AT OUR WHITLEY'S END

With the prospect of a reasonably fine day last week, I had an outing with one of the local ramblers groups.  We started from the White Hart at Whitley.  The pub has 17th century bits but I believe the original parts are 14th century.

And although it didn't rain until later, the signs of recent storms were all around.

 And we had to take a detour at this path (just as it started to rain!).

 

Some liked the water better than others.

 

I guess the golfers didn't like this much on the 4th green and 5th tee.

 

When the sun was out, the woodlands were beautiful.

 

I haven't posted any pornographic trees for a while, so here are a couple from this walk.

And there were stunning views across the Surrey countryside

with some pretty little cottages.

The Dog and Pheasant is a lovely pub, I suspect mostly 16th century, now a popular foodie restaurant.  We sat in the garden though and ate our sandwiches.

The footpath is hard to miss on the hill down the other side.  But it was perversely the hardest part of the walk, being wet and slippery and at a rather unhelpful angle.

We are blessed with snowdrops almost everywhere at the moment.

And then we were back in the old village of Whitley, with its historic cottages.

A nice example of the local pointing style called 'galletting'.

BOX AND COX

Bit of a busy couple of days.  For the first year, I was not in charge of the bridge tournament at my charity in Petersfield.  So I could sit and relax and play and keep my mind on the cards.  Or so I thought . . .

I ended up going to Petersfield at the crack of dawn to collect the tables from the local bridge club and helping deliver them to the tournament bvenuse.  Then, with an hour's break, I slipped round to The George for coffee.  Here's The George at 9 o'clock.

Yes, it was that lovely!

After bridge (more organising, crummy cards, fabulous lunch), I visited the lavender fields at Selborne, as the late afternoon was the best time to see them (and they were just still at their best).  Here's a couple of pics:

 The house.

 

 Display for Prince George?

 The lavender harvester.

Of course the place was crawling with bees. 

 

Not the best focussed, but I liked this pose.

Next morning we were at the Playhouse Theatre in Epsom for granddaughter's first stage appearance (no photography allowed of course).  And then down to Worthing.

En route we passed Box Hill.  You may remember that the Olympics cycle road race was held over the Hill and along the flat here last year.  The road is about to be closed again for the anniversary race.  I'll see if I can make it back there then.  Today though it was an excuse for a break here - in the valley by the Denbies Vineyard.

 

This was also the cue for the rain to begin at last (never thought I'd say that, but it's a while since we saw any).  This is Box Hill seen from the garden.

Fancy cycling over that?  We found a better way to spend an hour.

Early a.m. before we were back home, but a quieter Sunday ahead (back to refurbishing the kitchen.  Hmmm.).