Where's Bertie? He has spent three nights at a basic (sloping field, tap, waste point) certified (5 van) campsite at Bennets Wood Farm near Streatley/Goring. He was also here in April 2021, although the price has doubled since then, to £10 per night.
Weather: Mainly sunny intervals. Rain overnight Friday into Saturday morning. Breezy on Saturday. Rain overnight Saturday into Sunday, leading into an overcast day.
As the job we were due to be doing on Wednesday got deferred due to a forecast of rain (weather that, in the event, didn't materialise), it occurred to me that there was no reason we needed to wait until the weekend to start heading down south for our Chunnel crossing on Monday. Indeed, as the weekend was to be preceded by two bank holidays (delayed late May, plus special Platinum Jubilee), combined with it being school holidays, travelling on Sunday wasn't looking like the usual easy-traffic option. Admittedly, neither Wednesday or Thursday looked to be particularly appealing travel days either, but we figured that if we set out by 0800 on Thursday, we likely would be ahead of most people aiming to move about the country.
We did well, and at 0750 I had one shoe on and was seconds away from being ready to go. Then I remembered one key omission: Bertie wasn't taxed*! It was but a short delay, and before the clock ticked over to 8am the issue had been resolved and Bertie's tyres hit tarmac for the first time since returning from Spain in March.
The journey was easy, and broken only to buy fuel (ouch - 181.9/litre!). The decision as to where to place Bertie in this sloping field was less easy. Ideally, we would take advantage of Bertie's natural slope and face him up the hill, but that would give us views of nothing but trees, whereas the view in the other direction is outstanding.
This photo doesn't do the view justice.
Maybe this one from 14 month ago is better?
Cups of tea and a snack, then we were out the door, for a run/walk.
You can see the path up the next hill in this snap (look in the field above the white house). I'm not sure if the steepness of that hill is properly represented. On Thursday I did that hill twice upwards and once down.
Our chosen route didn't cover any ground that we hadn't been on last April, but the difference at this time of year is that the undergrowth is reaching its peak. There were four overgrown areas in total and despite my care, I got nettled on every one of them. In hindsight, my shortest running skirt wasn't the best choice.
Just as Mick was finishing his outing, and I was just heading back up the killer hill to make up my distance, we were treated to a fly past by 8 Typhoons, followed by the Red Arrows.
If we did anything of note for the rest of the day, I've now forgotten what it was.
Friday
We had nothing on the agenda, but thought that after a lazy start we might walk into Goring. It was gone half noon by the time we were approaching ready to leave, by which time we'd heard from Mick's younger son that he was heading over to see us. He arrived bearing carrot cake (yum!) and a good afternoon of chatting ensued.
Saturday
Long run day! With Mick's route being 10km shorter than mine, we'd considered two options: either (a) I could leave half an hour before him and take a longer route to Compton, where I would meet him for a mid-morning snack from the village store; or (b) we could set out at the same time and not meet up in Compton.
I'm not sure we reached a positive decision, but we ended up setting out at the same time and, thanks to the amount of uppity downity on the first part of the routes, stayed together for the first 6km, by which time we were proceeding along The Ridgeway. I then went on ahead.
The North Wessex Downs AONB (which deserves that designation; it's lovely!) is liberally scattered with By-Ways, and there are three that lead, at various points, from The Ridgeway to Compton. Mick's route was to take him down the second one and, impulsively, when I reached the third, I decided to head down it and see if I could intercept Mick to walk back up to The Ridgeway with him, rather than continuing with my intended route. It worked out well, in that when I called him from the village centre, he was just a couple of hundred metres away.
I stayed with Mick most of the way back to Bertie, with our routes only diverging because I wasn't keen to tackle the nettles again, and I didn't need the extra ascent/descent involved in that route. Thus I took a longer, but flatter (and nettle-free) route via some more By-Ways and, conveniently, reached the point where our routes converged again just seconds before him.
Back at Bertie, I paused only to inhale a snack and change my legwear (I'd realised within 2km of setting out that I was wearing an incompatible pants/shorts combo) before heading back out. I only needed to go another 7.5km, but the route I fancied was 12.5km, so that's what I did. It was, again, lovely. It's not just the countryside, but the scattering of unique and highly attractive properties.
I didn't snap shots of any of the houses, but here's the church at Aldworth
The rest of the day involved a lot of eating and drinking, plus a disrupted viewing of the England football match for Mick (disrupted because the TV signal here drops out every few seconds).
Sunday
Having stayed on this campsite for the best part of a week over the last two years, it was feeling negligent that we'd never been into the nearest town (village?). So, whilst Mick repeated the circuit we'd done on Thursday, I started Sunday's run by heading down to Goring for a little look around.
Glad I wasn't later in the day when I would have run into a road closure for jubilee celebrations. As it was, teams were just setting up a sound system and infrastructure and I was able to pass through, and back, unimpeded.
Thames bridges, adorned with flags
Thames
I soon turned back from my intended route along the Thames on The Ridgeway, deciding it was going to be too flat and too much tarmac, and headed instead back up to the lumpier section of the route, to the west.
Arriving back at Bertie slightly later than planned (it's difficult when not doing an out-and-back route, or a pre-planned circuit, to judge, on the hoof, the appropriate route to take to fill exactly 3 hours), haste needed to be made. Whilst the campsite doesn't have a departure deadline, we wanted to be on the move as soon as possible, as the next stage of the day involved the M4 and the M25.
Traffic incidents and queues were encountered as we made our way to Crawley, but it certainly could have been worse. After a couple of hours drinking tea and eating cake with Vic, Juan and family, we were on the move again, this time to Canterbury.
(*Bertie's tax ran out at the end of March, so we SORNed him, although not before the Direct Debit payment had been taken, so it had to be refunded a few days later. His tax at that point cost £275. When we came to retax him on 1 June it cost £295. Glad we didn't find ourselves putting him back on the road later in April - that would have been painful!)
Weather: Mainly sunny intervals. Rain overnight Friday into Saturday morning. Breezy on Saturday. Rain overnight Saturday into Sunday, leading into an overcast day.
As the job we were due to be doing on Wednesday got deferred due to a forecast of rain (weather that, in the event, didn't materialise), it occurred to me that there was no reason we needed to wait until the weekend to start heading down south for our Chunnel crossing on Monday. Indeed, as the weekend was to be preceded by two bank holidays (delayed late May, plus special Platinum Jubilee), combined with it being school holidays, travelling on Sunday wasn't looking like the usual easy-traffic option. Admittedly, neither Wednesday or Thursday looked to be particularly appealing travel days either, but we figured that if we set out by 0800 on Thursday, we likely would be ahead of most people aiming to move about the country.
We did well, and at 0750 I had one shoe on and was seconds away from being ready to go. Then I remembered one key omission: Bertie wasn't taxed*! It was but a short delay, and before the clock ticked over to 8am the issue had been resolved and Bertie's tyres hit tarmac for the first time since returning from Spain in March.
The journey was easy, and broken only to buy fuel (ouch - 181.9/litre!). The decision as to where to place Bertie in this sloping field was less easy. Ideally, we would take advantage of Bertie's natural slope and face him up the hill, but that would give us views of nothing but trees, whereas the view in the other direction is outstanding.
Cups of tea and a snack, then we were out the door, for a run/walk.
Our chosen route didn't cover any ground that we hadn't been on last April, but the difference at this time of year is that the undergrowth is reaching its peak. There were four overgrown areas in total and despite my care, I got nettled on every one of them. In hindsight, my shortest running skirt wasn't the best choice.
Just as Mick was finishing his outing, and I was just heading back up the killer hill to make up my distance, we were treated to a fly past by 8 Typhoons, followed by the Red Arrows.
If we did anything of note for the rest of the day, I've now forgotten what it was.
Friday
We had nothing on the agenda, but thought that after a lazy start we might walk into Goring. It was gone half noon by the time we were approaching ready to leave, by which time we'd heard from Mick's younger son that he was heading over to see us. He arrived bearing carrot cake (yum!) and a good afternoon of chatting ensued.
Saturday
Long run day! With Mick's route being 10km shorter than mine, we'd considered two options: either (a) I could leave half an hour before him and take a longer route to Compton, where I would meet him for a mid-morning snack from the village store; or (b) we could set out at the same time and not meet up in Compton.
I'm not sure we reached a positive decision, but we ended up setting out at the same time and, thanks to the amount of uppity downity on the first part of the routes, stayed together for the first 6km, by which time we were proceeding along The Ridgeway. I then went on ahead.
The North Wessex Downs AONB (which deserves that designation; it's lovely!) is liberally scattered with By-Ways, and there are three that lead, at various points, from The Ridgeway to Compton. Mick's route was to take him down the second one and, impulsively, when I reached the third, I decided to head down it and see if I could intercept Mick to walk back up to The Ridgeway with him, rather than continuing with my intended route. It worked out well, in that when I called him from the village centre, he was just a couple of hundred metres away.
I stayed with Mick most of the way back to Bertie, with our routes only diverging because I wasn't keen to tackle the nettles again, and I didn't need the extra ascent/descent involved in that route. Thus I took a longer, but flatter (and nettle-free) route via some more By-Ways and, conveniently, reached the point where our routes converged again just seconds before him.
Back at Bertie, I paused only to inhale a snack and change my legwear (I'd realised within 2km of setting out that I was wearing an incompatible pants/shorts combo) before heading back out. I only needed to go another 7.5km, but the route I fancied was 12.5km, so that's what I did. It was, again, lovely. It's not just the countryside, but the scattering of unique and highly attractive properties.
The rest of the day involved a lot of eating and drinking, plus a disrupted viewing of the England football match for Mick (disrupted because the TV signal here drops out every few seconds).
Sunday
Having stayed on this campsite for the best part of a week over the last two years, it was feeling negligent that we'd never been into the nearest town (village?). So, whilst Mick repeated the circuit we'd done on Thursday, I started Sunday's run by heading down to Goring for a little look around.
Glad I wasn't later in the day when I would have run into a road closure for jubilee celebrations. As it was, teams were just setting up a sound system and infrastructure and I was able to pass through, and back, unimpeded.
I soon turned back from my intended route along the Thames on The Ridgeway, deciding it was going to be too flat and too much tarmac, and headed instead back up to the lumpier section of the route, to the west.
Arriving back at Bertie slightly later than planned (it's difficult when not doing an out-and-back route, or a pre-planned circuit, to judge, on the hoof, the appropriate route to take to fill exactly 3 hours), haste needed to be made. Whilst the campsite doesn't have a departure deadline, we wanted to be on the move as soon as possible, as the next stage of the day involved the M4 and the M25.
Traffic incidents and queues were encountered as we made our way to Crawley, but it certainly could have been worse. After a couple of hours drinking tea and eating cake with Vic, Juan and family, we were on the move again, this time to Canterbury.
(*Bertie's tax ran out at the end of March, so we SORNed him, although not before the Direct Debit payment had been taken, so it had to be refunded a few days later. His tax at that point cost £275. When we came to retax him on 1 June it cost £295. Glad we didn't find ourselves putting him back on the road later in April - that would have been painful!)
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