-a-map service. Image reproduced with kind permission of Ordnance Survey and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland.

Polesden Lacy - 5 February 2006

It was to the south of London that we journeyed for our Sunday afternoon walk: focused around the National Trust property of Polesden Lacy.

We parked at the nearby town of Westhumble and enjoyed typical English winter countryside vistas as we made our way up the Polesden valley.

We ignored the printed directions and went through the Polesden Lacy grounds, the house being shut for the winter. Exiting the opposite side we rejoined the route for a mile or two along a typical English “hollow”, Hogden Lane.

From there we joined the North Downs Way with expansive, if somewhat hazy, views to the south, on past St Barnabas Church and back to Westhumble past the Chapel ruins that are, judging by the sign, the town motif.

As we were not far from the Arbinger villages we went to see the ‘Jack the Hammer’ a mechanised blacksmith that strikes a bell to sound the hours in the village of Arbinger Hammer. Which was named after which, I have no idea.

Nearby is Friday Street, a village that, according to the information, had been compared with Switzerland due to its large mill-pond and steep wooded valley. Frankly we weren’t convinced with the Swiss comparison. Nevertheless, it was an attractive pond that we will visit again in the autumn as it should be stunning with the autumn colours reflected.

The last stop was Arbinger Common with the old village stocks still there, now with the villagers locked out by a fence rather than locked in. This has been called ‘England’s oldest village’ since evidence of occupation 7000 years ago was discovered nearby in 1950.

Winter walks - 29 January 2006

It was another beautiful London sunny winter weekend, frosty mornings followed by clear sky days. The big advantage of a heavy frost is that it freezes the mud so when you go walking the mud does not cling to you boots making each footstep heavier than the last.

Saturday saw us heading round the M25 to a little village out past Waltham Abbey, called Bumbles Green. The 6-mile walk along ridges through Epping Forest land was supposed to reward us with fine views over London. The haze put paid to that.

We headed west on Sunday out the M40 to one of our favourite walking areas, the Chilterns. Starting from a cute town called Wooburn we walked four and a bit miles to an attractive little village called Hedgerley; had lunch in the White Horse Pub and walked back by a different route.

Ghent - 21 January 2006

Eurostar tempted us away with a weekend to Ghent, a picturesque town between Brussels and Bruges. Since it happened to almost coincide with a birthday, we packed our bags and headed for the continent. The city authorities have done an excellent job of lighting the buildings at night, making the old town just as attractive to view at night as it is in the day.
We stayed in a monastery that had been converted into a hotel, makes a change from the typical hotel architecture!

The must-see attraction in Ghent is a 1432 painting, The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb. For €3 you get an audio guide with a fascinating commentary about this polyptych altarpiece and it’s history. The fact that you can see it all in one place is amazing in itself, given its chequered history. The painting is a fascinating theological treatise with amazing detail, e.g. the 42 identifiable species of plants in the central panel.

Another interesting piece from the C15th or C16th (depending on which web site you read) is a cannon weighing over 16 tonnes and a little over 5m long that was designed to fire 340kg cannonballs. However, according to the guide on the boat trip, it only ever fired twice and the average distance this massive gun hurled these huge projectiles was 50 cm. Obviously enemies were terrified in the face of this WMD (Weapon of Mass Disappointment).

Russian New Year - 14 January 2006

Went in to London to see the Russian New Year festival and especially the Kremlin Guard who were performing outside of Russia for the first time ever. The set up in the square for viewing when there are tens of thousands of people is totally inadequate so unless you are willing to patiently wait in the freezing cold and slowly worm your way to a vantage point, it is very hard to get a decent view. Still, it was an historic occasion and we had chosen to wait in the warmth of the National Gallery so we had to take our chances. At the end they used a laser to write Happy New Year down Nelson’s Column and although with to the eye it appeared to be there all the time, the camera, not enjoying persistence, saw a different image.

What an amazing privilege, to be able to view the fantastic old masters in the gallery for free, any time you feel like it. There was an excellent photographic exhibition where the artist had used a composition of an old master and re-interpreted it in a modern, Hackney, setting. Some of them were really clever.
We passed by Fortnum & Mason’s store and their window displays were a tableau of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”. As one would expect, they were excellent. Unfortunately you have to ignore all the reflections in the pictures to get the effect.

Yellow Submarine: 3rd January 2006

The last excursion was billed as the “Yellow Submarine” and the VJV rep told us we would go 3m under water. The only bit that was correct was the ‘yellow’. We may have been viewing from 1m under water, if that, and in that sense it was “sub” marine. All in all it was a total rip-off that our wiser companions avoided paying for.

The flight home was delayed 2 hours which meant that by the time we had got back to central London the Tube had stopped running. Our only option was a rather expensive taxi ride home, £35 as opposed to £2 each on the Tube. The world famous “Knowledge” for the black cabs obviously does not extend this far as I had to tell the driver where to go.