Short walk as countryside access warden in Rough Common, about three km WNW of Canterbury. First drove to Red Lion Cottage on A290 for bags of manure. Parked Church Wood Close, leading to Sidney Cooper Close.
Wearing coat, mainly cos i need pockets. Bit breezy up here. Path CB503. Replaced tatty endmarker on fingerpost. Finger missing pointing south. Grassy path between garden fences. Daisies. Pretty purple flowers. Gravelly underfoot. Back of village hall car park. Saw son James play cricket here for Harbledown. Would prob have won but for torrential thunderstorm. Net. White pavilion: painted concrete blocks. Children’s play equipment: slide, climbing net etc. Borage? Cross Garden Close. Rewrote path number: used new wide Sharpie pen. Ivy covered breeze block walls. Earth path. Little electricity substation on left. Nettles. Turn right into St Michaels Close.
Left onto Palmars Cross Road. Noisy. Popular way out of Canterbury to Whitstable. Drove this way myself. Council leader wants to build a bigger road near here. Destroying woodland. Down 10% steep hill. Opposite entrance to “Woodlands” On left two storey houses. Difficult crossing: L-driver stopped for me. Havisham Manor any connection with Dickens? Flinty building with half timbering. Walk on what i assume is old road down to former A2. Paddock on left with brown and white horse. Narrow path through nettles. Tarmac then concrete down to A2050 Harbledown bypass. Cut finger on saw cutting brambles. Foolish: couldn’t find secateurs.
Right onto busy road towards Faversham. Luckily sidewalk on this side. Gorse in flower. Oxeye daisies. Hawthorn. Opposite on old road Kent College junior school. Vernon Holme, one of Sidney Cooper’s houses.
Right, leaving road but not noise. CB501 stony farm track. PRIVATE ROAD NO ENTRY. Access to Isobel Mead Farm. Woodland on right. And a stream. Unkempt grass on left. Tractor and trailer abandoned, covered with brambles. So slow. Is it worth doing this? Thinking of stopping at 80. Doing less and less. Pity: gives me a small purpose in life.
Large house on right, solar panels, big grassy garden. Y junction of tracks. Footpath goes thro gate between ends of Y. Gate rests on large molehill. Stream on right. Grassy between fence and grass field on left and wood and left. Years ago used to park bikes at end of field before woodland walks.
Have visited every footpath within 10km of Canterbury. Do i keep extending my area increasing car journeys for short walks? Or revisit nearer paths?
Charles making queen’s speech. Think she should retire. Annoyed media obsessed with Johnson and Starmer and covid regs. Horrible things government doing, or not doing, not scrutinised. Similarly war in Ukraine dominates media.
Dismantled shed in field to left. Britain selling equioment to Ukraine. Bet SAS there. Seems some would like UK USA Nato to be at war. Scary. Nuclear war.
Welcome waymarker. Turn right into woods. Come here chestnutting. Over dry? stream. Pipe made into bridge. Turn left. Bluebells. Holly. To right gate. Private. Presumably into woods belong to big house. Left.Uphill. No mud! Today i stay on public right of way. To left is path next to stream where i reckon best chestnuts are. Catkins on path. Walking clockwise go down steepest hill but up longest hill. Fallen branch but easy to walk past. May report it. Fading bluebells among brambles. Great difficulty uphill. Decrepitude. Silver birch, Oak Beech i think. Slightly downhill. Stony. Bear right up wider path.
Bit of wood to left has model zebra, tin man, dark skinned Dorothy, model boar, wooden horse, someone flying. Bluebells. Info Board RSPB Blean Woods 509 hectares of woodland and heath. Road. almost opp village hall. Short walk to car.
Started as CAW with large shoulder bag with tools and smaller bag with maps, notebook, compass, secateurs. Later all in one bag. Lopsided. Now use small back pack. OK in winter when i have pockets. Easier walking, especially with stick, but difficult access. Should i get a small bag?
An hours walk. No mud. Passed no one except in vehicles.
This is an experiment. Poor memory. Writing notes means frequent stops. Used microcassette recorder. Most of this blog is a transcript, little altered but punctuation added. Aim to record thoughts while walking. Does it work? Please let me know. First and last paragraphs added afterwards.
Note: Sidney Cooper, landscape artist, 1803-1902. Born Canterbury. A favourite painting from a favourite place (Tonford) is “Fording a brook, suburbs of Canterbury” in the Beaney, Canterbury. I look at it every time i visit our library.
Rambling Brummie 