Walk 22- the Bard’s walk

Neal, Will, Julie, Sue

Bus tour

Harvard House

Dressing up

Will’s birth cert

Greenery

Good shot

Marathon

RSC

Phew- made it

Will

Last weekend I maintained my 100% record of a walk every weekend since the start of the year. This wasn’t particularly an aim at the start of all this but somehow it has become compulsive. I planned this weekends walk around Stratford-upon-Avon and it seemed appropriate as it had been Shakespeare’s birthday on 23rd April when he would have been 449 years old. Looking forward to a good bash next year!

We’d also spent Saturday afternoon at the RSC seeing a really excellent play – The Empress. This obviously is not Shakespeare but is a play about the experiences of two Indian people when they arrive in Victorian London. Typically of the RSC it was fantastically atmospheric and towards the end, as the story developed, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. I’d highly recommend it.

So after the play we met up with our friends Sue and Neal, went out for a meal and then all made our way back to our house for the night. A cheese and wine party followed and we watched Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris. The next morning we weren’t in any particular hurry to get on our way……

After a slow start we made our way back to Stratford for our walk. I based the walk on two separate walks. Firstly, through the town looking at the old stuff and then a stride out along the banks of the River Avon. It turned out to be a good combination and perfect for Sue and Neal who don’t really do walking and don’t have walking boots. Having said that Sue does regularly walk to work so actually she’d already walked 10 miles that week.

Stratford was really busy and we found out that this was because we’d chosen a day when they were hosting the Shakespeare marathon and half marathon. So there were hundreds of terribly fit types of all ages making me feel very inadequate! Maybe next year eh? The town part of the walk starts at the Tourist Information office and we actually used the £1 guide from there which gives various POIs (points of interest) around the town. Good tip Janet- thanks.

I was the guide for the day and we visited Shakey’s birthplace and Harvard House (it was the builders grandson who emigrated to the US in 1637 and who on his death left half his estate and his library to help found the Harvard university). I think our particular favourite, however, was the Holy Trinity Church where we discovered that Shakespeare had been baptised, married and buried. This was doorstep tourism at its best. The number of times Jane and I have been to Stratford but NEVER visited here. It turns out that this is the most visited parish church in the country with 200,000 visitors a year. It’s right next door to the RSC which looks impressive after its £112.8m refurb.

Next we walked down to the river and started the walk along the banks. It was a fairly bright day but sadly the temperatures had dropped again and it was quite blowy. It soon became clear that I had made a bit of a mistake not wearing a coat. I was cold but no use moaning- just needed to keep the pace up! To be fair the path was much less muddy than the last time Jane and I were down by a river (Pershore) and it was an easy stroll as far as Stannal’s Bridge. It was nice to see the heron taking off but other than that the best interest came from seeing all the marathon runners. By the time they got to Stannal’s Bridge they were at 25 miles and had the end in sight. We gave them all an encouraging round of applause. It seemed the least we could do.

We crossed the river here and turned back along the other bank. The path on this side was a little higher up and it was quite green and more wooded on this side with some lovely blossom. We walked back into town, past the chain ferry and had great views of the church and theatre.

We’d had some good ‘talky’ along the way. Jane told us about how they’ve introduced a new concept in her workplace. They don’t just work in teams now- oh no- now they work in villages and Jane had recently won the competition for naming her village- Paradise. Well done.

Neal also updated us on his work happenings. He is a Facilities Manager and he has been told to be ‘more fluffy’. I am not sure he is comfortable with this concept! For most of the walk Jane and Neal chatted avidly about their shared passion of Fantasy Football and films- they’re off to see Ironman 3 together!! Sue and I meanwhile talked about our shared interests of art and the countryside.

By the time we got back into town we’d done 4.5 miles and decided not to go to the Butterfly Farm today. Instead we went into the Pen and Parchment pub for a drop of the local Poets Ink brew and to warm up! And as Prospero said:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, we’re all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air
We are such stuff as dreams are made on

Goodnight and happy belated birthday Will

Walk 8 – Soldier on

Pershore Bridge

Teasels

Treasure

Mucky Boots

Pine piles

Coffee stop

Crocus spring

Pershore Abbey

Branch

Slight delay this week in adding my latest walk. This was the walk that nearly didn’t happen at all. I was supposed to go on the Somerset Space walk (intriguing) with a colleague Jason from work last Saturday. However, Jason called me on the Friday to let me know that he had flu and obviously, being a man, he would be retiring to bed and not walking. Poor chap. I must admit I was quite glad that I didn’t have to drive all the way down to Taunton as I too had developed a rather nasty cold. Not only that but earlier in the week I had a slight accident when I slid down the stairs at home. I nearly tumbled from top to bottom but managed to stop myself by shoving my arm between the banisters. Nasty bruises but nothing broken thank goodness. Now that would have brought a whole other level of challenge to this business!

So what to do. Well of course Janey came to the rescue. I spent Saturday on the sofa crying my eyes out watching ‘The Help’ but then on Sunday – no matter what – we were going out. I found a nice looking walk on the Internet around Pershore. It looked as if it would be a well marked way and perhaps we’d be able to avoid mud…

It was a beautiful day, blue skies, bright and sunny and we made an early start. Jane would be sporting her new coat for the first time. I think these blog posts had made her realise that her red coat had featured in far too many photos going back for about the last 10 years so it was time for a change.

The walk starts down by the old bridge over the River Avon just outside Pershore and we’d decided, before we left that today, that we were on the look out for Spring. The first part of the walk is right along the side of the river. I am sure that in Summer this is very pleasant but today the river just looked a muddy, swirling brown, the supposed lush vegetation was all dead and the lovely path was just a mud bath. Once again we met one of those cheery lady dog walkers who said ‘It doesn’t get any better.’ Yes- thank you. So much for the lovely paved path that I had imagined. No, instead it was some of the worst mud we’d faced so far as the pic of our boots shows. I suppose though it could have been worse as Pershore has suffered some pretty serious flooding over the years and you could see where more recently the river has spilled onto the fields. In amongst some of the dead vegetation at one point we found the shells of freshwater mussels. They looked like precious treasure, shining in amongst all the debris.

At one point we were delicately tackling a particularly tricky mud pool when a young bog trotter came jogging past. He didn’t hold back and splashed his way straight through a puddle with a big ‘splosh!’ Jane threw him such a dirty look but luckily for him he didn’t actually manage to splash her or her new coat. Phew.

After the mudflats we then came away from the river and found ourselves in Tyddesley Wood. This is a plantation where they are gradually chopping down the pine trees and replacing them with natural broad leaved trees. I must admit I liked the pines as they are quite different to other woods around here. Ironic eh?

It’s a popular area with lots of little paths but we stuck to the main track and enjoyed the walking. There were lots of dog walkers but my favourite people that we passed were the young couple (haha how old am I?) out cycling. At the point we met them they had got off their bikes and were pushing them up a hill. The guy turned to the girl and said ‘Right, now that you have mastered the hills we’ll move onto the jumps’. I’m sure that was said for our benefit as if to prove that they weren’t just defeated by the slope!

Just past the log piles we found a nice little bench for our cup of coffee and a hot cross bun and it was a lovely and peaceful spot. Here we sat for a little while listening to the chirpy birds. Robins though we thought were not necessarily a sign of Spring. Although we managed to stay out of the military firing range area we did get a little lost here again as I’d ignored the path we were supposed to turn down as it was so muddy. We found ourselves instead walking right out of the end of the wood and onto a road. We decided to walk back into the town via the lanes. It was quite a hike uphill at this point but it was still lovely and sunny and we were in good spirits despite my cold. What was noticeable was the amount of rubbish along the side of the road. In a short space we found several lager cans, two empty bottles of wine, a MacDonalds fries wrapper and some Subway packaging. Why? What were these all doing out in the middle of nowhere? Had families returned to their cars after their picnic in the woods and then wound down their windows as they made their way home chucking all their empties out as they flew along. Who knows but it’s a poor show whatever their excuse.

As we walked back into town we did start to see some signs of Spring. There were people trimming their hedges and putting washing out on the line. There was also our first sightings of crocus and blossom and we did even see a bee. In truth though it is still very early and it ain’t sprung yet!

Once we got back into Pershore we went back via the Abbey. It’s quite a dramatic building – like a kind of stunted church. This is because of its equally dramatic history where over the years it got either burned down (Henry viii had a lot to answer for) or rebuilt or reinforced to stop it falling down. There was also some more modern history on display in the Abbey Park as we had to walk past the local youths. It’s odd but these days the girls are definitely more scary than the boys, when did that happen?

Once on the High Street we obviously decided to go into one of the pubs for a swift half. It was nothing flash but it was lovely to see how they looked after quite few of their elderly regulars in for their Sunday dinners in such a warm and friendly way. It’s a very nice town I think.

We also passed the place that I could have ended up working when I first moved up here. Lloyds Bank, Pershore. I always remember that visit for my interview – as it turned out for role in Business Banking rather than the Branch Manager role I’d applied for. How I laughed when I got stuck behind a tractor on my way home as it was so different to my normal commute into London on the train from Reigate.

As we came out of the pub and made our way back to the car I decided to test Jane on her local knowledge. I asked her the question ‘Who is Pershore’s most famous resident?’ This provided much amusement all the way back as Jane struggled to identify the mystery, female, pop singer from the 80s with red hair. Not that very nice man Richard King after all.

So all in all then this was a splendid walk and I have now plotted it on a new App I have been introduced to called ‘WalkJogRun’ . It’s been a really exciting find for me as I love maps and you can either find routes other people have already plotted or even better plot your own with little pins. That’s how I know this walk was a good 4.5 miler. Glad we soldiered on.