Bletchingly 1 1/2 - The Whyte Harte

Mud Mud, far from glorious Mud!


Venue: The Whyte Harte, Bletchingly

Walkers: Farty, TB, Hootsmon, Miss Wendy Nohills, 12 Legs and Mrs P. Clat and Lil in Portsmouth (where hopefully there wasn't any mud!). Sal's birthday - Happy Birthday Sal! - so presumably doing birthday things
Distance: About 6 1/2 miles

Time Taken: 2hrs 40 mins

Weather: Cold, cloudy but fortunately not raining

We all gathered promptly at the allotted time and set off sharpish as Farty had to made a swift departure after lunch to see her dermy man. We were all well wrapped up against the cold, especially 8 legs who were sporting their smart winter overcoats - did we detect a tad of straining at the seams of Minnie's?! One too many mince pies?!

Farty quite rightly suggested that all I needed to say about the walk is: Mud, mud, squelch, squelch, slip, slide, more mud, more squelch for 6 1/2 miles - and that just about sums it up!

'Field of Mud'

We set off through the churchyard and the first point of interested we reached was the Old Rectory, the beautiful house used in Sense and Sensibility. Through the gates of the garden we spied what has to be the largest plant pot we've ever seen sitting empty by the outbuildings. If we had that in our garden there wouldn't be much room left for anything else! Onwards through another muddy field where our intrepid Windy started a backward slide down a little slope and ended up with a very muddy posterior! It was a day spent trying to avoid any such mishaps, particularly when we hit the "field of mud". Our hearts sank as we saw what we had to cross but there was nothing for it except to plough on through. The mud just stuck to our boots and weighed us down, and if we stopped you could feel yourself sinking deeper into the mire - lovely!

We passed under the M23 and through Nutfield Marsh where the Inn on the Pond looked good and a possible venue for the future. On the field opposite were 2 rather sad and lonely looking horses who were tethered but came up to say hello. We think they probably belong to members of the "travelling community" - I shall be very pc and use that term rather than the one we used at the time!

When we reached Nutfield itself we followed a path around the back of a housing estate where the woods had been used as dumping ground for all sort of rubbish. How can people do it? Dirty lot! We were comtemplating which path to take when we met a lovely lady with her even more lovely bull terrier who offered to help us. (That's the lady, not the bull terrier!). The dog was very well behaved and very interested in our 8 legs - Minnie did her usual thing of barking from a distance, stopped when the dog came closer but started barking again after she walked on as if to say How brave I am!!

So back on the right track to the village where we had no choice but to do some road walking, but not for too long. We then had a choice of taking the slightly longer way home or to cut it short and head straight back to Bletchingly. In view of the time spent trudging through mud the vote was for the shortest route! so we walked on, into a very dark tunnel under the M23 and up the long hill back to the pub. Despite the gloomy weather there were lovely views as we climbed up the path.

The pub as ever was really welcoming, the food great although it has to be said that the chips aren't a patch on the first time we ate there - TB kept trying them out just to make sure! Minnie was soon zipped up in her designer dog fleece, made by the ever talented Clat, and looked snug as a bug in rug. Poor TB was very long suffering as the conversation turned girlie and all sort of female complaints were aired - he rightly buried his head in the paper to await his fish and chips!

walk's end

 We were finished in good time for Farty to dash off to see her dishy consultant - hope it went well!

Next week TBA so watch out for a text! And good luck with your standby Hootsmon - hope you get something good with loads of notice and don't have to work up!