One Last Ramble

The Chess Valley Walk rambles alongside the Chess River (hence the name) between Rickmansworth and Chesham to the north. I had done this particliar walk some years ago when Steph was on GAP year at the Rickmansworth Masonic School for gels and I wanted to take Dear Jude along it. Ally went shopping with Steph in the City.

Doing the walk provided a bit of a balance to the trip, finishing as we started, though to a much more modest degree. The Chess is not a huge river (only a few feet across in places), but it is clear and you can see brown trout swimming around in a very much 'trouty' way. Happy as Larry, those trout! Apparently the kingfishers love them for breakfast, lunch and tea! Ducks and swans on top of the river add more than a little ambience and apparently there are voles about. [That is not a mis-spelling. Your vole is the animal upon which 'Ratty' from Wind in the Willows is based. You can picture Ratty, can't you. Similar in cuteness to your bumblebee.] Informative signs along the walk tell about the wildlife and apparently your vole is difficult to sight. The best you can hope for is to hear a 'plop' as they drop into the water. No 'plops' for us today though. It was a 'plop-free' day.

The Ramblers were unable to complete the whole of the walk. This was mostly due to having taken 1.5 hours to get out of London to Rickmansworth. No trains for yonks, and the Docklands (where our apartment is) is quie the other side of the Big City. We walked out of the valley to Chorleywood station (how cute is that name?) and headed back to London and the girls. This is a highly recommended walk if you ever have a day free in London. You can get a map at the Rickmansworth library and I think it is also available online.

Back to London for dinner and a show package. The dinner bit didn't happen because there had been a fire in the restaurant and the show - Wicked - was agreed to be not all that good. Now many readers if thus blog I know will not agree with this assessment, but there did seem to be a sameness about all the sings and none seemed very memorable. The story did not link all that really well with the Wizard of Oz and there seemed to be a lot of screaming going on. The young part of the audience seemed to be getting into it, however and ut was close to a full house on a Monday night. Maybes we are getting OLD ... (though Ally and Steph agreed with us on this assessment). Not a total disaster. We did have a solid stodgy dinner at the pub across the road.

That's it for now. Not long before we head off to Hong Kong!

Ramblers