A full day, starting at Marlow Common

As David and Alison are joining The Bottom Line on New Years Day at The Dog and Badger, we thought it might be good  to practice together before the event and arranged it for early Saturday afternoon. That just about gave the four of us time or a decent-length walk nearby.

I choose one just under 7 miles long, heading North from Marlow Common from The Handbook of Chiltern Hill Walks that we've had for ages - some of the walks are annotated with 1987 dates. It's not actually a great book - the descriptions are sometimes hard to follow and not much effort was spent on design. However, it certainly has hills.

After a 'shall we, shan't we' conversation prompted by some sleet, we went ahead ahead and had a lovely walk, albeit with some gratuitous ascent and descent.

We got back in time for an excellent practice. It was clearly a long day because I fell asleep sitting up in an armchair in the evening.

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Bloom Wood & Cold Moorholm before dark

The forecast was for sun today and showers tomorrow. We had a Bottom Line practice this morning, so had to hurry to fit in a walk today. We needed a nearby shortish walk and chose one that we've done many times. We originally found it in the Rambling for Pleasure in East Berkshire book that our friend Liz gave us when we first moved to Marlow Bottom.

We chose this walk partly because it started close to Phil Bowditch butchers where we were able to buy salt beef (a family favourite) last week. We went there before the walk to stock up with more for the freezer and got a very good deal! Guess what we're eating on Xmas Eve.

We did the walk in the opposite direction to the one recommended by the book, and at a cracking pace, to avoid getting caught in the wood in the dark. As it happened, we got back to the car just  in time.


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A late start for West Wycombe and Hughenden

We'd been to London on Saturday to see the excellent One Man, Two Guvnors and so had had a late night and a lie-in. We therefore started this walk later than we had planned.

Another excellent route from Adventurous Pub Walks in the Chilterns but, in this case, without a pub visit. We started from Bradenham, went up to and along the West Wycombe ridge to the village, up to Downley, down to Hughenden (resisting the temptation of the tea room) and then through the woods on a very muddy bridleway back to the car. I wouldn't like to walk along that bridleway after a wet autumn.

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