Brockham Green, The Plough (Leigh)

Ship-shape and bristols fashion
Tuesday: 13 July

Venue: Brockham Green - pub turned out to be our old fave The Plough, at Leigh, 'cos they serve food all day.

Walkers: Farty, T.B., Windy, 12 legs, Clat: apologies from Rararegistrar, as she has pulled a hamstring while zumba-ing - she said she felt it 'go' -ooo-er. No Trish, as she is getting soaked in Yorkshire, and Sally made it for lunch, which was a lovely surprise.

Find of the walk: absolutely nothing

Distance: 71/2 miles

This walk was originally planned for the one featuring 'one gruelling ascent' up the side of Boxhill, but our health and safety helmets got carried away with us. We thought it best to walk a bit more levelly, and not attempt a one in two, as it had been raining, and was drizzling as we met - so it was shippage over slippage today, as the revised walk is ship-shaped on the map. As for Bristols - I shall leave that to your imagination. Brockham was very busy, and we noticed that the funfair had arrived, and was setting-up on the green - they are having a village party on 17th July.

We set off past a couple of pubs, and down and across the river, to join the Greensand Way, which had back gardens on one side, and the river on the other. In one garden Farty spied a weird-shaped aviary. She called it something which sounded like 'a geo-smeghead shape', but i am sure that's wrong - hey ho. The weather felt clammy, with a constipated sky always threatening to become a diarrhoea of rain, which wasn't helped by Farty telling us she thought she had bowel cancer this morning, then realised she had eaten a load of beetroot - panic over!

Through the fields we went and arrived at Betchworth, where we decided to stop for a coffee in the Dolphin pub. The greeting could have been a little warmer from the staff, but one customer, already on his beer,( at just gone 11), did have a chat - he had been to the tip - what an enlightening conversation. Coffees drunk, we left , but not before the customer asked T.B. how he coped with his social harem - with difficulty, I expect!!! Outside the pub we pointed out Betchworth forge - and a bit of a mix-up in the conversation followed, as T.B. said the prices were good - 'how do you know?' we asked - 'cos we've just come out' he replied. We said 'oh no we haven't', and this could have gone on well into the pantomime season, until Farty put him straight. Time to move on...........................

The break meant we had to step on the pace a bit, and we headed up towards Wonham Manor, but hung a left, avoiding it, and traversed some pleasant countryside. We passed Buckland nearby, stopped to pick fir cones for Farty, through farmland and Reigate Heath golf course, and on towards the Skimmington Castle, where Josephine was accosted by a Hungarian Vischler, but in a nice way.

On we went , heading homewards. However, Josephine's charms attracted the attention of a local thug, in the shape of a pit-bull cross, who could have got very cross, as he marched up to her rear end (dirty boy). We deployed walking sticks, and Minnie was scooped up out of the way- grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr his hackles were up, and it was easy to see that these dogs are solid and strong and could do some serious damage. Luckily he went away - so we thought, but at the edge of the next field, T.B. turned round to find 'bother boy' still with us, but he did eventually go back to his acid house, and we had ' poodle intactum' or should it be 'poodle intactarse'?

We skirted Leigh as we walked through fields and fields of ripe crops - hope it's a bumper one for the farmers. Our crop i.d. skills are limited, so really need to differentiate between wheat, barley and oats - a lot of spitting-out didn't help to i.d. them either.

We eventually found our cars, and headed for the Plough, although we had to join a queue as one massive combine-harvester was taking over the whole road, and cars were mounting the pavements to get out of it's way.The pub was o.k., although the publican could have been a bit more friendly and welcoming - a smile would have been a good idea. We didn't get round to marking properly, as we had the pleasure of Sally, and wanted to have a proper catch-up. No idea of venue for next week's walk either, but we are working on it. watch this space!

Have a good week, everyone.