0039 - UK 3

 0039 - UK 3

24th - 30th September 2022

Weir on River Wey

Having had a good nights sleep, we woke up ready for our last week in England, well recovered from our traumatic "Great Train Escape" from The Netherlands !!  After a late breakfast, we headed off towards Ripley, where we parked on the Common, opposite the Ripley Cricket Club Pavilion, and set of for a walk along the River Wey.   This is a delightful spot on God's Earth, and we soon came to a weir where a fish run has been built up the side to enable their movement.  Fascinating.

Houseboats on River Wey

Opposite the fish run there were a number of narrow canal boats parked, and they were obviously "static"- ie the owners lived on them there, and they had jetties and little gardens with a car parked behind on the road.  This is something I will probably never do, but which I would dearly love to do for 6 - 12 months !  Just the idea of living on board a moored boat for a while excites me - Don't need to go anywhere, but just to experience living on board a boat for a while.  I wonder where that came from ?  Maybe my Grandmother on my mum's side - She lived on a boat in Norwich........  There is definitely an itch that needs scratching there !!

Pint in the Ship Inn

Walking alongside River Wey

We continued on beside the River Wey, with a number more canal boats
moored alongside.  Over bridges, (from which apparently a certain Skidmore once dropped his mobile phone into the water and had to go wading to recover it !) past the old Ockham mill, and eventually, after about 4 kms, came back to our starting point in Ripley.  By then we were a bit thirsty, so dropped into The Ship Inn, which dates from about 1540, where we had a pint or two and a couple of bags of crisps before heading home.  Very pleasant day.

With John & Huw

The next day John and I headed down to the West Country and met my old college friend Huw at the Blue Ball Inn in Sidford.  Huw and I were at St Luke's Exeter together from 1966 - 1968, and John had met him then and we had all become friends.  John and I even visited Huw and his wife Dilly when they lived in Jamaica in the early 70's when John and I were living in the USA, so we all go back a long way.  Due to the tyranny of distance, we don't get to see Huw as often as we would like, but whenever we are in the UK, we catch up and are able to carry on the conversation where we left off a few years previously !  It was so good to catch up with him again.

Sitting beside Dad

On the 28th, Janet and I went in to Guildford and took the time to walk up through
the woods to the little Church of St Martha's-on-the-Hill.  My Dad was the vicar here in his later years when he lived in Guildford, right up until he died, and fact he has a small stone marker in the graveyard, up against the wall, and located underneath a blackberry bush.   It is always a pleasant walk up to say hello to him whenever we were in England, and today was no exception with w lovely blue sky, views over the Downs for miles, and little robin's playing amongst the fir cones under the trees.  It really is a delightful spot, and I think I would like to reserve a spot beside Dad when the time comes.   I really don't fancy baking under the Australian sun, so a spot under Dad's blackberry bush, with stunning views across the countryside, might be just the spot to go.   

St Martha's-on-the-Hill

Our last day in Europe, the 29th September, found us on another delightful walk across the Surrey Hills to Blatchford Down, with John and Di.  It was a fitting end to an amazing 3 months in Europe, and once we got home we had (yet another) delicious home cooked meal courtesy of Di, and plenty of wine courtesy of John (even including an Australian bottle of Penfold's Grange Hermitage I had brought over !) - So it truly was a fitting end to our trip.

With John & Di on our walk

Sad to leave, especially with Nick and Tanja and the girls in Almere, but the long time we were able to spend with them really enabled us to get to know them much better, and for them to recognise us when we have a WhatsApp video call !   John and Di dropped us at our terminal in Heathrow, and after some coffee and breakfast in a coffee shop, we boarded our Singapore Airlines flight back to Brisbane (via Singapore). Once again, an excellent flight, and Janet's brother Pete and wife Celia met us at the airport and drove us back to the house.  Soooooo good to sleep in our own bed again at last !!!

Until our next adventure.................