So on Saturday the intrepid Loop walkers (being me, Nicola, Mhairi and Jackie) headed off to do Section 4 - from West Wickham Common to Hamsey Green in Croydon.
We had been meant to do this section a week earlier, but after the 'Big Snow' we thought it might be prudent to wait a week... which was probably wise, but even so it was very muddy. Following on from the walk we'd been invited to a Valentine's dinner at Simon's place (for all of us singletons) - and as it was only a 9 mile walk I thought if we headed off at midday we wouldn't get to Simon's too early. Turns out I was basing my calculations on mine and Julia's walking pace, not that of the four of us so it took us a wee bit longer than I had thought it would! Hey - finishing walking almost in the dark is fun...
But it was a great walk. Lots of woods which were lovely to walk through. Most surreal moment was our lunch stop. We went into a pub called the Sandrock, which was fairly 'gastro'. We were impressed with the service, and enjoyed our meals (we just had light meals however as we were saving ourselves for Simon's), and chatted about how nice it was to get somewhere where the pubs were good (we've been in some pretty sub-standard ones up till now). It was at this point I looked up and through the door into the kitchen, and after peering intently I realised that it was Chris in the kitchen! So purely by coincidence we had ended up in the pub Chris cooks in!! Fortunately I could honestly tell him that we had all been very impressed :-). He came out briefly (they were busy) and was telling me about the fab roasts he does on a Sunday so when Maya has a Sunday off we're going to go out for Sunday lunch!
After lunch we took a slight detour to the Shirley Windmill which is just down the road from the Sandrock. Very cool to see - although Nicola was a bit horrified I hadn't seen the one in Wimbledon Common... After that it was up into Addington Hills for some great views out over London. Check out my pics on Flickr - although my camera really isn't good enough to do them justice. But we were all very impressed - we could see Canary Wharf, Wembley Stadium, the Gerkhin, great views of Crystal Palace etc.
Then it was on through many more woods - and an encounter with not just one, not just two, but FOUR German Shepherds. What was most disturbing was that they were being walked by a woman on a mobility scooter, 3 were not on any leash, and they were all VERY barky and growly at us. It was really unpleasant - and although Nicola spent a lot of the rest of the walk and dinner telling us that wasn't their fault, the opinion of the rest of us was that we would rather not have dogs that scared people. We were not convinced of the woman's ability to control them just with her voice, and it did feel like a pack...
Not long after that we encountered the two Staffordshire bull terriers - which were almost as scary, but at least they were being walked by a fairly scary looking man who did look like he could control them. And while they are meant to be nice temperaments you can't help but think of all the awful stories you hear about them...
And about 1 and 3/4 hours after we said we'd be there, we did get to Simon's for a lovely meal of French Onion soup, hearty beef stew and apple crumble made by Mhairi. Who needs a boyfriend on Valentines Day when you've got your friends :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment