Getting some Sun in the Chess Valley

We've been feeling a bit fed up in Woolf Villa lately because T did something to his back. He's had various tests and it's baffling the doc. I don't think it's long term serious, but it hurts, so I'm staying home a bit more to keep an eye on him and sharpen up my medical skills. Like, I carefully check him every day for viruses or a sore throat... just say "Aah!" like this cat.

And I check in case he has lost his bones altogether like the cat below :D

(Ph: www.sweetperfectioncakes.deviantart.com

The rain is continuing to come down, too, but there are some good things.

Our friends and neighbours who spend most of the year in Mauritius are back for the rest of the summer now. It's always good to see them. They have all kinds of projects in Mauritius, including growing heliconias and bananas, and they brought us back some vanilla rum with a vanilla pod inside (Mauritius grows sugar cane and vanilla).

They also brought us a book by one of their friends, about the journals of Rose de Freycinet, who sailed round the world in the early 19th century on a military ship, disguised initially as a man, on a scientific mission. (And yes, she stopped by at Mauritius.)

It's on my list to visit Mauritius one day, and see all our friends' projects for ourselves. Meanwhile, who could feel bad when presented with top gifts like this? And also, we had a good day just before T did his back, AND the weather was also good, so I'll tell you about that. We decided to take the Tube out to the country.

So, walked to the local tube station and got a train within four minutes. (I sometimes think we are so busy moaning about the Tubes that we sometimes just don't appreciate how good they can be)

Rickmansworth was about half an hour away. Once a small country town, "Ricky," as the locals call it, now has some development but it is surrounded by nature reserves and green belt coutnryside. We took a footpath along the little River Chess. And first thing we saw were some weird trees in a woodland. This one is half alive and half dead, but it looked to me as if it had an animal face -

what do you think?

The Chess is a bright, shallow chalk-stream, running through woods and meadows, spread out beyond its banks right now because it's been so wet.

Ambling along we saw these really ugly whiskery horses in a big field. Knock knees and sway backs well in evidence. I looked around for tinkers whose horses they might be. but couldn't spot any. Maybe they were residents of a home for broken-down horses, I thought next. But

then I saw some of them were only foals, and rather sweet they were too....not broken down at all.

So I asked a friend who breeds horses about them when I got back. She said that horses like this used to be dumped by tinkers wanting free grazing. They're now known as "'traditional cobs' and well marked ones are in demand, crossed with carthorse breeds like CLydesdale and Shires and selected for substance, colour and hairiness (look at those fetlocks.)

"Ooh, that's a funny sheep" I thought, before realising that it was WAY too big for a sheep, not to mention the wrong shape. I believe it is an alpaca. If you are an animal expert, let me know, but I've never seen alpacas farmed in the Home Counties before.

And then a little further along we came to

a watercress farm. Watercress used to be a cottage industry in the area but this is the only traditional farm left. It's a pretty remote place, although you can get a car there, and there was nobody about at all. But a ramshackle fridge was standing outside a hut nearby, containing bags of cress for sale plus some cherries from someone's tree. The price was low and I would have taken a photo of it except that at this point I was stung by a wasp (which distracted me somewhat, haha).

It was very hot and I was tempted to just eat the cress from the bag, but didn't. Fresh watercress needs to be thoroughly washed. Look closely at the above pic and you might spot a duck waddling happily around one of the streams which feeds the beds, no doubt crapping in it too. We had the cress (well washed) for supper that evening, though, and it was really, really fabulous. The supermarket can't compare.

We then reached a little dam surrounded by reeds with a few yellow flag irises still peeping out even though their season is nearly over

Go closer and you'll see not only is there a very old statue decorating the weir, but local ducks were spending their time trying to struggle to the top of it. I don't know why, when it was perfectly easy for them to fly. Ducks aren't renowned for their intelligence, or maybe it was some kind of competitive duck thing.

All the rain has brought on the wild flowers very well, and I loved this beautiful spotted foxglove

which was near the Keep Out sign for an imposing mansion. This is Latimer Place, now a hotel, but once known as Latimer House and used for the interrogation of Nazi spies in the war. Slightly ironically, Joachim von Ribbentrop,

who would become Hitler's Foreign Minister, lived in Latimer very near the house. (Before the war obviously - little did he guess - he probably socialised with Lord Chesham who lived there at the time.

The Chess is good for fishing, - you can just see a fisherman below between the clumps of reeds on the opposite bank...

and (below) the same man, going home with his fish in his basket, tramping across the meadow.

We walked a measly eight and a half miles which didn't even achieve the full length of the Chess Valley Walk, I was surprisingly tired, so I had better do some more walking. But it showed what I often think, that the more closely you look at England, the more there is to see.

On the way back to the tube we checked out the Rickmansworth charity shops. I'm seeking oddments of 1960s Midwinter Spanish Garden china (below), to add to a huge box of it that I once bought from an old man at the side of the road. If I hadn't met the old man, I wouldn't have started collecting the china, but that's how it goes.

Rickmansworth charity shops didn't have any "Spanish Garden" but the train home came in TWO minutes. Yay!