Limpsfield - the Bull

A discombobu - belated birthday walk!

Venue: The Bull, Limpsfield village

Walkers: Farty, Clatters, 12 legs, Windy Nohills and Mrs Provincial. TB (allegedly) playing with his balls

Weather: Better than the day before! Warm, cloudy but most importantly, dry

Distance: Just a smidgeon short of 6 miles

Time taken: 2.40 hrs

Find of the walk - sadly, a dead mouse and the decomposing remains of a badger

This walk was convened at the last minute to replace the rained off one on Tuesday - so considering the short notice, a pretty good turn out. We met at 12.30 at the Bull and started with a light lunch and just the odd glass of wine to toast 10 legs's birthday on Monday. The pub scored highly - a total of 18 as the food, value and ambiance was good and the service exceptional. A lovely young waitress who couldn't have been more attentive, and she even brought a bowl of water for the doggies without being asked. Having all had a try-on of Mrs P's cast-off clothes that were heading for the charity shop, we then got booted and spurred in the car park ready for the off. At that point Miss BUA circa 1965 suddenly joined the group - had she been invited? Did we know her? Did we want to know her? And then we realised it was Miss Nohills in disguise, not content with being blond chav / trailer trash a few weeks ago, decided to reinvent herself in a more lady-like fashion! Much hilarity all round, particularly when our Chris decided to do her best Cossack dancer impression!

Having composed ourselves (sort of) we then headed off for Titsey Estate, crossing under the M25 on the way. Clatters kept us all alert with her Christmas themed quizz (14 weeks only apparently until the dreaded - aaarrrggghhh!) - we sort of passed with a few handy clues from the quizz master! We stopped by the tea rooms and helped ourselves to some of the lovely free veg from the kitchen garden - the Emery clan sampled the beans tonight and they were given the thumbs up!

We took the 4 mile Titsey circular walk which lead us up another north face of the Eiger - Windy Nohills is obviously getting used to this as not a peep was heard out of her - probably too puffed to speak! There are some fabulous views from the top of the ridge which we stopped to admire (and take the odd mobile phone call, sorry!).

Minnie was definitely in 'going awol' mode today - we think she is suddenly hitting those teenage years, straining at the leash and taking off all over the place, following goodness knows what scents! Poor birthday gal spent alot of the walk trying to call her back - of course, one word from Sue and Minnie did exactly what Minnie wanted to do! We met a number of other dogs on the walk as well, all friendly and well behaved and all interested in our lovely girls.

The plan was to stop at Titsey tea rooms on the way back, but we decided that as time was marching on (just like us!) that we'd head back to the pub and try to grab a cuppa in the village. Unbelievably for such a picturesque place, there were no tea rooms , so we ended up back in the car park where yours truly, aka Mrs P, produced some chocolate cupcakes from the back of the car. They seemed to go down well, just hope you girlies have all got over the food poisoning by now! As you can see from the photo, our Josephine was quite exhaused after such an action packed day!

I think everyone knows the venue next week, but apologies for absence in advance as this particular blogger will be away, as will Chris. (As I'll be in France eating snails with Polly Possibly Not/Polly-esta, you may even get a blog en francais - oh no, I hear you groan!)

Have a good one and see you in a couple of weeks - a bientot! xxxxxxxxxx