A sunny spring walk for the walking wounded

Burstow Church

The Conservative Duck House

Seat made specially for said Tory to survey his duck house!

The field of Daffodils

'Well, we told you to stop talking and start paying attention . . and now we have to sort out the mess . . .!'

Skunk Cabbage

Venue: The Hedgehog Inn, Effingham Road, Copthorne

Walkers: Clatchat, Farty, TB, Mrs Provincial and our newest member - 'Rara Registrar'!! A warm welcome Angela!! Our Sal and two of our 12 legs (Chris) joined us for lunch afterwards.

Distance: 10k/just over 6 miles. A good effort considering the handicaps - poor M&M putting in a brave effort having been laid very low with a nasty case of the dreaded Norovirus, Rara Registrar on her first official walk as a fully fledged member and yours truly having whinged out of the last few walks on account of my back. Apologies for absence received from Ms Nohills due to a bad case of Spanish cough. Can we blame them too for the norovirus? Why not?! 10 legs were at the doggie hairdressers being coiffed and hopefully ready for next walk (well, the 8 legs and not Sue we presume!)

Weather: Sunny but still a chill in the air.

Find of the walk: a repeat of the last Hedgehog walk last November - our wondfully tasteful tulips still abandoned in a ditch, and amazingly enough, the ones we photographed last time were still lying in the field. If I can ever get this silly programme to upload the photos , you may even be able to see a photo of said find!

We set off just a tad late, and Mrs Provincial being fresh from her Map and Compass course was delegated as navigator - panic! Bit like being told to operate as CSD at short notice . . . However, Clatters was there to keep an eye, and luckily Farty was observant enough to find a number of signs when I was too busy talking - I know, most unusual . . .

We retraced many of our steps from the last walk. Much of it was muddy underfoot, but first lovely sight we came across was a field planted with beautiful daffs - apparently they are Welsh daffs, slightly smaller than the usual but they made a glorious sight. Onwards past at least 2 duck houses which made us think this is obviously true blue Tory country - the 2nd one being a floating house! The owners were no doubt busy filling in their expenses forms . . . . and hoping for re-election next month . . fat chance!

We passed the site of the abandoned sofa from November, sadly no longer there (this time I would have been tempted to put it in the back of my car!) and onwards to Burstow church where we stopped for mid morning refreshments. This time the church wasn't covered in scaffolding and we were delighted to find it open so popped inside for a quick look. Very pretty, particularly with the Easter flowers.

We found many of the signs to be broken/in bad state of repair, and also we found the stiles to be very high - or perhaps we are just shrinking? It comes with age, oh dear. We found some very unusual plants in a waterlogged ditch which according to our very own horticulturist Farty is an alien species called 'skunk cabbage'. We could smell why it got its name! Our 2 norovirus sufferers were doing really well at this point, particularly when TB announced very happily that normal service had been resumed in the 'wind' department! Luckily he was behind us all in the field when he put this into practice. . . So we made the decision that rather than do an 'add on' we would cut the walk slightly short and head back for the pub before we all succumbed to our various disabilites - sorry Clatters and Rararegistrar, you 2 were in fine form and am sure could have carried on.

Pub scores on the doors: Ambiance 3, Food 4, Service 3 (very slow, all chewing the chair legs by the time it arrived) and Value 5 - 2 main courses for a tenner, great value and good food too.

It was great that 2 legs and Sal could join us and good to catch up on all the news and gossip.

Next walk: Tuesday 13th April, The Rising Sun, 64 The Street, Charlwood, RH6 0DS. Map reference (hope I've got this right!) TQ242412

See you there!

PS: Will try to post the rest of the photos tomorrow - I'm afraid still haven't quite mastered this uploading thing and have had enough for one evening!