Skip to main content

Doin' the Dog Walk

A while ago I wrote (only partly tongue in cheek) about how important a dog was to a full time writer. On walks with the dog I get my best ideas, pull books mentally into shape - generally do much better thinking that sitting at my desk.

I wanted to share one of my favourite dog walks, through the nearby village of Hinton Parva. I'm sorry this will be a bit of a long post as I couldn't decide which pictures to miss out.

As we get on the edge of the village there's this wonderfully incongrous neighbourhood watch sign. There's not a building within 100 yards - I guess it's the cows and horses that are watching.

This isn't flat territory - I love the rise and fall of the walk here on the edge of the chalk ridge of the Downs (which confusingly are upland).

Heading down into the village. Apart from the wires, rather pretty. Most of the walk is on road, but it's the kind of road where you only meet a car once every 10 minutes or so.

Tucked away just off the main road through the village is a tiny green with traditional Wiltshire buildings...

... and a lovely little church, St Swithun's. It's Saxon in parts, and Norman for most of the rest of it.

Unlike many churches, it's unlocked every day...

inside on the sunny Spring day it's cool and welcoming.

I love the old font - wonderful carved detail.

Goldie isn't quite so impressed at being left outside.

So back across a field to the highlight of the walk...

With two houses, a barn and lots of fields this has to be the street sign with the biggest pretentions of grandeur ever.

So it's back uphill on the winding way home.


Labels:

Comments

  1. Anonymous22 March 2009 at 11:28

    Aw,Brian, can I bring the beagle and my beloved Mae West on a walkie with you?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bob O'Hara22 March 2009 at 11:52

    I guess someone's planning for massive urbanization.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Brian Clegg22 March 2009 at 12:54

    Lynn, you (and the beagle and Mae West) are welcome any time!

    Bob - that's what I call long term planning!

    ReplyDelete
  4. cromercrox22 March 2009 at 21:59

    Lovely. Until you had the one of Goldie waiting outside the church, I thought you'd say she'd come in and drunk out of the font. Now you've done it - I shall have to retaliate with a favourite Cromer walk. But when Heidi is a bit fitter - she was spayed on Monday and is still a little sorry for herself.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Clare Dudman22 March 2009 at 23:19

    mmm - beautiful little church and village. It looks like a lovely place to live.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Brian Clegg23 March 2009 at 08:39

    Goldie sends her commiserations to Heidi.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp...
122 comments
Read more

Murder by Candlelight - Ed. Cecily Gayford ***

Nothing seems to suit Christmas reading better than either ghost stories or Christmas-set novels. For some this means a fluffy romance in the snow, but for those of us with darker preferences, it's hard to beat a good Christmas murder. An annual event for me over the last few years has been getting the excellent series of classic murderous Christmas short stories pulled together by Cecily Gayford, starting with the 2016 Murder under the Christmas Tree . This featured seasonal output from the likes of Margery Allingham, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ellis Peters and Dorothy L. Sayers, laced with a few more modern authors such as Ian Rankin and Val McDermid, in some shiny Christmassy twisty tales. I actually thought while purchasing this year's addition 'Surely she is going to run out of classic stories soon' - and sadly, to a degree, Gayford has. The first half of Murder by Candlelight is up to the usual standard with some good seasonal tales from the likes of Catherine Aird, Car...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense...
6 comments
Read more