I have so many posts half composed in my head, but unwritten and unposted: stray cats, blogging v WhatsApp, Brexit (again), amazing books, homelessness, climate crisis, MasterB. You get the picture. Maybe in time. But tonight, as we come to the end of Easter weekend, and the sun is shining, the blossom is still blossoming, the air has a gentle, mellow air, quite at odds with the political climate, I want to write about yesterday’s walk in Surrey.
Above the town
Farm building
Lush
I was born in Surrey and grew up there. I took its hills, its green fields, its bluebell woods for granted. You still get to enjoy these things in Surrey when your parents aren’t stockbrokers.
Bluebells
In leaf
Celia has just returned from Crete, where the spring flowers are a byword, but when we spoke on the ‘phone on Friday night she was up for a bluebell walk on Easter Sunday.
Sunken path
Loseley House
The walk was a Guildford circular, around eight miles long, including a short detour to Watts Gallery where we planned to picnic and see whatever installations the current artist in residence, Mary Branson, had made. As it turned out, there aren’t any yet, so we need to go back. We did manage to eat our lunch and to do some shopping. It’s not every country walk that includes successful purchases of kaftans and a child’s dress.
Cosmoscope, Watts Gallery
The weather was glorious, the sort of day Browning was probably thinking about in Florence when he wrote Home Thoughts From Abroad. And we were aware of trees in tiny leaf, though not elms; they succumbed to Dutch elm disease some forty years ago.
The terrain was varied; woodland, field edges, sunken paths, open ground, hills. We came to groups of houses too small to be described as villages, saw one ‘cottage’ about the size of the whole block of flats where I live, met dogs and their owners, walked through a field adjoining Loseley House. I kept turning to Celia to say how perfect it all was. There field of wheat, fields or rape, fields of sheep. There were flowers we couldn’t identify.
Rape field
Sheep and lambs
Blue flowers
The last section took us along the River Wey and into the town, where a brief stop at a pub brought our perambulations to an end.
The Wey
Three Men in a Boat
I took far too many pictures to post in one go, but maybe these will give the flavour of our day, and if you haven’t already been on your own bluebell walk this spring, maybe they will encourage you to get your boots on and search out some sheltered woodland over the next few days.
Thanks, Isobel, for some lovely photographs. I live in North Yorkshire now but it’s always a joy to see, or read about, some of my “old stamping grounds” – Pewley Downs, the Chantries, the river. I wonder which pub you stopped at? The Keep, perhaps, which you of course knew well as the Two Brewers?
Do you ever get back to Guildford Graham? I would happily send you details of this walk. The pub was called the White House, almost next door to St Nicholas church. I think the building may have belonged to a firm of solicitors when I lived in Guildford. I have more photos of this walk to post, if I ever get around to it!
Yes, I go down to Guildford once every summer, for a ‘meet up’ with a group of very old friends who were part of the Guildford Arts Lab in the 60s and early 70s. I know where the White House is, though I’ve not been in. I did get to visit the Watts Gallery two summers back and really enjoyed it, though the chapel was closed: maybe rectify that this summer! Details of your walk would be great to have, Isobel. Thank you very much!
https://www.ramblers.org.uk/route-detail?routeUID=3723-Guildford-the-North-Downs-Loseley-Park-and-the-River-Wey Here you go 😺
Looks like a lovely walk, but not masses of bluebells?
It was lovely, and there were many, many bluebells; English ones, and some still unfurling their flowers, so they held that wonderful promise of plenty.
What a great walk and in such wonderful spring weather too! The mystery blue flowers could be Alkanet used once as a red dye plant.
Ah, thank-you! I have some photos of other flowers we did know either. I shall post them and it would be great if you could identify them for us. Happy to send you the walk route if you are heading down to Guildford and Watts anytime soon.
I will try! Yes please to route….we do head down that way sometimes though not planning to in the near future but always collect routes of good walks! Thanks
Bluebells galore, but I don’t think photos ever do justice to that sea of colour. It was a brilliant walk, and as ever I appreciate having the record without having to get my own camera out or put pen to paper or fingers to screen! Thanks Isobel
Thank-you for agreeing to the walk and taking charge of the directions! Do you realise we didn’t get lost once? That must be a first 😺