Snape and Thorpeness

S and I needed some exercise so we headed out to Snape to walk on the marshes. We had downloaded a plan of this from the internet some time before just in case. The walk was exceptionally pleasant. We parked at the Maltings and walked over the brigde before heading along the well marked and worn trail. Initially the footpath follows the river but then heads up into some woods. We met some people on the trail that suggested we headed over the hill and back a different route so that we could see the Exmoor ponies that graze there. So we did. It doesn’t take too much of an increase in elevation to see the effects of the sea wind on the flora of the hill. The trees were gnarly and stunted and gorse bushes were abundant (with extra sharp spines!) All of a sudden we came across about a dozen ponies grazing in a clearing. They didn’t seem to bothered by us so we didn’t bother them. Back at the river we followed the trail through the salt marshes back to the start of our walk. Kestrels hovered over head and wading birds plied the uncovered sands as it was low tide.

Two sailing barges sat in the sand at the maltings giving the whole place an olde worldy feel. It all looks nice until you start visiting the shops and tea rooms and see the prices are definitely not old world! The antique shop was interesting though to poke around in but again horrendously expensive.

We drove over to Thorpeness with the intention of walking around on a trail. Once there we had more tea and then decided that taking out a row boat on the Meare. Mandy our boat had it’s preferred route and it took me a while to become master of the vessel. For S it was a ride back in time as she used to do this as a kid with her friends. In her childhood she remembered that the lake had a Peter Pan theme with Wendy’s house, a crocodile and Captain Cooks castle. Much to her pleasure they we still there.

It was nice to see romance still alive; we rowed passed a couple who had boated out with a picnic and bottle of wine which they had set aside to indulge in some other activity. Obviously the sandwiches weren’t filling enough!! I’m sure the weed and mud that sprayed from my wildly thrashing oars added to their afternoon indulgence.

Back on Terra firma we headed to the pub for some sandwiches and a beer. Delicious!! Then we walked for miles around public footpaths and byways almost to Sizewell where we popped out onto the beach just short of a nuclear power station. We followed the Suffolk Coastal Trail back into Thorpeness for more tea before returning to base with glowing faces and tired feet.

The Chaffinch of Charfield

We have met many nice people on this trip including friends from our childhood. One of these is Dave. We look forward to our visits with him and him with us with great glee as each visit has it’s life challenging moments and side splitting events. This trip was no exception although our dangerous plan to remove the corner of the neighbours house which obstructs the Sun from Dave’s garden was not executed due to lack of chemicals. Having said that I’m sure his homebrew would have sufficed. Apart from laughing and drinking we did some serious listening to music. Dave has the best classical music collection in the world; often waking up with the BBC frantically knocking on the door asking to borrow something for their morning show! This time a collection of Beethoven’s symphonies conducted by David Zinman, awesome, a bit faster but also with lots of extra notes I’ve not heard before in other recordings. Apparently this was the way it was intended to be played but as Beethoven is long gone we’ll not have chance for his critical opinion.

Saturday saw us loading up the VW bus and heading out for a picnic. It was Dave who got us into VW’s in the first place. We owned our own VW camper van when we first married and have yearned for another ever since. Anyway, I digress, we picked up sandwiches in Tesco’s and with half a dozen thermos’s of tea on board we headed out to Purton for a walk. We parked up and walked down to Sharpness along the canal bank. The setting is perfect with the River Severn on one side and the canal on the other. Seeing canal barges chugging up and down reminded us of last years trip. The River has several old wrecks along the banks as a reminder to how dangerous the Severn tide can be. At low tide as it was this day it’s just a trickle but on certain tides the bore can be surfed and regularly is. There is also the remains of a railway bridge that was destroyed in 1960 by a run away barge loaded with petrol.

Back at the van we enjoyed our sandwiches and tea and a wonderful little church all decked out for a wedding that afternoon.  I've figured out why the canals are so shallow.  Every day tons of stale bread gets thrown into them in efforts to feed the birds.  Obviously bread is not a staple for ducks but one greedy swan certainly enjoyed a couple of slices that Dave and Sally threw to him.