Waving the flag Outside the Three Hills pub in Bartlow. Julia is still Inside! This evening I’m feeling extremely tired, but satisfied. My walk today was 11 miles into Cambridge, so this is another milestone. Julia met me with the flag and the collecting box and we “girded our loins” to accost the students and tourists milling around the colleges. It was a most rewarding hour, as we collected more than £70. However, following right on from a day’s slog over field and track, it hasn’t been kind to my legs and feet and we still have work to do. On this exceptionally good caravan park, whose owners have not charged us a penny, there is a large group of caravaners having a rally. They’ve asked us to visit them with our box and as this is our last night here we must summon up some strength from somewhere. Today the GPS really proved its worth. I found myself on the wrong side of a deep ditch and thick hedge, wondering in long fen grass. The GPS told me I was going in the right direction and I knew I must cross over to the path. It was much too far to go back, so Rudi and I found a small break in the hedge and slid about five feet to the bottom of the ditch. Then Rudi pulled me out the other side – I’m glad his ancestors are made for pulling sledges! Resuming my account of the days when we were without the computer link, I must tell you about the delightful circular walk we did in Bury St Edmunds. This had been arranged by an extremely kind lady named Rosie Perham and was led by Dave Chandler. We were an especially happy group, as one member had heard she’d become a granny for the first time as she walked from her house to join us! We began by strolling through the Abbey Gardens and inspecting the tower that has recently been built next to the Abbey. You’d never know it wasn’t an original that had been restored. It was the 40th anniversary of D Day and Julia took my picture standing with a decorated veteran and his wife. Unfortunately, many of our best photos are on Julia’s camera, rather than the digital, so until we have a scanner available we can’t show them to you. The start of my next day’s walk to Lidgate was made easier because we’d walked in the same area of Bury with Rosie and her friends the previous day. There were lots of hares in the fields and woodpeckers in the trees. Judging by the number of baby squirrels about, I think there’s been a population explosion. Whenever I see pine trees I long to see our native red squirrels playing in them, but sadly the few that remain are much further north than Suffolk. I was still continuing to enjoy the green Suffolk lanes, gently rolling fields and deciduous woods. After the day’s walk we took fond farewell of Leslie at The Three Tuns in Cowlinge, who had so generously allowed us to stay for four nights, and moved on to Castle Camps in Cambridgeshire, where we parked up on the driveway of Alan and Jean Hardy. This lovely couple had come over to Cowlinge on Saturday evening to say hello and from the first moment of meeting, totally spoilt us. The circular walk Alan had arranged next day was to Braggs Mill, Ashdon, a post mill erected in 1757 and worked continuously until 1912, which is being restored by a group of local people who had provided some most welcome fruit juice, delightfully served on a table with sunshade. It was a privilege to be able to climb to the top of this ancient symbol of the English countryside and see much of the original features being restored by Vincent Pargeter, the Essex Millwright. The fact that the work was only partly completed gave a much more realistic idea of what it must have been like when in operation. We also walked by three Roman burial mounds, thought to be the graves of wealthy landowners of the 1st or 2nd century AD. We all bravely climbed the many steps to the top of one of the mounds and then were rewarded with a lunch and refreshing drink in The Three Hills pub. It’s a good job I’m not superstitious, as the brief dip into Essex means I will walk through thirteen counties on the Granny Trek. |