Coombe Hill War Memorial to Great Missenden

In which we walk from Wendover (ish) to Great Missenden, the sun shines and everything is lovely.

Map: Explorer 181
Distance: 5.5 miles (ish)
Time: 3 hours (includes stopping for a snack)


Rating: Moderate Walk (a longer walk with map reading needed!)


I had had my eye on a walk from the Chiltern Teashop Walks given to me by Geekysweetheart for a while. However, I am a fundamentally lazy person who dislikes climbing hills, and so while the book suggests parking in Wendover train station and climbing up to the War Memorial, I opted instead for my husband to drive me to the Coombe Hill car park, drop me off and then come back to Wendover station to pick me up, so this a slightly bastardised version of the walk from that book - a) it's a bit shorter, and b) it's backwards from the direction they set out, as they go from Great Missenden to Wendover, and I went the other way.

The back of the War Memorial

Despite dire predictions of the weather descending into snow and murk, the weather was cool but sunny as the Chap and I set off towards the War Memorial. From the car park it actually means you head in the wrong direction from the rest of your walk to start with, but the memorial is always pretty and has a good You Are Here feeling about it, so we started from there.

My first bluebells of the year!

Starting at the back of the war memorial, look for the first black sign with an acorn on it leading you along the Ridgeway to the ridge off to your right. There are very pretty views over fields and hills, and it was mercifully not a windy as it could have been. After the third black Ridgeway post, turn left through a gap in the hedge, cross the open grass and follow the path into the trees that leads you back to the car park. Once you reach the car park, cross over it into a National Trust owned area marked Lower Scrubs. Follow the main path into the woodland - I was surprised to see the first bluebells out, and while the woodland isn't yet carpeted in them yet, it will be in a week or two.





Continue along this path for a few hundred metres (ish) until it meets a wider path running from left to right across it. Turn right and continue through a woodland of twisty turny trees, and bear left when you come to the fork. I followed the path out of the area of the woodland where the floor was carpeted with plants to an area where there was only dry leaves and bare earth on the floor. The path ends at a fence, with a path running alongside it. Turn right and head along the fence. It was a beautiful morning, the Chap had been asleep for about 10 minutes, the sun was shining, the birds singing in the trees, and it all looked very pleasant.

Last week was all very doom and gloom, so a lot of this week has seemed to conspire to make me see that all people aren't complete swines. All three of us went to the Turkish restaurant in Tring for lunch the other day. They're fantastic with kids in there, and we ended up with the waiter tying a helium balloon to the back of the Chap's trousers and playing peekaboo with him in and out of the tables while we ate! The balloon was also very helpful seeing where he'd got to among the tables. I wouldn't normally let David run around restaurants, but when an enormous betattooed Turk (with picture of his two children on each forearm!) instructs you to sit down & enjoy your meal because the little one is fine, you do as you're told! Not only that, but while we were in there a couple that we had met from dance classes years ago reintroduced themselves and offered to babysit for us if we ever wanted to go out dancing because they know how hard it is when your children are little - while their daughters entertained our son by gratuitous peekaboo and balloon-waving. It was really heartening a positive.

Once you're on this path, it's pretty straightforward when it comes to map reading. All you need to do pretty much is head straight on for a fair while and you're set.  Continue along this path for a while - I also noticed that, like my walk on Pitstone Common at Ashridge the other week, there appeared to be a number of old, gnarled trees as this path appears to be on another old boundary line, or so the old earthwork would suggest.






You continue forward along this path until you reach the village of Dunscombe. You arrive in Dunscombe by walking out of the woodland onto one of their narrow roads, and immediately I decided the place should be made illegal for just being too pretty. Just too English woodlandy villagey place. Honestly, as I followed the path off the road, then down the backs of some houses and out onto the 'main' road, I even saw it has one of those tiny cutesy Churches surrounded by daffodils and primroses, and old signs up with ducks and geese hanging around the bottom, as if waiting for a photo op.






















The path goes along the side of the tiny church, and then continues along a single-track road (the sort that has signs on saying motor vehicles shouldn't be driven on it). Follow this straight on into more woodland - Scrub Wood that then runs into Hampdenleaf Wood. The Chap had been awake since Dunscombe, and was beginning to make some complaint, so I decided it was time we stopped for a snack. Now, crawling babies are one thing, particularly if you just have to stop for milk, but the Chap now walks and needs real food. I looked for a suitable glade or something, a convenient bench, but nothing transpired. I could see what appeared to be a field at the edge of the trees, so when a path led off to the left I followed it in hope it would lead me to a space where the Chap could have a snack and a runabout.

Although we couldn't get into the field because of a fence, the path I found myself on proved to be perfect - it was one of those with a fence on both sides, far enough away from civilisation for there to be no dog poo, but also no nettles and minimal brambles. The fence on both sides meant he could toddle about, but in very controlled directions - no danger of him falling down a hole under a tree stump or anything. We had a sit and a picnic (I even felt confident enough to give him a small yoghurt, which can often be messy and awkward), I changed his nappy (and his trousers... there'd been a bit of a leak) and then he did a spot of investigation.

Once we had packed up all our rubbish to take him, he then walked with me for a bit. He was very excited by holly leaves, but also very keen on my boots - he kept bending down to point to his little shoes and then to my big walking boots, as if to say "Look, I've got shoes, too. And you've got shoes! And I've got shoes! How exciting!". He's a toddler; he's easily amused. It was adorable.

Bamboo & forsythia

He soon got bored of walking, however, so I hoisted him back into the sling. Continue forwards through the woodland until you pop out into another small cluster of houses. Cross the road and bear slightly left (but still straight on). The area we were walking through changed completely, as we were now flanked by holly bushes. The path then opens out to walk you along a wide bridleway alongside some fields. As ever, I was briefly distracted by the need to take a Botanical Interest photo (my poor husband suffers from these regularly when we go on holiday) when I spotted some bamboo growing by the side of the road - a plant not usually common in the wild in the Chilterns, I wondered how it got there...

Early hawthorn blossom

We were passed by a couple of horses, and then followed the bridleway signs along more woodland and then down a steep slope. In due course, the bridleway ends and a pathway leads off to the left. Despite not one but two clear signposts, clearly labelled 'South Bucks Way' (the path we were following), I managed to bimble gaily past this and down the hill until I found myself in Ringshall Farm and felt a bit of a wazzock. Not least because I had to pass the same farmer twice, with a "Hoo hoo, what a tit." demeanour, but I also had to climb back up quite a steep slope.

The woodland I went into was beautiful, however, because all the bluebells were out, and the smell was fantastic. I could also see there was a lot of wild garlic about, but as that won't flower until later in the year, I was safe to enjoy the smell of bluebells without a hint of garlic. Later in the year this whole place will smell delicious, but not quite in the way it does now.

Once out of this woodland you reach an open area of grassland - turn right and head downwards, and the town of Great Missenden should hove into view. Continue to the bottom of the hill, and then bear left across a field to a tunnel under the railway line. The path you are on will now lead you onto the road and Great Missenden - turn left and follow the pavement to the mini-roundabout. Cross the road and turn right towards the train stations - at the time of writing, a single back to Wendover costs £3.50 and the train leaves from platform 2.

Things I Learnt

• The bluebells are coming out! Yay!
• I seem to be getting less annoyed about stuff in general now I'm back at work. Clearly there are more things to distract me!
• Bamboo! Loose in Buckinghamshire! How long before it starts to get a grip and become a problem plant, I wonder? Or will it be fine? Who knows...

Totternhoe Knolls via the Nature Reserve (Circular Walk)

In which I walk through the weird yellow-green nature reserve in Totternhoe Knolls, and inadvertently turn my son into a girl by putting the 'wrong' clothes on him.

Ordnance Survey: Explorer 192
Distance: 2.5 miles approx
Time: 60mins

Rating: Moderate (some steep up and downs - a faff when it's muddy)

Well, back at work this week, and after last week's worrying over the nursery I was then presented with a piece on Radio 4 about child starvation, followed by hearing about the shenanigans of alcoholic parents, followed by a trip on a bus which included a staggering display of generally poor interpersonal skills between a mother and toddler also travelling. In short, I was reminded that maybe putting your child in nursery is not the worst thing ever. We may yet survive. I will keep you posted.

Anyway, eager to get out after last week's snow, I enjoyed a wander over Totternhoe Knolls. Starting in the carpark as with the last walk, go up the steps, bear right at the top and then left. However, unlike last time when I went through the gate on the right, this time I continued forward along the path I was on.

The path takes you up a gentle rise, and the higher you go the better views you get of Totternhoe & the surrounding countryside through the hedge on your left. Had it been a nice day it would have been lovely indeed, but it was damp and misty and cold. On a nice day I'm sure it's lovely, however.

During the snow, there was one thing I did do aside from insist the Chap walked to the shed and back - I dragged our off-road pram 'The Beast' out from under the stairs and wheeled ol' Chap-chops off to toddler group (why no sling? It was sheet ice underfoot, and while I am happy babywearing in the snow, it was so slippy I decided a pram would be better for us that day). He marched up and down with a baby walker for a bit, and then we went over to play with the wooden puzzles. There was a lady there doing a magic roundabout puzzle while he grandson drove a pedal car around the floor, and we did the idle polite chat thing. The older they get the faster they move. The problems with molars. How the Chap is really only interested in a toy that includes wheels or is a ball. By this time, the Chap was showing interest in one of the easy wooden puzzles. He picked up the circle, bashes it on the table a bit, and then neatly slotted it back in place. "Hooray!" I cried, as you do when a small child makes a minor achievement (which the Chap has now learnt, and makes a noise like the Fonz every time something pleases him). "Ah!" said the woman opposite me, "Clever girl!".

And here's the thing- I'd been sitting there blathering about him and he and his and I'm sure I'd used his name too for a good 5 minutes, but something had been talking louder than I'd been. Really very vocal. It had had an awful lot to say. It had been this shirt:

Warning! This shirt will make your child a girl!

Continue along the path - for a good while it was quite unmuddied as there is a structured surface (ish) to it. The further you go along, however, the squelchier it becomes. A few paths can be seen going off this one, but ignore them and stay on this main path. Finally, you will reach a dogleg that takes the path down the hill. Undecided about which way to go, I stood and looked at the map. I was also struck by the weirdness of the landscape of the nature reserve to the left of the path. Mossy, damp, weird teletubby-esque lumps and bumps, like a mogul field without the snow. It's either what happened after some quarrying was left to go back to nature, or the result of some serious bombing.

You're not going into the nature reserve yet, however - stick to the path, which now became very clarty with mud and I proceeded with caution down the slope.

Follow the path down the hill. It will then curve to the left. To be honest, it's a pretty dull green lane - it may be more exciting in the spring/summer, but right now it's sticky with mud, grey and pretty tedious.





Not long after, however, after the path swings to the left you find a metal gate in the hedge to your left. Going through this takes you into the nature reserve and its odd landscape. I found it strangely menacing - the sort of place you are likely to either find or become a body, I thought. Joyfully, neither event happened - we just got a bit damp, but that was the mist.

Take the path bearing slightly to the right of straight ahead (after the gate you can either go hard right or this slightly right, much like the options our government seem to be fond of at the moment) and take the path in between two knolls.

So, some time after the initial 'clever girl' incident, we went for a pub lunch with my parents. I put the Chap in the shirt again because it's sort of a rugby-style shirt, and the first time my father met him he gave him a small talk on which was most likely to be his standing leg and which was most likely to be his kicking leg, so I thought it an appropriate piece of clothing to put on my son. The Chap enjoys walking in places that aren't our house, so holding onto my hand (he can't do it without yet) he marched across the floor with that slightly disturbing toddler goose-step. A grandparent-aged couple on a table nearby cooed at him. "Oooo, you're doing well, aren't you. How old is she?"
"He's a boy." I said. They did the usual polite blustering about being terribly sorry and I made the general polite noises about how no-one can tell when they're this age anyway.
"He was wearing pink, you see." They said.
"But it's a rugby shirt!" My father spluttered.

You pays your money and you takes your gendered choice, it seems.

Obviously, this whole gender segregation of colour thing is a marketing tool - if you have a girl and buy everything with pink & flowers, if you have a boy second you'll simply have to go and buy a whole new load of clothes because otherwise he will clearly grow up to be gay and that would be appalling (someone this week said to me after I'd mentioned how The Chap was very active and allover the place investigating how "Well, you'd rather that than them being all sissyish, really, wouldn't you?", which I'm afraid got a rather firm "He can do whatever he wants to do" intoned from me.). But it pervades everything. There's an American Korean (or Korean American) called JeongMee Yoon who has done a series of photos called The Pink and Blue Project, in which she takes pictures of children with their pink or blue toys. She says "The saccharine, confectionary pink objects that fill my images of little girls and their accessories reveal a pervasive and culturally manipulated expression of femininity” and a desire to be seen. To make these images, I arrange and display the cotton - candy colored belongings of several children in their rooms. When I began producing the pink images, I became aware of the fact that many boys have a lot of blue possessions. Customers are directed to buy blue items for boys and pink for girls. "

JeongMee Yoon's Jake and his Blue Things

It's pretty staggering after a while - go and have a look at the full project so far here.

I can understand this colour-coding for children, particularly babies when they all look the same. A friend of mine said she was grateful when she saw a colour-coded baby, because then you don't have to go through the awkward 'is that a boy? Girl? If I say 'aw, isn't she cute' am I going to really offend the parent when it turns out to be a boy?'. However, looking at Jake and his blue things, it spreads beyond clothes, and it reaches a point where it's really hard to buy clothes for a boy in shops that aren't black, blue, dark green or brown (there are occasional spurts of orange, to be fair. Also, have you ever tried to find a piece of clothing for a boy that has a cat on it? Best of luck to you - girls get pink and cats, boys get blue and dogs. No boy, evidently, has ever liked a cat, ever. My child is clearly some kind of masculine feline-fondness prodigy).

What gets my goat is the way this spreads and spread until activities become segregated and it becomes a major effort to find, say, some sort of 'playing house' toy that isn't bright pink (although the Early Learning Centre do a blue iron. It's rare enough that it's worth reporting). Construction toys, similarly, get heavily marketed towards boys whereas girls get the pink treatment again, as indicated in this video that ChapDad showed me this week.

So while I'm not totally anti colour-coding per se, it's when it starts to infringe upon the activities you may be choosing to do that vexes me. There are some 'girly' things that I suck at, and ChapDad does a lot better - ironing, for instance, and folding. Conversely, when it comes to catching the live mice that the cat brings in, the ChapDad retires quietly from the room while I do a larger version of the 'spider in a glass'  technique. I should stand on a chair and fear for it to climb my skirts, I know, but I don't. Such a failure....

Back in the nature reserve, you will come to a fork - take the left hand one and you will eventually be led down the hill and onto the road. Cross the road and turn left, continuing down it until you pass a farm on your right, then take the next bridleway leading up the hill on your left. When you reach the top, you rejoin the path you started on - turn right, and retrace your steps to the carpark.





Things I Learnt

• There is something that feels a bit odd about Totternhoe Knolls. I've walked there twice and it's not that I don't like it, it just seems to have a bit of an atmosphere.
• In my opinion, you can't make children like something because it's a certain colour. You can influence a purchase, but it's the difference between me asking if something I want comes in red (which happens quite a lot), or me buying something simply because it is red (which doesn't really happen).
• I didn't like Lego as a child. I liked Playmobil. My favourite was the ghost. You could take his sheet off and move his beard up and down (such was the joy of the Playmobil beards) and attach the ball-and-chain to other characters you didn't like. His candelabra was also very useful for hosting banquets. And he glowed in the dark. Amazing! Would I have liked it better had it been pink? Don't be so silly - that's the wrong colour for ghosts to be....

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.

The Fitzherbert Arms, Swynnerton (Circular Walk)

In which I wave cheerily at the pub where I had my first job, see yet more interesting fungi I am unable to identify, and think about the latest UK gubbins around childbirth choices.

Ordnance Survey Number: Explorer 258
Distance: 3.5 miles approx
Time: 100 mins

Rating: Moderate (numerous stiles to be crossed, and map reading to be done)

I had a rubbish week last week. The Chap was ill, and ran a 38-39 degree temperature for 3 days. I'd rather forgotten how 24 hour being a parent is - now I get woken up a maximum of once a night or not at all, I rather feel that the time after 8pm until I go to bed is 'time off'. Lies! The Chap was a very sad little fellow, and refused to sleep at all unless he was on a person for two of the three nights he was ill. This meant I pulled a half-nighter (lasted until 3am on Saturday morning, when I had to go and turf the ChapDad out of bed before I died), and with a little more preparation, an all-nighter (11.30pm - 5am). There was then some wazzockry on Sunday night once he was well but had a disrupted sleep pattern. Pale shadows of our former selves, my husband and I discussed it and decided it was time to admit that the job had got too big for two knackered people. I left the ChapDad to sleep, while I ran away up the country to spend a few days with my parents in Staffordshire.

Glamour, thy name is rambling.

After two naps and a full night's sleep (thank you Mummy for dealing with the 2.30am feed request), I decided I was awake enough to try for a walk with my Daddy. He was a little concerned that he would be required to produce a quantity of feminist thinking; I let him off that bit.

And fair enough, really, because what's been on my mind is childbirth (as the news has announced both the recommendation for allowing women to have elective caesarians, and a new report has made some claims regarding the safety of first time home births). There's really a tolerance level for the number of times one can use the words 'vaginal delivery' to your father. I think one is really the optimum number. Bless 'im, I was 38 weeks at Christmas last year, and the combination of them visiting plus me being booked for a homebirth left him quite jittery. Fortunately, The Chap arrived 40 weeks to the day and appeared well into January, when everyone had left and festivities had quietened down.

The beauty of the Fitz's car park

We started at The Fitzherbert Arms pub, where I worked for...ooo, a couple of months before leaving the late nights and potential vomit to opt to be an early morning cleaner instead. I had to clear out trucker's toilets in the newer job, but it was quiet and no-one felt the need to comment on me being 'built for comfort, not for speed'. The charmers.

Unidentified fungus #1

Standing with your back to the Alison Bar, leave the car park and turn right down Early Lane. Continue to the end of the road and then head straight on down the green lane, where we found the first of our unidentified fungus for this walk.








The green lane finishes and you emerge into a field. We were pleased by the portly fellow indicated on the sign, so I took a picture of the matching portly fellow I had with me.

Cross diagonally over the first, second and third fields, where we found the second and third of our unidentified fungi. At the end of the field, cross over the A519, taking care as you descend down a pretty steep & nasty bank - I did it by holding onto the signpost and going down the side of the path rather than the main, slightly muddied route.

Unidentified fungus #2

Unidentified fungus #3

Once you have survived the descent and got onto the path, turn left and follow the field boundary. My father identified a pair of partridges as they flew away from us, and then pointed out a couple of badger sets, which one of his friends had been heard to leap up and down near, crying 'Get up, lazy bones*! It's half past ten!'. Sadly, the badgers, being nocturnal, were unlikely to comply.

Too big for rabbit,
too small for badger...

*The shouter is a grown, middle-aged man and did not shout 'lazy bones', but I have been struck by modesty and am paraphrasing more politely.

We then passed another hole, and stood for a little while discussing if it was for a rabbit (too big) or a badger (too small). Moving on past the tree roots where the burrow was found, we saw the clue to the owner: a pile of feathers suggested that a fox was at work in the area.




So yes, as I mentioned, I had a homebirth for my first child. The thing is, the route the that decision was an interesting one. When I had my 10 week visit from a midwife, I was totally of the "I've never had a baby before, I have no idea what I'm doing! Send me to hospital! Bring me a consultant!". Four weeks later, we went for four days in Haworth in Yorkshire, home of a number of sobering headstones of the sort you don't wish to see while 14 weeks pregnant:

The inscription reads "In memory of  Elizabeth, daughter of Joseph and Mary Leeming
of Keighley, who died August 20th 1855 in the 6th year of her age. Also eleven infants
 of theirs, also two infants of theirs, also of Sarah Elizabeth their daughter who died
December 16th 1862 in the 2nd Year of her age, also of an infant of theirs, also of Fred
 their sonwho died November 19th 1869 in the 4th year of his age.".
 My heart goes out to Joseph and Mary Leeming of Keighley....

Which, if nothing else, makes me incredibly grateful to live in an age where a) I can choose when I want to be pregnant, and b) we understand the importance of clean water (Haworth had one of the worst mortality rates in the country due to a number of factors, no small part being that their water supply was coming through the graveyard before getting to the standpipes).

We also popped across to Leeds to see one of James' University friends, whose second child was around a month old at the time. His wife, who hadn't enjoyed the birth of her first child in hospital, had had a home water birth. She delivered what was a quite fearsome polemic on how women need to educate themselves about childbirth (after all, you don't get in a car and expect to drive it straight away), thrust a copy of Childbirth Without Fear into my hand, while keeping Gina Ford's Contented Little Baby firmly on the bookshelf ("We've got that copy trapped on the bookshelf so it won't fall into any unsuspecting hands!"). I went away and read it, and started to think...

Buryhurst Pit

Continue to the end of the field, where we excited a number of large dogs in kennels. While we had been on holiday in August, the Chap had burst into tears and screamed when a large dog had barked at him, but fortunately  he was asleep by this point - I don't think he would have enjoyed it too much. Cross over a stile next to the kennels, and turn immediately left and cross over a second stile to go up a slightly wooded path. This then widens to a not enormously attractive, but functional path that leads you back to the A519. Cross over this and take the path to the left along the field boundary, go over the stile at the end and turn right down the green lane. This will take you past the Buryhurst Pit ("Oo, it's a marl pit." said my father. I grunted ignorantly, but apparently it's an area where clay has been removed, and has then filled up with water. So there you go.), and an industrial estate that appears to be a storage area for, among other things, caravans, buses, a broken doll's house, a boat registered in Southampton (and impressively lost) and the transporters for the North Staffordshire Racer Pigeon Federation. This path then goes on for a fair way, and at the end it got pretty muddy, with Daddy powering ahead while I took things a little slower for fear of falling and doing The Chap a mischief.

Because doing the Chap a mischief is not something I have wanted to do, so I did a lot of research into home births before making my choice. A report has come out today in The Telegraph  saying that home births for first time mothers are more likely to lead to complications to the baby, and that is something you have to take into account when planning a home birth. It was something we talked about a lot - if the baby dies and we're at home, we will blame ourselves for having a home birth, regardless of whether or not he would have died in hospital as well. Yet, for all the scaremongering in this report, tucked away beneath the scroll down and beyond the golden third paragraph is the sentence

"The researchers stressed that giving birth [at home] is generally very safe as 250 babies suffered complications from the 64,538 births in the study."

So, while that is terrible for the 500 parents who had to deal with the complications, the risks are still very, very low. Yet at the same time, I heard someone on the radio saying that an elective caesarian was a better choice because if you deliver vaginally there is 'danger of prolapse', but the Journal of Midwifery and Women's Health says :

There have been many studies trying to find out which is the safest way to have a baby. At this time, there is no proof that having a C-section is safer or protects against future problems with leaking urine or stool, or uterine prolapse. Because there are more medical risks for women who have a C-section compared to women who have a vaginal birth, vaginal birth is safer.

Also, there's a lot of hoo-hah about how you give birth (no-one gives you a medal), but it is hard to express to someone who hasn't done it how vulnerable you feel post-childbirth. You have just gone through a major physical event. If you're going to run a marathon, you train and prepare for it, they give you a start date and time, you do it, and then you take time out to recover. Childbirth is an effort I think it would be fair to equate with a marathon, but instead of a nice, clear start date you get a five week window, in which your marathon can start at any time. Sometimes you feel you have been taken up to the starting line, only to be told that it's all off and you can go back home. And once you've finally done it, there's no time to recover - you are then woken up every three hours or so for at least three months. Add to that being awash with hormones trying to sort out the fact you're not pregnant and the sudden reality of your life having changed forever (again, you can be told about it all you like, but the way it feels...). It's tough. It's really, really tough.

I may have had a homebirth - and I would recommend it, the experience of childbirth was amazing. I had been worried about feeling out of control, but my main memories of it are a sense of doing something that was really hard work physically, but doing it really well. Upon being told I as 8 centimetres dilated, I remember wanting to argue to my midwife and say "Are you sure? I thought this should hurt more?". I very clearly remember thinking "Actually, I don't need any of you here at all, I could do this all on my own like a cat in a cupboard.". It wasn't really painful - apart from crowning, which lead to me to say something akin to 'Gosh, gosh, goshity gosh'.

But I digress. Homebirth was great for me, but an elective caesarian might be great for someone else. But, as The Guardian noted, "Malcolm Griffiths, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at Luton and Dunstable hospital, who chaired the guidelines committee, said: "Caesarean section is major surgery. It is about as major as hysterectomy, after which you go home and do nothing for six weeks and some employers won't expect you back for six months. After a caesarean we send a lady home after two days and say 'here's a baby to look after as well'."

I am pro choice for whatever a woman feels is right for her. But what is the most important thing is that women are educated fully about childbirth so they are able to make informed decisions, and as things stand at the moment, the free antenatal education I received was very poor indeed (3 hours from our local NHS), and had I relied on that I think my experience of birth would have been very, very different.

Anyway, walking. You finally appear out on Cotes Lane - the man on the sign pointing back the way we had come looked considerably trimmer than the one we had seen at the start of our walk. Sadly, neither of us had become that markedly slimmer in the time it had taken us to do our walk, and I will still be relying on Big Pants to fit me into my dress for The Godmother's wedding in 4 weeks time.

Turn left, up a precipitous set of steps and go over a stile that is angled sloping backwards, making it a bit unnerving to cross, particularly if you have a small Chap strapped to your front. He had just woken up, and did not look wholly impressed.

St Mary's Church, Swynnerton

Cross the field, go over your final stile into a strip of woodland and turn left. Go through a metal kissing gate and follow the path straight across the field and then along the field boundary until you pop out beside the cricket club. Follow the path along the side of the grounds until you come out onto Park View. Cross the road and continue forward up an alley that will lead you onto a pavement alongside the unclassified road through Swynnerton. Turn left and follow the pavement, waving happily at Lord Stafford's mansion and the local Anglican and Catholic Churches on the other side of the road until you round the corner and find yourself back at the Fitzherbert Arms. And you haven't had to use the phrase 'vaginal delivery' to your father once.






Things I learnt

• What a marl pit is. I should have known that, having lived in Staffordshire for many years. Most things are to do with pots there. It sort of took the gloss off Chinese museums filled with Ming dynasty vases, because I was so sick of looking at pots in museums here. Always love a handsome Tang Dynasty camel, mark you.
• Almost everyone gets a little bit messed up after childbirth. I had friends who regretted being induced which led to C-Section, or regretted getting to the pushing stage and then needing an episiotomy, or regretted not having a contraction at all when they had to have a C-section due to pre-eclampsia. I still wish I hadn't had to go into hospital to get stitched up - it was my treatment there that means I get mild panicky flashbacks that sent me to get some therapy. But put it this way - a new person comes into the world, and they either come out through your fu-fu, or it has to be cut out of you. As amazing as that experience is, it will be a bit of a shock.
• As much as I may bitch about stuff, I haven't had to bury 17 children as the Leemings had to. I don't know how you do that and stay sane. There's nothing I can say about how the thought of that experience makes me feel. It's too big. There are no words.

St Mary's Church, Ivinghoe circular walk via Pitstone Windmill and the Grand Union Canal

In which I do a circular walk from Ivinghoe's Church, see a number of fungi which I fail to identify, and politely request that certain magazines get the ... Dickens... off my ... blinking... case.

Ordnance Survey number: Explorer 181
Distance: 5 miles approx
Time: 2 and a half hours (I was feeling lazy, ok?)

Rating: Moderate Walk - map reading and stile climbing required.
This is posting a bit late today, but I've been in a pickle because The Chap has been running a temperature for the past 24 hours, and I have been stuck playing Human Mattress because he refused to be put down.

St Mary The Virgin's Church, Ivinghoe was originally built at some point in the 13th Century, and at the time of writing is currently covered in some very modern scaffolding. There was originally some hope of the work being done by Christmas, but sadly it seems that it won't be finished until February.

Although I started the walk here, parking isn't amazing. There is some on a verge opposite the King's Head, but I'm not sure how legal or encouraged it is - might be better to park at the Pitstone Windmill area if you don't fancy risking it.

Turn your back on the church (how very Dawkins of you), and follow the High Street down the mild decline. Shortly after passing the library and post office, take the second left down Green Lane. This rapidly becomes unsuitable for cars and leads you through a gate and onto the footpath that takes you across the field past the Pitstone Windmill. Cross straight across this field and follow the path straight across the next one - you will pop out, via a metal kissing gate, onto Vicarage Road.

Turn right down Vicarage Road, and follow until you reach the roundabout shortly after passing Pitstone Memorial Hall. Go straight across the roundabout along Cheddington Road.

Just as you leave the village of Pitstone, and slightly before the National Speed Limit sign, cross the road and turn right through a metal kissing gate to head towards the Grand Union Canal.

Unidentified fungus #1

Usually October is the month for fungi, but I think all the warm weather we had might have put it off. Now it's getting colder, I was able to spot more types, although what most of the were I have no idea.

This is the sort of slightly woody path that I like best - the sort of place Freudians look at in fairy stories and nod and suck their teeth at. I just like it because it feels atmospheric.

Speaking of the atmosphere, there must be something in the air at the moment, because almost everyone I talk to appears to be doing some form of exercise or dieting or both. There's been a rash of exercise/weight loss status updates. There are two reasons for this, I think. 1) Christmas, that annual Excuse For Gluttony is coming, and 2) The Godmother is getting married the week on December 17th, leading to a frenzy of dress choosing and posing to be done.

There's something about weddings - particularly in the age of digital photography, where you know the first pictures will be plastered across Facebook within 24 hours, and then following in dribs and drabs for the rest of the week - that makes us all behave like we're going to walk the Red Carpet at the Oscars. I know I do it; the year before I had The Chap, I marked weight-loss by the three weddings I had to attend.

I remember The Godmother getting engaged distinctly, because her fellow proposed when The Chap was 5 days old. She texted everyone in excitement - it had been 10 years in coming - and I, in my heightened emotional state, burst into tears in the back of the car as the ChapDad was driving us to hospital for the 5 day check. "When are you getting married?" I asked her. "Will I have enough time to lose the baby weight?". When she announced that it would be in December, I laughed. Of course I'd have lost the weight by then! Easy.

Ha!

Of course I haven't. I am also still plugging away at Fat is a Feminist Issue, but I once heard Jo Brand announce that she got halfway through it and then ate it, which is sort of how I feel about it too, except it's on my Kindle and that would be expensive. It's just a bit ... worthy. The Female Eunuch is funny and filthy, but this is just a lot of handwringing. According to Orbach, I am fat allegedly because I am choosing to be so because it is doing something for me psychologically - probably something to do with me wanting to avoid sexual attention. I'm not convinced. In fact, it makes me go 'ppfffft' and reach for a chocolate brownie.

In due course, you pop out of the wooded path and onto the Grand Union Canal. Cross the bridge and turn right. The light was amazing by the water, and the canal was incredibly still and peaceful. I was still fairly ranty, however, but the light did make me stop and go 'oo' before I continued on my muttering way.
Because surely, to say that one gets fat in order to avoid sexual attraction suggests that no-one fancies fat girls (lest we forget, they're 'more grateful' and so 'make more of an effort'. The number of times some arsehat has announced that to me in a pub. To my face. ). I can plainly see the evidence for this, having never been kissed, or had a boyfriend, or been proposed to or got married. No no. Nothing to see here, I've just sat at home at pondered my navel. Which certainly isn't pierced. Fat girls don't do that. We're too busy feeling melancholy.

house by my own rage, I go and buy some form of trashy magazine. I bought one this week, and we shall call it - to pluck a name from the air - Nearer. It purports to contain information on such diverse subjects as fashion, celebrity and real life (albeit the type of real life that exists around the more extreme fringes and almost always seems to contain one story of rape a week. Why, one wonders...?). I know I shouldn't buy these magazines; my sister-in-law refers to them as 'A roll-call of social care referrals', which I think is pretty accurate.

This particular publication is especially poisonous, in my opinion. Because this one is endlessly mentioning somebody's weight, and, most worryingly, slyly implying that when they were thinner, they were happier. So there they are, printing their lead story about two examples of  standard self-destructive tabloid fodder 'ballooning' from drinking too much. Here's a picture of one in a tiny blue dress at some awards bash, with the caption 'looked a lot slimmer attending a launch party in May'. On the next page, here's some reality-show wazzock who 'looked slim and healthy before', whereas in the next picture 'The star looked a lot bigger at a party last week'. The implication is that if they're fatter, it's an indication of their internal misery. I'm not denying comfort eating, what I'm disliking is the broad, brush-stroke implication that if you're thin, you're happy.

Unidentified fungus #2

Continuing along the canal, I spotted another set of mysterious mushrooms - although these looked a little more toadstooly to me. And speaking of poisonous little toadstools, if this whole fat thing was mentioned once on that page and then never mentioned again, I think I'd be more inclined to go 'hm' and leave it. But as I flicked through it, all it seemed to be talking about was who was having babies and who had got back into their tiny jeans within six weeks after giving birth. Clearly I am the demographic for this atrocious tosh, and it filled me with rage. Of course, there's the obligatory page where some celebrity yo-yo dieter pops up half naked 'celebrating her curves' (oh, curves, you pernicious word. We all know you're a euphemism for fat), but for the rest of it... I'm the sort of person who likes statistics, so I did some counting. 34 pages of this magazine dealt with 'features', 13 of which had some snidey little comment about someone looking fatter/thinner. Less than half, but it means that every couple of pages or so, some poisonous toadstool pops up to go "You're fat! You're fat! You're fat, and you must be miserable!". It wears you down. There's better things we have to worry about as women than the fact we are still toting, say, and extra stone of baby weight (such as the contradictory advice of Health Visitors, or the crippling price of childcare, for example), but that's all these magazines want to make you focus on, because they market themselves as a solution, a break, a matey little bit of time for yourself, while it simultaneously grinds you down. It's a vicious little circle that makes them a lot of money, I'm sure.

Potentially identified fungus

I finally passed a fungus that I think I recognise. I'm pretty sure that this is a field mushroom. Had it had more friends, I would have picked them and taken them home for a spot of mushrooms on toast, but seeing as this one was there all on its lonesome, I left it where it was.

Shortly after the possible field mushroom, I reached the point where you have to leave the canal path. At bridge 123, take the path up to the left onto the road.

Bridge 123

I was briefly concerned that this choice of path was deeply foolish, as it takes you across a single lane bridge with no footpath. That being said, it is quite easily done as long as you use your common sense with it and follow the traffic when the traffic light is green.

The traffic light is not green.

Continue along the right hand side of the road for a few hundred metres until you see a green footpath sign on the other side of the road. This leads you into Farm, and for a moment I thought I was going to have to turn around and go back the way I'd come, as there were large 'Disease Control' signs on the gate. I remember going for a walk with my father at the height of the 2001 Foot & Mouth Crisis, and having to phone to get my mum to pick us up from the middle of nowhere because we suddenly found that the paths we were supposed to go on had all been closed. However, as I approached the stile, I saw a large blue box on the other side, which upon further inspection, read:

All fine - feet dipped (easier said than done when you have a baby on your front and a knapsack on your back). Follow the path up the side of the field boundary until, just beyond the top right corner, you will find a gate and a bridge over a stream. I was really glad I was wearing boots here, because the mud was so churned up on the other side of the bridge that my trainers would have been ruined.Turn right and follow the field boundary again along the side of the Grove Farm pick-your-own patch. The strawberries were looking particularly sad.

The sun sets over the
pick-your-own ...

It as at this point I realised that I had misjudged the time of day, and the sun was going down. I hadn't really spotted that it is almost winter, and sunset does happen a lot earlier these days... At the corner of the field, follow the signposted path along the stream until you come to a wide pathway. Turn right, and walk alongside the chainlink fence next to the pick your own gooseberry bushes. A couple of hundred metres down here you will see a pathway sign off to the left. Cross the second stile and walk along a fenced corridor between two fields. When I was there, they had sheep in them, and I had to stop and ponder the following question:

Is it me, or does this sheep have a really small head
compared to the size of its body?
Is it the inverse Brian-from-Westlife of the sheep world?
His head is massive.  Just have a look.

When this path ends, turn right for a few hundred metres, and then left along a clearly signposted path before you wander into the farm.Walk down Maud Jane's Close, and when you reach Station Road, turn left and you will shortly find yourself back at the church where you began.

By which time, I am pleased to say, my internal monologue which had at certain points sounded reminiscent of an episode of The Thick of It, had quietened. I know the easiest thing for me would be to stop reading these magazines, but I know they're there. They look at me, with an expression of poorly disguised loathing, the way they look at all women. And I read them every now and again in the hope that I can find something to approve of, or if it's just going to be another guilty frisson of vicarious bullying as we all crow at how terrible some overpaid, undertalented miseryguts looks in a tacky dress. And that's the greatest problem of all, because you know that guilty frisson of vicarious bullying? I like it.

Hmpf.

Things I learnt

• The sun is going down a lot earlier. By the time I got home, it was dark and I felt like a dirty stop-out.
• The warm weather means mushrooms and other fungal fellows are out later this year.
• Certain types of magazines make me swear like a Billingsgate porter.