Pitstone Redundant Church to The Valiant Trooper, Aldbury (Circular Walk)

In which we walk off the Sunday glumpf we were suffering, squelch our way through some very sticky mud and I - to my horror - find myself in a position to need to defend Twilight. I feel sullied and unusual.

Ordnance Survey Map: Explorer 181
Distance: 5 miles approx
Time: 3 hours (not including the time it takes to eat a poor treacle sponge in The Valiant Trooper)
Rating: Moderate Walk

We were all of a grump and a glumpf, and what with the weather forecast threatening arctic conditions on the way, the ChapDad and I decided we need to get out of the house before we have to bundle ourselves up in a million layers just to poke our noses outdoors.

The walk starts a Pitstone Redundant Church. Directly opposite this is a gate and a path into the trees. Turn left when you join the main path, and then take the first right hand path that appears to lead you out along the edge of the quarry.

Follow around the edge of the quarry and then follow the instructions as on this walk around the base of Pitstone Hill, but instead of turning right down the public bridleway, we turned left towards Aldbury. Not long after this you come to a crossroads and should continue onwards, joining the Ridgeway National Trail. This is very well signposted (black signs or white-on-black acorn markers), so even I knew where I was going.

This route takes you through the charmingly named 'Aldbury Nowers', which is a delight for all of us who like to verb things at will. (What does Aldbury do? Aldbury nowers. What does Jonathan do? Jonathan Frakes. Imagine our delight whilst on holiday in Brussels upon finding a lorry emblazoned with the name Marcus Vanderhoydonks.). Anyway, it's Chiltern chalk grassland and very good for butterflies and British orchids.





All this tramping across the countryside gives one opportunities to have a good rant, and I had found rantfodder this week whilst idly looking for amusement. Like many people on the Intarwebz, when I find myself with the odd minute of free time it often ends up being wasted finding vague moments of roflment on the wall photos of George Takei's Facebook page. I started doing so after I saw this video:

Now, in the interests of fairness, I must confess that I don't really like Twilight. I read the first one because everyone was going on about it, but it didn't work for me. This is going to sound horrendously shallow, but if you're going to market a love story to me, I need to find the male protagonist hot, and I didn't. I also watched the film in the interests of of fairness (really, everyone was saying how great it was), and my interest remained unpiqued. I didn't hate it (although I did hate the descriptions of Edward Cullen's clothes. Honestly, Bella, take the man in hand and sort out his wardrobe!), but I didn't think it was the best thing ever. Don't get me wrong, I do like a good vampire story, but I always preferred Lestat to Louise; Spike to Angel. I don't like the whiny ones.

So, like many people, I enjoy whiling away my time smirking at the memes people have created about Twilight.

There are the ones that just show horror at it:

There are the ones that have a feminist point to make about it:

There are those who don't think it's much of a romance:

"The problem about Twilight" suggested the ChapDad "Is that there is nothing there for men. Which is why there's this massive backlash against it. All the criticism focuses on how it's rubbish because girls like it, and the pitch of the squawking. The moment Cons get invaded by screaming girls, everyone starts getting sniffy, but they're not taking it seriously, they're just writing it off because its perceived as being for girls."

Which isn't why I didn't like Twilight - I found Edward ferociously patronising (I never liked those paternalistic romantic heroes), I thought his clothes were awful (unbuttoned sleeveless shirts under tan jumpers? Come on, either it's hot enough to unbutton a shirt, in which case you don't need a jumper, or it's cold enough to need a jumper and to do your shirt up underneath, laddie), I disliked the way it uses the old romance trope of the kiss standing in for orgasm (Blood boiled beneath my skin, burned in my lips. My breath came in a wild gasp. May fingers knotted in his hair, clutching him to me. (Twilight, p261, 2009 BBC Audiobooks Large Print Edition )To paraphrase Germaine Greer, if the build up to a kiss results in orgasm, anything heavier will clearly result in epilepsy.), and I dislike that whole suppressed violence thing Edward has going on. Also, I found that whole 'I want to bite you, oh but I mustn't, oh but you seem so delicious, oh I must bite you, but no, I mustn't' not really my style. Stop shilly-shallying, man! I've been promised a good biting, and a good firm biting I expect! Lestat wouldn't hang around like this, you know. But anyway.

Hedgerows near Aldbury

Upon reaching the crossroads, follow the Ridgeway downwards until you join Station Road, then turn left along this (it's not far) until the road makes a dog-leg to the left and you continue onwards along the edge of the field. The planting of the hedgerows was really well thought out, and there were some interesting colours for the time of year. Cross over a black bridleway, and then turn left through a metal kissing gate as I did at the end of the Aldbury Circuit Part I.

The Valiant Trooper, Aldbury

 Along this road, we decided to break our walk in the middle to have a cup of tea in The Valiant Trooper. This is one of those quintessential British village pubs, all nooks, crannies and roaring fires. I didn't have a beer for fear I would fall asleep and need to be carried home, which was mean considering the ChapDad was carrying the Chap too. I had a cup of mint tea instead (it means I can share with the Chap, who is partial to a spot of mint tea. I blame the vast quantities I drank whilst pregnant) and a very regrettable treacle sponge that had been sitting too long beneath a heatlamp, I suspect.

Suitably recovered, and some of us with a new nappy, we left the Valiant Trooper and turned right, crossed over the road heading past the stocks, pond and the Greyhound Inn and continued down the road. We took a right turn through the recreation ground, bearing to the far left corner of the field until we popped out onto the lane that runs alongside the golf course (a route I did the other way in the Aldbury Circuit Part II). Follow this path until you come to a wooden gate in the fence on your right. Go through the gate and follow the yellow arrows up the gentle rise along the side of the golf course. At the top of the rise there is another signpost - go straight ahead into the woodland.

The mud through this stretch of woodland was really black. I'm sure that says something, but what it is I couldn't say. This path will lead you to another green lane running across it - turn left, and you will rejoin the route you came via Aldbury Nowers (What does Aldbury do?). From here, it is simply a case of retracing your steps all the way back to the Church.

So we snorted mostly about psychedelic kisses and I  held forth at some ranty length commented about the relevance of the ensouled vampire to the burgeoning sexuality of the adolescent girl. And then... then there's the stuff about Edward. Now, just in case you've missed the whole Twilight thing, in the Meyer take on the vampire story, the reason why vampires can't go out in the sunshine is because if they do, the sparkle. Now, this has prompted a huge outpouring of glitterball-based snerking around the internet. I'm not having a go at the snerk. I will fight to the death for your right to snerk, as Mark Twain didn't say. But it's not about the snerking, it's the method you use to snerk. The best of the snerking uses stories within the current(ish) vampire mythologies with characters that we know are very bad men:

Just in case my mum reads this, this means
 'really, sir, I do believe you must be joking'

Fine, fine. This being the internet, a kitten also has to get involved somewhere. This is, because as we are all well aware, the internet is made of cats.

And then things start to go a bit ugly...

Really? Only David, Elton and Freddie? Dear God, someone get onto the rappers - put the bling down, gents. Yes, Mr Doggy Dogg, you too. Apparently the shiny stuff is now reserved for three men only, one of whom is now dead.

Ah, now we get to it. Where does that phrase 'real men' come from, exactly? Girly vampires and real men? That's the greatest insult you can give to Edward Cullen - he's girly? Couldn't you reach for, perhaps, insipid? But no, we need the word girly there to prove a point -the vampires are -shock, horror- similar to females! Spock, Kirk and McCoy however, are Men. When Men sparkle, it's through the use of machines to get somewhere. That makes it Manly. Once they've done sparkling, they all rub meat on their chests and go back to whittling a war club.

But, to give the meme its due, it suggests that there is a time and a place for men to sparkle. But then...

Woah....

No, wait a minute, I see your point. Because really, we don't want to perpetuate this namby-pamby myth that men have feelings, do we? Only gay men have feelings, as well we know. If they insist in going about all queer then they need to indicate it in the camp, lispy, shiny suited way, because if they don't... if they just look like the sort of people who sit around drinking tea and eating toast, then... then... we won't be able to tell, will we? We might treat them like normal people, and that would never do. No, real men, that's what we want. Real men have guns and live in the Wild West. They don't speak too much, and if they do we can describe it as a growl, or maybe a grunt. That's a real man. We want, to steal a phrase from Germaine Greer 'the charm of a half-cured goatskin'. That's definitely the image I want my son to grow up with - you're only a man if you're unkempt, toting some form of weaponry, and God forbid you should demonstrate sensitivity (which we all know is a euphemism for 'as a row of tents') or wish to listen to women.

But hold on - Clint Eastwood is an actor. He plays pretend for a living.That's pretty gay. Oo, hold on. Let me consult the Real Man Handbook here - I need to look this one up.

This sort of retrogressive tosh helps no-one. The concept of a 'real man' is a poisonous as  'yummy mummy', and leads to misery for both sexes. It is a myth, a mirage, a lie as big as the beauty industry peddling that women need to constantly be primping and preening or you will be in danger of losing 'your man' (because you need to have one of those. Greatest achievement you can make, apart from the day you have a child, obviously. Obviously that is the same for everyone, right?).
 You know what makes you a real man? Being in possession of the correct set of genitals. Everything else is just gender dancing on top. It is the frosting to your cupcake. You see those guns? Frosting. The swagger? Frosting. The much-lauded inability to cry? Frosting. Those lads strutting down the high street with massive pitbulls? Frosting. Teenage boys pretending to be gangsters? Frosting. Bankers making stupid decisions, risking too much because they got over-confident? Frosting. Feeling the need to perform your gender, feeling you have to be a certain way to be acceptable is dangerous to everyone, and it makes everyone miserable.

Things I Learnt

• What Aldbury does.
• I still don't really like Twilight (stop all this moping a fetch me Mr Pointy, I say, but maybe that's just my age talking), but I like the way it gets criticised less.
• Custard left under a heat lamp = regrettable.

Aldbury to the Bridgewater Monument (Circular Walk)

In which I have a leisurely wander from the village of Aldbury up to the Bridgewater Monument and back, don't stop for a cup of tea because the Chap was a-napping, and wish you a festive furry fu-fu.

Ordnance Survey Map: 181 (Chiltern Hills North)

Distance: Approx 3 miles

Time: 1 hour
Rating: Easy-Moderate Walk (hills & maps & mud - oh my!)

On my previous walks around Aldbury I had seen signs to the Bridgewater Monument, so I have been quite keen to join the dots of The Aldbury Circuit Part I & Part II and the Ashridge Estate. Also, The Chap has been running yet another mild temperature (the average child has 12 colds a year, I think I read in the NHS Birth to Five book), and so a trot in the fresh air is always good.

This time I did not abuse the good nature of the Greyhound pub car park, but instead parked 100 or so metres beyond that in the recreation ground car park, where a few other people were starting off on their own walks - although they seemed to be heading more towards the Ridgeway than in the direction I was going.

Come out of the car park and turn left, walking down the road for about half a kilometre. It's quite a narrow road, but it's quiet with it. In due course, after passing a natty wrought iron gate on the right and seeing a large white country house hotel through the trees on the left, you follow the public bridleway signs and turn right through Stocks Farm and head gently upwards.

This bit through the farm was pretty muddy, so it was a case squelching for quite a long way. I reckon with a bit of tenacity of upper body strength you could do this walk in the summer with a pram, but in the winter  it would have been pretty dire. As it was, I still had to go pretty carefully as I'm always a bit concerned about slipping over and squishing the Chap on landing. He was oblivious, of course - by this point he had nodded off.

It being Christmas and the season of eating, I had thought a lot about weaning this week. Particularly as we had a pre-Christmas family dinner in which the Chap kicked off in a particularly impressive way (we later discovered it was probably because he was ill). He's not a big eater - we've had the health visitor in who announced him fine, and to keep doing what we're doing and he'll pick up on the food eventually. But yes, the way he can ruin a dinner is pretty stressful when you tend to use the preparing and eating of meals as a stress-relieving activity. I wrote a whole post about how, when your relationship with food is pretty messed up at the best of times, weaning can be pretty trying. However, I want to be enjoying Christmas dinner without all of my family-in-law peering at my extra helping of turkey and thinking 'hmmm', so it's not going on the blog yet. Maybe in the new year.

What has pleased me greatly this week, however, has been pubic hair. No, really. This is the sort of thing that pleases me. To my shame, I have finally been sucked into one of those weird half-reality half-soap opera shows, set in Liverpool and tastefully titled Desperate Scousewives. It's worth a look for nothing if not the eyebrows - they look like they've been drawn on with a ruler and a biro. Anyway, a couple of the girls on that were discussing how one of them had had laser hair removal on her - ahem - 'bikini area'. "Imagine being an old woman with a bald Minnie." the other commented. Quite. Why would you want such a thing? Let me nail my colours to the mast as being from the Caitlin Moran school of pubic hair;

"I now believe that there are only four things a grown, modern woman should have: a pair of yellow shoes (they unexpectedly go with everything), a friend who will come and post bail at 4am, a failsafe pie recipe, and a proper muff. A big, hairy minge. A lovely furry moof that looks – when she sits, naked – as if she has a marmoset sitting in her lap. A tame marmoset, that she can send off to pickpocket things, should she so need it – like that trained monkey in Raiders of the Lost Ark"

How to Be A Woman, 2011

There is no dignity in being a grown woman with a la-la like an eight year old. And there certainly will be no dignity in it when you're eighty.

And before I continue on with my walk, let me continue publicising my shameless fangirl crush on Caitlin Moran by suggesting you  watch her opine in the attempt to flog her book:

I love her. I just need to say that. I love her.

Ahem.

The Bridgewater Monument at the Winter Solstice.

The path really was quite muddy, and as you head up into the tree-line it also gets a little steep. It's not too bad, but it took me longer than necessary while toting nearly 2 stone of baby up a muddy incline. As this incline begins to flatten out, you shortly come to a point where the path divides. Take the left hand hand fork (marked no horses) and head through the woods until you pop out onto a wide mobility trail which shows you are now clearly on the Ashridge Estate. Well, that at the Bridgewater Monument peering through the trees at you.

I had intended to stop at the cafe here for a cup of tea and a piece of cake, but the Chap was asleep and I didn't want to wake him, so I decided to save the calories for later and continue on my way.

Cross the field in front of the Bridgewater Monumnet as if you are heading to the cafe, then turn right down the mobility trail. In a few hundred metre this also diverges, so take the right hand fork downwards to head back towards Aldbury. This really is quite a steep incline, so watch your feet!

So yes, the reason why pubic hair has pleased me this week is that - apparently - it is coming back into fashion. Or so Eva Wiseman told me (me personally, of course) on Twitter, and she has striking hair, so it must be true. There's a pleasing article on jezebel.com that you can read by clicking this link. If you don't want to see any (tastefully done) muff shots, then don't.

I am heartened at the thought of a festive furry backlash. I was also heartened by a recent report on BBC's Woman's Hour that touched upon recent 'Muff Marches' held by the campaign group UK Feminista regarding the rise of 'designer vaginas'. Now, waving my 'I have birth vaginally and had a third degree perineal tear' flag (handed out in theatre, sometime in between the start of the suturing and the point at which they start talking about you as if you're not there. If you really want one, I'm sure you can pick them up on Ebay very easily. Amazon have probably started selling them, to be honest), I would like to look this allegedly rising trend firmly in the eye, poke its pigeon chest with my bony finger and advise it most strongly to leave be my cha-cha-cha. There will be some women who do need labioplasty - if they find bits of their anatomy interfering with sex and making it uncomfortable, for example - but the vast majority do not. This sort of behaviour, and the normalising of it, just plays on fears, to steal a phrase from Germaine Greer, that "No woman wants to find out that she has a twat like a horse collar". There is enough censuring about the female body from the outside - we don't need it to get internal as well. I'm not tying bows on my bloody kidneys for fear someone may want to have a little look. There will be no cravat upon my pancreas. My cervix does not need a hat. Back off, Harley Street. Back the hell off.

Anyway, hurrah for a festive muff, I say. Maybe I should have hallooed that as I once again entered the village of Aldbury. I didn't, sadly. I merely turned right, towards the centre of the village, then right again past the duck pond, the Greyhound pub and down the road again to the car park.


Things I Learnt

• Gosh, it's dark this time of year.
• And muddy. Don't look at the rain on your path as you leave and think 'oh,  my jeans'll be fiiiine', because  I was coated in mud to my mid shins.
• Pubic hair pleases me. It really does. And the word 'merkin' is always welcome in Scrabble.

The Aldbury Circuit, Part II

In which I manage to make it all the way around the village of Aldbury, enjoy the (possible) last of the sun and ponder elaborate interpretations of In The Night Garden.

Ordnance Survey Map: Explorer 181
Distance: 5 miles approx
Time: 90 minutes (which, considering the last time I tried to do this it took me 75 mins to do half the distance, shows the lack of faffing around in this walk).

Rating: Easy-Moderate Walk







Both The Chap and I were a bit headcoldy, so it seemed a wise move to get us out into the sunshine (while it's still visible!) and get some fresh air into us.

Parking again outside The Greyhound pub, pass the duckpond, cross the road  and head down Trooper Road.  This retraced my steps from the quick exit I made when I was in Aldbury in September. At the end of the road, go through a metal kissing gate and follow the field boundary until you meet and pass through another gate.

Once you have done this, turn right up a gently rising field, again following a field boundary until you pop out onto the road. It is not a difficult stretch of road-work - there's an easy bit of verge you an leap on when cars go by, and you're not on the road for very long, anyway. Shortly up ahead there is a path leading away from the road and up a slope - take this until you reach a cross-roads. At the cross roads turn right along a dirt path, giving you views of gently rolling countryside and sheep. It's the countryside that rolls gently, not the sheep, you understand. Sheep generally do what sheep do, which is stare with the dull-eyed vacancy akin to youths sodcasting on buses.

In the distance, popping up over the trees is the odd green cup on top of the Bridgewater Monument.

Meanwhile, in the 1800s...
"Duke of Bridgewater! How do you want to be remembered?"
"Well, let me think, Carruthers... I built a lot of canals. Don't you think that would help people remember me? There's the name and the canals, they sort of go together..."
"Steering committee isn't too keen on the canal angle. Not with all these rumours of Stephenson's kettle on tracks. We need to think big!"
"Bigger than canals?"
"I think we need something punchier, sir. Something for people to really rally around."
"What do you suggest, Carruthers?"
"I think we should stick a massive green cup on top of a pole, sir!"
"Capital idea! You read my mind!"

As I passed by the sheep, I saw some men walking in the distance, one of whom was in a very jaunty red jumper. I quietly approved that others were taking advantage of the nice day. Carrying on up the path, I lost sight of them and all of a sudden I saw the red-jumpered fellow again, but closer this time. They seemed to be walking round in circles - were they lost? Had they not made offerings to Keith, God of Those With Poor Map-Reading Skills And A Dubious Sense of Direction? Would they like to look at my map? Then, a horrifying thought came to me - maybe these were the murderers my mother had warned me about! That's what they were doing! Walking about, waiting. Waiting to come and get me! Oh, what an impetuous boob I had been!

Then I rounded a corner...

Ritual significance, possibly religious...?

 Or, they could just be golfers.

From here it was a simple case of following the path until reaching the road. You are led along a wooded path down the side of the golf course for the most part. It was one of the last few sunny days we are likely to get this year (although for the past month people have seemed to suck their teeth and say "Well, the weather's going to change at the end of the week..."), so it was nice to be out in it before winter finally appears.

It's a funny old thing, being a parent. You start off with all these rules in your head that you've acquired from somewhere, only to jettison them when you discover the practicalities of the things you'd say you'd never do. I still think it's probably best to avoid Godfrey's Cordial, similar laudanum based soothers or gin (for the baby), but on the less extreme end of baby-calming, I had said I would never use a dummy. I think we had one in use from the end of about the first week when we discovered it worked.
Similarly, television. We lived without a TV for around 3 years in the days before digital streaming onto computers, and now we technically don't have a TV - we watch pretty much everything through the laptop. We like to wag our fingers at the influence of television at a fair few social ills in our house. My child? Pfft! No television until they're at least 3! And then strictly rationed! Like the gin bottle, it was officially marked not for babies.
Until, of course, I discovered the wonderfully soothing effect that In The Night Garden can have on a small, teething child who has been making that UUuuuuhhhh. UuuuuuHHHH. UUuuUUUUuuuHHHH. noise of General Discomfort for, ooo, three hours. UUUuuuuhhh. UuuuhhhHHH. Chewy toys, cucumber, teething gel, going for a walk - none of it worked. UUuuuuUUUHHHH. UUuuuuhhhh. In desperation, I went for the nuclear option; the Ninky Nonk.

Silence.

Say what you like about In The Night Garden - it works. It is famous for having a slightly soporific affect on children, but I am also interested in the soporific effect it has on grownups - ten minutes of Derek Jacobi talking soothingly and counting Pontypines and I was a lot calmer, as was the baby.

This is not the way to the Garden in the night.

Mention In The Night Garden to parents, and they have a sort of wide-eyed expression of one who has glimpsed Nirvana (unless you're the sort who would like to hiss about how it's rubbish and doesn't teach children how to speak properly. If you'd like to do this, I raise you Bill & Ben The Flowerpot Men, The Clangers and Pingu. I'd also advise you to go away and read this and then come back with a structured argument as to why it's rubbish and then I will listen to what you say. More often than not, the people who do the hissing have never wathed a full episode...). I certainly wouldn't let The Chap watch TV every day, but if he is cranky and any amount of playing, reading, watching the washing machine or going for a walk hasn't worked, a spot of Makka Pakka (OCD or misplaced Christ complex? Parents I have spoken to are divided) works a treat.

Flushed with success as I reached The Greyhound, I decided I had the time, inclination and agreeable baby to keep going, so I decided to complete the circuit following instructions as for The Aldbury Circuit Part I (To be honest, I did do a slight variation where instead of taking the first left after the first benh, I carried straight ahead which cuts out all the uppy-downy business and just pops you straight out onto the road. It should be pretty obvious if you look at a map. I think.).

Passing the duckpond again, The Chap woke up and peered about, but he seemed quite jolly and happy to continue, so I was able to carry on up the hill without having to turn back.

One of the joys of In The Night Garden is the plethora of elaborate interpretations that parents seem to glean from it. Our children just seem to be amused by Upsy Daisy dancing - one friend, however, asserts that the whole of the programme is the fevered fantasy life of Iggle Piggle creating a cast of characters to make him feel less alone as he floats, hopeless and abandoned, upon the winedark sea. For the rest of us, it just seems to pose questions. Is Makka Pakka's OCD under control? No-one needs to wash that many faces and stones in a day. Why has no-one noticed that the driver of the Ninky Nonk appears to be drunk? Who is driving the Ninky Nonk? Why do the Tombliboos hang their trousers on the line without washing them? Are the Pontypines drawing state benefits? Upsy Daisy can inflate her skirt so she shows us her pants ("No better that she ought to be!" cries my husband) before doing a dance. Is this the sort of female role model I should be presenting my son with?!

In short, I enjoy it very much. And as long as I am sitting there with The Chap and chipping in with Derek Jacobi and waving at the Haa Hoos, I don't think it can do that much harm - if I left him on his own watching it while I went away and did the washing up, I wouldn't be so happy with the situation. And anyway, if I did that I wouldn't get to count the Pontypines.

I finished the walk down Trooper Road and back to the car via the stocks and whipping post. I still have a few ideas as to who we could pop in there should Aldbury wish to rejuvenate this historic site...

Things I Learnt

• When it comes to parenting, never say never. Except, perhaps, when it comes to Godfrey's Cordial.
• Aldbury is a lot closer to Ashridge than I think it is.
• Makka pakka akka wakka mikka makka and, indeed, moo.

The Aldbury Circuit. Part I

In which I fail to walk all the way round the village of Aldbury, deal with a pretty unpleasant nappy and consider the compromises of parenthood.

Ordnance Survey Number: Explorer 181
Distance: 2.5 miles approx
Time:75 minutes (Includes feeding and changing time)

Rating: Easy-Moderate. Steep ascending/descending and map reading skills required, but as my skills are very poor indeed and I managed it, I would rate it as probably pretty idiot-proof.


I intended to do a walk that went all the way around the village of Aldbury, but events conspired against me and it was only a short one this week - I'll have to do The Aldbury Circuit Part II at some point.

The village of Aldbury is incredibly chocolate box-ey. It doesn't do Cotswold stone, but in all other aspects it ticks the boxes. Duck pond, cottages, cute pubs covered in flowers from window boxes, rolling countryside, it's got it all. It's also got a set of stocks and whipping post next to the duck pond, which doesn't quite fit with the 'tranquil idyll' theme, but does at least show what the villagers used to do for a good time before the train line to London was put in nearby.

Turn your back on The Greyhound Pub and bear left past the duck pond, and turn left at the junction. In a few metres you are signposted up a bridleway which will shortly lead you to a moderate climb up the side of a Chiltern through some atmospheric woodland.

The route down can be quite steep
in places, so apply common sense.

You will shortly come to a crossroads - take the right hand path following a fence for a little while. The path splits into  high and low routes - it doesn't matter which you choose, as both end up in the same place. I chose the high road (in the hope that I'd be in Scotland afore ye, although my route might not be the most direct) because it seemed better trodden. As I passed through the woodland, I disturbed a couple of fawns that bounced away - the deery sort you understand; when I find Mr Tumnus I'll let you know. The high road also takes you past a convenient bench for feeding babies upon - I didn't at this stage, but it's always nice to know it's there if you need it.

Follow this route until you come to a cross roads- carry straight ahead between two high banks until you pop out on Toms Hill Road. Cross the road and continue down the path (signposted Bridleway 14), and follow the path until you appear at the edge of the village. It was somewhere along here that it became patently clear that the chap was really hungry. Those little signs only a mother would notice, such as chewing lavishly on fingers, and sticking them so far down his throat there was occasional gagging. Subtle little hints.

I'm of the 'feed when the baby asks, not by the clock' school, so I was pretty keen on finding somewhere to feed him - a convenient treestump, or something off the path would have done. Having done all this descending, it's time to ascend again, so you take a sharp turn to the left and start going up the side of the hill again. Don't blame me - I didn't mark out the footpaths.

The convenient bench

The view from
the convenient bench.

On turning the corner, I was delighted to spot another bench, so disengaged the chap and set about making up the milk. I'd made up a fresh bottle of water to cool in the knapsack (val-de-rie), but it was far, far too hot, so I ended up making up the milk and then waving it round with one hand while trying to distract and hold on to a very wriggly chap with the other. After much faffing and flailing, the best option seemed to dilute it (against manufaturer's instructions) with some cooler water from my bottle to get it drinkable and stop what was now a pretty consistent and grating grizzle.

Milk cooled with 30ml of water, I set about trying to feed the chap, who then continued to be awkward about getting a latch (probably because the milk was still a little too warm for him). I also realised at this very moment that there was quite a - ahem - serious nappy to be dealt with.

Any port in a storm.

Preparation: Fail. Must try harder. Upon examination of the contents of the knapsack, I discovered that while I had nappies and baby wipes, I was lacking a change mat and nappy sacks. Rubbish! You can tell I was never a scout. What I did have, however, was one of those shopping bags that folds down into the shape of a strawberry, which proved to be a useful impromptu change-mat-cum-nappy-sack.

It is, of course, the very moment you're elbow-deep in nappy changing that the only dog walker you meet the whole walk decides to trip gaily past with two enormous German Shepherd-style dogs.

"Don't worry!" He cheerfully cried. "They're quite friendly!"
"I'm not sure this nappy is." I replied.

Nappy dealt with, the chap then got a latch on his bottle and had enough to satisfy him before I popped him back in the sling and he promptly fell asleep. I continued up the hill, bearing right until you pop up on a hairpin bend further up Toms Hill Road. Head a little down the tarmaced bridleway before veering off to the right back down the hill. When you come to the crossroads, keep heading down the hill by bearing right - you will soon escape the woodland for a nice, clear path passing some farm buildings. Continue to follow this path across Newground Road.

My original plan for the walk was to continue to power straight on towards Station Road and then take a right along that, but frankly, I had had enough. I had hoped that the walk would be done by lunchtime, but it was already 1.15 and I was only halfway round my planned route. To top it all off, there was a slightly dodgy looking bloke wandering in the next field and I couldn't be bothered to find out if he was really dodgy in veritas or just someone who looked weird. I gave up and turned right through a metal kissing gate and followed the path along the field boundary until I popped out in Stony Croft in the village, where the bins were currently being collected. Following the road straight, you pass the Valiant Trooper pub and arrive back at the duck pond.


In theory, this should have been a pleasant little walk. The sun was shining, I was out walking, the views were picturesque, the chap had shut up for five minutes and wasn't whinging: in the end it just felt like a bit of a stressful faff. I could have done without the feeding/changing frenzy in the middle, really - it sapped my strength and enthusiasm for the whole enterprise. I was little disappointed, to be honest; I rather felt that the baby had 'beaten' me.

I often get hung up on the concept of 'coping' and what 'coping' looks like. I sometimes feel that if I am not floating round Buckinghamshire on a lily pad with immaculate hair and back to my pre-baby weight, baking a tray of biscuits with one hand and hoovering the carpet with the other, while my child gurgles contentedly and I have a permanent rictus of delight from the joy of the whole experience, then I am not doing it right. I don't know quite where I've got this idea from. I was trying to explain it to my husband the other night, and it feels a little bit that although I've never been bothered by the magazines that say wear this/do this/look like this, suddenly since having a baby I've become vulnerable to all that. Having a child is like having an enormous, raw wound that everyone feels they have a right to come up to and inspect and tell you exactly how youre doing it wrong and what you should be doing to make it heal. Gah! A pox on it all, I say. Send them to the Aldbury Stocks; the rotten veg is on me.

Things I Learnt

• Do check your bag before you leave. Just because last time you wandered up a hill it had all the requisite stuff in it doesn't mean it's all still in there.
• Having an 'escape route' in case you get fed up is a good thing.
• The moment you have to do something really awkward is just the moment someone walking a dog will turn up to witness it.