Wednesday 26 June 2013

Another walk and an otter.

These flying saucers even have wi-fi! Such nice little green men.
After polishing the left hand side of the boat this morning we decided that the day was far to nice to sit around so we set off on another tramp, this time we set off for Stanton St. Bernard. I don't know where St. Bernard comes in because the church

is dedicated to All Saints. Nothing like backing all the runners.

A view down The Street, the main thoroughfare. The name really doesn't show a lot of original thought or imagination.
After exploring the village we set off across country following a bridle path clearly shown on the O.S. map.
Once again it was the triumph of hope over experience.


That's the path going up the middle, let's just call it challenging. We eventually made it onto the road to Alton Barnes, directly under the white horse.

I swear it was smirking at us as we emerged, coated in seeds and pollen and liberally draped in spider webs.
By now were late, we were expecting the grandsons over for tea while their parents went to a school preview, Noah goes up to secondary school this year.

On the road from Alton Barnes to Honeystreet we found this sign and following the pointer we fought our way through long grass until we found it.


The memorial is on the entrance to a WWII air raid shelter, the last trace of RAF Alton Barnes. It is sadly overgrown and difficult to find and is currently guarded by


this pair and their calf. They really didn't care about us, a casual glance is all we were worth.
The highlight of the day though was saved for last, as we walked back past The Barge.

It was an otter swimming up the cut, the first wild otter I have seen since I was a child. To use a phrase from the younger generation, It was Awesome.

The boys arrived and for a change from uckers, on the gambling hell that is Armadillo, we taught them to play Newmarket.

Watch this space..........



2 comments:

Nancy said...

How wonderful to see an otter. We've been told they are around in various places we've been but we haven't spotted one. It must be magical.

Graham and Jill Findlay said...

Difficult to put it into words but magical comes close!