Monday January 16, 2006

Wet and Dry

Despite an early morning shower I decided to go on a walk from Maidenhead to Cookham and back on Saturday. I wanted to visit a pub called the Ferry which was a new entry in the pub guide in Cookham. We had done this walk before and my wife had warned me the beginning had been problematic then. I parked in the town by Jenners cafe where lots of cyclists were having a pit stop. I could not find the place to start the walk so improvised ith the help of my OS map I had with me. Soon I met the road called the Pagoda and I was back on track. I then followed a road called road named after the gravel company who must have done gravel extraction (and continue to do so ) in this area. A lake named after the company was on my left a filled in old workings I expect. In this housing estate there were lots of really old trees with wonderfully patterned bark on their trunks. Before reaching the countryside proper I passed on my right the current gravel workings with huge piles of graded gravel waiting to be taken offsite. At this stage the walk went as expected following several fields with crops to feed sheep during the winter growing well. Things then went wrong; whenever there is a sign indicating path diversions the walker needs to be careful. I was heading to Strand water a narrow strip of water up ahead. Two kind folks got me back on track. At the start of Strand Water two swans were swimming in it looking for food, I too was getting hungry but had nothing to offer them. The path then became unclear and as it was now raining heavily, I plodded on until I came to a road. I was in Cookham but by its railway station - at the other end of the village from where I should have been. I walked through the village the smell of one of its Indian resturants temping me to come in but I resisted. I took a quick look at its pretty church, above the clock face on the tower is a sundial.

I saw the pub in the distance and observed it was a member of a chain I know. It is really a resturant not a pub and they don't do things like sandwiches. At this point I was also very wet and there is nothing worse sitting in a pub with wet trousers clinging to your legs. I then left the village by way of Mill lane and headed to the River Thames. As I joined the river on the opposite bank was the grounds of Cliveden sadly the clock tower with its lovely face out of view. This house is owned by the National trust but also run as a hotel. It stands 200ft above the river and has great views (on a nice day) of the river and surrounding countryside. This house is the third to be built on this site and built by Barry in 1851 and became the property of the Astor family and was associated with the political intrigues and gatherings of the Cliveden set in the 1920's and 1930s and later in the Profumo scandal in 1963. The towpath was now very muddy which made the walking difficult. After one and a half miles it became tarmaced with very large and nice houses were on my right. I soon reached the weir and walked beside the cut which leads to Boulters lock right by my starting point. I then realised why the start had been so difficult I had parked at the wrong parking site.

On Sunday a dry day had us head out to the Chilterns to visit a shop to buy some things for the downstairs toilet and do a walk around nearby Penn St The name Penn st must relate to nearby Penn around which I did a walk last year which I wrote about before when I discovered ( for me) the origin of Pennsylvania. The walk had us park at a pub and head out over fields to the nearby A404 on which we drove to Penn St on. Not long after starting we realised we had gone wrong. A bit of leg work with the OS map had us back on track heading to Woodrow farm. At this stage of the walk we decided that the fields were too muddy to walk on and one of us would fall. We recrossed the A404 and took the remainder of the walk on narrow roads. We soon came to Winchmore Hill where after a steep climb we got to a pub where we had a pit stop. It announced itself as a Gourmet pub (which means restuarant) but despite this we were made welcome and had a very nice coffee and lemonade. We then continued on the road back to Penn St. We passed the first pub in the village the Hit or Miss and decided to give it a miss. A little further way along we reached our starting point the Squirrel pub. This pub is also in the hands of the owners of the Hit or Miss and very nice it was too. A nice chicken, basil and mayo baguette ( 3.95) and free refills of coffee were much appreciated. On the way out of the village I took a picture of its pretty church.

We then drove to the store bought our items and headed home. All that was left to do before it got dark was clean two pairs of muddy boots and wash one very muddy car.